The Death of Education: The Failure of our Public Schools to Teach

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Both boys and girls equally were found to have hatred towards certain subjects Many students show signs of poor attention and hyperactivity, talkative and disruptive in classroom Psychological factors that may contribute to school failure are presented in Table 3. The highest psychological problem reported among school children was fear from the exam which was This was followed by anxiety Anger and fear characteristics constituted The boys were more likely to display signs of learning disability Other characteristics among school failures included low self-esteem A significant number of boys reported behavioral problems Health status of our study population is presented in Table 4.

Visual disorders were the highest problem found among Asthma was the most common disease with School failure can lead to serious consequences if undetected and left untreated. The failing student loses self-confidence, becomes discouraged and decreases effort to study further.

In this study, the factors contributing to school failure among school children of elementary, primary and secondary schools were evaluated. In the study population, the majority had more than one contributing factor to their failure. Emotional disturbance as a cause of school failure is increasing as was described in many cases presented as anxiety and exam fear. Depression among school age students is not easily detected by the school personnel, it can present itself with low self esteem, and or behavioral problems.

It is encouraged that teachers are aware of the symptoms for early detection and referral to the primary care Pediatrician. Chronic illness may lead to school failure by increasing school absence during exacerbations. The duration of TV viewing, playing video games and time spent on the internet is inversely associated with school performance, in this study, almost Recently, arguments against grade retention have evolved due to all the negative effects that out weigh the academic benefits.

In the state of Qatar,a new evolving school system called the " Independent schools" has began to emerge. They are designed to help students with some difficulties pass their grades with no retention by tailoring the program down to the individual needs, providing special tutoring for certain subjects and above all early consultation and intervention from the medical team keeping in mind not to miss ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , Depression, LD Learning disability among other health related factors. By , all the schools in Qatar will follow the new systems "Independent schools".

The results presented will help policy makers to divert specific intervention for the target groups. Further study is warranted that could contrast present study findings among school failures with students who display excellent and good results at school. This will help in determining risk factors and definite causes of school failure in the population of Qatar. Nevertheless this study is an initial step towards that objective. This study has successfully highlighted the prevalence of multi-factorial contributors such as social, school, psychological, environmental and health related factors for school failure.

Both psychological and health related factors were found to be more prevalent. The role of the primary care pediatrician, in helping failing students and their families, cannot be overemphasized; early detection of students at risk of failure and intervention is the main goal. The authors reported no conflict of interest and no funding has been received on this work.

National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Oman Med J v. Abdulbari Bener 2 Dept. Find articles by Abdulbari Bener. Received May 19; Accepted Jun This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Methods All students who had failed their grades and had to be retained and repeat the year from 35 randomly selected schools of all grades elementary, intermediate and high school were included in this study for academic years from to Results The study was performed on a total children who were classified as school failures.

Conclusion Psychological and health related factors were found to be more prevalent in students who failed a grade in school. Introduction Recently, high rates of school failure have been followed by grade repetition which has become a distinctive characteristic of many primary school systems even in the developing countries. Methods This is a prospective cross-sectional study that was conducted at 35 randomly selected government schools across Qatar.

Results In this study a total of students who had failed an academic year were identified. Open in a separate window. Discussion School failure can lead to serious consequences if undetected and left untreated. Conclusion This study has successfully highlighted the prevalence of multi-factorial contributors such as social, school, psychological, environmental and health related factors for school failure.

Acknowledgements The authors reported no conflict of interest and no funding has been received on this work.

Grade repetition in Honduran primary schools. Int J Educ Dev ; J Sch Health Karande S, Kulkarni M. Indian J Pediatr Taras H, Potts-Datema W. Chronic health conditions and student performance at school. Social Origins and School Failure: Pac Sociol Rev ; Increased drug use among old-for-grade adolescents. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med School problems and the family physician. American Academy of Family Physicians. During the past 15 years, 2, charter schools have either failed or been closed —impacting , children.

In , there were about 6, operating charter schools so the number of failures represents a large amount of disruption when compared to the total number. Richard Whitmire, a strong supporter of charter schools, estimates that about 1, of the existing 6, charter schools, or less than one-fifth, are high performers.

