The First Last

Yesterday was the first day of my last semester, a good day because the students have come to class expectant, fresh with the feeling of starting over.

Sitting in the seats are 3 students I've had before who failed and are now repeating the semester. Two of the three are seniors; well, that's a misnomer because in my book, a student who has not passed the core classes cannot be classified to a higher grade. One of the seniors is taking 3 English classes concurrently, his chances for graduation a dim hope, at best.

This is the last time I'll teach Julius Caesar, a great play with messages appropriate to today's society. On a whim, I conducted a short reading level test to see which of the 3 available versions of the play may have a chance of success. Reading scores range from 2.2 (yes, that's second grade/second month) to 12.4 (grade 12, 4th month), so there is no appropriate text when it comes to reading, period, much less Shakespeare. Sure, we'll watch the film because maybe, just maybe, some of them will get something from seeing the play acted by professional actors, even when they cannot understand much of what is being said between the players on the screen.

The problem with No Child Left Behind is that its provisions became mandate in 2001, when these students were in middle school--too late to undo the failure to educate during the elementary school years.

The problem is that No Child Left Behind mandates all students reading at grade level by the 2013-2014 school year--after these children have "graduated."

Between these extremes is the vast wasteland, often captured by talking about students who "fall through the gap," a gap that is the size of the Grand Canyon!

In the meanwhile, all the wonderful programs that were in place prior to NCLB implementation have vanished. Students who used to have levels of core classes to address their strengths and weaknesses now are lumped together in what are euphemistically titled "college prep" classes, including reading levels from grade 2.2 through grade 12. The kids at the upper end seem to be doing well, while the students whose reading level never made it out of elementary school are failing, and failing, and failing.

There are no remediation programs; on the contrary, at our site there are targeted programs to teach the skills necessary to pass the exit exam, a test aimed at 8th grade proficiency. With enough repetition, even a well-trained chimpanzee could probably earn a passing score! But there are only 2 levels of English: college prep and honors/advanced, which has turned "cp" into a grade-level, slow-paced class not at all appropriate for training students to compete at the college level, and a watered-down version of an honors' program for which I had to offer extra credit to get the grade curve high enough to have a few A's.

We'll struggle through Julius Caesar and most students will get something from the effort. None of them will probably apply the knowledge of the play to their lives, but many of them will remember enough bits and pieces of the learning process to have benefited from the exposure.

And another class of poorly-performing students will graduate from high school ill-equipped to perform the most basic functions demanded by society in the business world, much less go on to college and meet the expectations of that educational environment. There is no stopping the train because decisions are political, not educational, and my career train is coming into the station after a decades-long ride. There is someone coming behind me to take up where I leave off, someone who will do the job that the administration wants once all the "old timers" are sitting in the rockers on the front porches of the retirement homes.

Change isn't good or bad, it just is, from one first last to the last last in June.