ED Corner
Tonya V. Wingfield
PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE
What do you want to do when you grow up? That is one question that practically every adult will ask of a student. Regardless of whether the response is to attend college, a trade school or enter the workforce, one thing holds true: a good education is the foundation for any of these choices.
Every year school systems across the country spend millions to billions of dollars on education. Yet despite all this money spent the number of underperforming students promoted to a higher grade or awarded a high diploma continues to increase. Something is terribly wrong when students spend fourteen years in an institution of learning and graduate with less than a 9th grade education. In the world of economics that would be called a “bad investment.”
It has been proven that a good education is the passport to a successful future, but it is difficult for students to believe this to be true when the yearly instructional focus is on the state assessments in math and reading. Education should offer coursework that allows students to obtain information that empowers them to make sound educational, economical and social decisions. Additionally, it gives them a better understanding and respect for their community, government and judicial system. Students are realizing that the instructional program being offered to them is not preparing them for a successful post-secondaryl education or the workforce. As a result, they take the attitude “if they don’t care, why should I?” Then we stand back and look at them in judgment and wonder how can they care so little about their future.
If we want to see a change in the attitude of students about their education then our attitudes must first change. We can no longer sit by and allow politicians to use the mis-education of our children as their platform for winning office. We can longer sit back and be content with the inflated grades that misrepresent a student’s true performance or “lack there of.” We cannot continue to sit back and turn a blind eye to that fact that our students are being taught on a level lower then they are tested on state assessments. We cannot continue to sit back and allow our school system to use a reading program that does not incorporate language arts, but is simple based on see-and-say word recognition. We can no longer allow this school system to offer bogus courses such as Algebraic Concepts to reduce the number of students that must take the HSA math assessments. We can no longer allow our school system to dump students with learning disabilities in a comprehensive class and call it “mainstreaming” instead of identifying that student’s “least restrictive environment” when deciding placement. We can no longer accept the thought that students can successful complete a course (Algebra, Biology, English, Government), but fail the associated state assessment of the same coursework.
After opposing the things that are ruining our system, we must come together and support an instructional program that focuses on the core learning areas as outlined in Maryland law: reading, math, science, social studies, the arts and physical education. Additionally, we must invoke our rights under the federal law that mandates that the approved curriculum used in the classroom must teach at a level to adequately prepare our students to meet state testing standards. In the case of Maryland that would be alignment with the Maryland Content Standard at the highest proficiency level. The Maryland Content Standards defines what a student should have learned at the end of a particular grade.
It’s time for all stakeholders to put aside all personal agendas and murmuring about the past and work together to ensure that all Prince George’s County students are properly prepared to prevent a poor performance.