Bill Honig– positive support of public schools

For the health of the reform movement, Whitmire recommends that about 1, failed charters be shut down immediately. For facts and figures on the charter school movement in the United States documented by a pro-charter group, see The State of the Charter School Movement. Many of the overhyped charter success stories turn out to be based on charter schools that enroll fewer English-language learners ELLs and fewer students with disabilities or learning differences than public schools.

For example, in Arizona , the successful schools touted by reformers actually enroll much richer and easier-to-educate children. This, of course, makes any comparison invalid. More telling are the many documented examples of charters that push low-performing students out and then do not backfill the openings when they leave. Their public school cousins must take all comers. Many charters claim they have the same attrition rates as public schools, but annual attrition rates are not the right metric. The schools in these faux success stories start with, say, students and then, owing mainly to academic pressure, a few grades later only have At this point the schools claim high scores and elevated graduation rates or college attendance for the refined, smaller group.

An opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal exposed this practice explaining that charters do it to keep test scores arbitrarily high. As is the case with test-driven teacher evaluation schemes, more opinion leaders and politicians are speaking out against these questionable practices. Even charter school advocates, such as Dimitri Mehlhorn , propose requiring charter schools to backfill. Thus, some charter advocates argue that since charters function as ostensible public schools they should be required to backfill; others argue that schools such as science magnet schools should be allowed to be selective.

But, in any case, there should be no false advertising about educational outcomes. Charters that do not backfill should not be allowed to proclaim their effectiveness in raising test scores. Since many charters at present do no better than public schools, the results would not be impressive.

As an example, magnet schools in Los Angeles, which also benefit from parental choice and involvement and draw from the entire district, significantly outperform charter schools —even after gifted magnets are removed. Many students subjected to this harsh, boot camp regime flounder as they move on to other educational settings. Because KIPP test prepped the kids to death and the kids never built their character or learned to manage their own freedom. KIPP and many charters standardize and try to control everything from how kids walk through the halls to how they ask to go to the bathroom.

But teaching and learning is organic; it is human. When are we going to ask ourselves why must poor communities of color be treated like this, whereas middle class and upper class parents would NEVER go for this treatment! This is a commendable record. Whether these statistics hold after the large scale-up of KIPP schools remains to be seen. Jacqueline Ancess is a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, whose research focuses on urban school reform, performance assessment, small schools, and accountability. Success Academy Charters are regularly referred to as successful, yet their 8th grade graduation rate was 44 percent!

What is successful about a 44 percent graduation rate?

What is successful about that? These test scores are Pyrrhic victories. Recently, Success Academy has been the subject of media attention for its abusive teaching practices. The sickening incident was captured in a short video posted online with the article. Stories about the incident generated calls for Success Academy schools to be shut down.

Eva Moscowitz, the outspoken leader of Success Academy and shamefully many of her supporters , attempted to dismiss the occurrence as a one-time lapse by the teacher. Yet even stalwart advocates of conventional school reform disagreed with this defense and pointed out that the practice was encouraged by Success Academy schools.

He found it extremely degrading to students. Part 1 and Part 2. As a further example, see the comments posted by Emily Kaplan on the Curmudgucation blog. Kaplan was a teacher in a highly touted charter school in Boston. After describing the dehumanizing and test-prep orientation of instruction, Emily Kaplan asserts:.

And, indeed, this data is compelling. Its very existence teaches a powerful lesson that this country needs to hear: The problem is that standardized test scores mean very little. On the only tests that do mean a tremendous amount for these students—the SSATs—students at the school I taught at perform abysmally. Beyond the Viral Video: In it, she discusses the pros and cons and underlying philosophy of the no-excuse movement.

This led to intolerance for even the most minor infractions. Green also delineates three major arguments against the approach—the establishment of order at the expense of deeper learning, the psychological harm done to students even if they test well, and the problem of strict discipline as a form of racist control. Those favoring no-excuse approaches counter that it is antiracist to insist on strict behavior if that is what it takes to provide low-income and minority children a good education, that negative consequences for breaking even minor behavioral norms actually help students, and that the best no-excuse charter schools are adapting to embed strict discipline in an overall warm, supportive atmosphere.

The behavior first, learning second formula prescribed by broken-windows theory—and for that matter, by most American schools—can successfully build compliant, attentive students, at least in the short term. But it cannot produce students who think creatively, reason independently, and analyze critically. She also believes it is possible for no-excuse charters to change for the better. Responding to the problematic nature of the approach, many charter schools are rethinking their commitment. These schools are attempting to embed strict discipline in a loving and supportive atmosphere and avoid privileging control over deeper learning—discipline yes, abuse no.

The theory behind the no-excuse philosophy is also forcefully challenged by Paul Tough in his book, Helping Students Succeed: Finally, Sarah Garland reports on a charter school network in North Philadelphia, Mastery Charter Schools, which is abandoning the no-excuse approach. Gordon worried that Mastery was in danger of confirming what many critics often charge about charter schools: That while many of them may do a good job of preparing kids to do well on standardized tests and get into college, their students founder once they arrive on campus.

That the mostly white leaders of urban charter networks are, at best, out of touch with the mostly black and Hispanic communities they serve, or, at worst, guilty of a paternalistic racism that undermines their mission of uplift. My own experience teaching in inner-city schools supports the idea that classroom control is important but should never become abusive, a barrier to deep learning, or an excuse for a non-nurturing classroom.

Undoubtedly, there are parents and teachers who are satisfied with their charter school, but we must examine the outlandish marketing and political claims that continue to describe charters as the best way to improve public education. Originally, charters were seen as a positive alternative to public schools. They enabled energetic and like-minded teachers, parents, and educators to organize around common goals and run their own school. These schools would draw students from a broad geographic area thereby combating some of the ills of housing segregation.

This was in keeping with the very successful magnet schools that operated in most urban school districts and offered parents more choices. The original idea was for charter schools to cooperate with the best non-charter public schools in order to become high-performing models for others to emulate. This had broad support. Regrettably, a more negative philosophy began to take hold and drive the charter school movement—the belief that most public schools cannot perform and should be replaced by charters or even for-profit franchisers.

This negative view has its foundation in an ideology that is hostile to government institutions. Charter school advocates view those institutions, including public schools, as inherently unproductive and resistant to change. They believe that only private-like entities such as charter schools, freed from bureaucratic constraints and responding to market forces, will produce high performance.

The theory was so seductive that large numbers of academics, opinion leaders, wealthy businesspeople, foundations, and politicians became its passionate defenders. These folks believe that untouched by market forces, public institutions become paralyzed—captured by interest groups, unions, and bureaucrats who are all resistant to improvement. Thus, low-performing public schools had to be replaced by private, market-driven entities under the guise of choice and competition. In their view, only charters had the autonomy and freedom from regulations to become world-class schools. A half century ago, Milton Friedman advocated public choice in education.

His ideas were subsequently popularized by Terry Moe and John Chubb. Their work has become the intellectual argument for charter school expansion embraced by a small group of extremely wealthy businesspeople and accepted as fact by Republicans and Democrats alike. As a result, in many states Republican and Democratic governors are starving or closing public schools and increasing funds for charters.

Many charter proponents want to go further. They want to close all or a significant number of public schools and replace them with charters. This would be accomplished either through direct closure or indirectly by diverting substantial funds from public to charter schools. Across the country, some mayors of large cities have aggressively pushed for charter school expansion.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 53 schools in Chicago—mostly in low-income minority neighborhoods. Emanuel was following the strategy of New York mayor Bloomberg and superintendent Klein who supported charter expansion while closing non-charter public schools. Many of these actions were promoted by billionaire hedge fund managers, business acolytes, and the charter school industry, which wielded enormous influence through political donations and PR campaigns.

The current mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, is under incessant attack by these same groups for daring to attempt to use scarce funds to improve the regular public schools. They want him to use the funds to support charter expansion. In the broader context, the same ideas brought us financial deregulation and the resulting financial meltdown, brutal private prisons, and widespread corporate pollution.

It also ignores examples of stellar public performance. Consider the remarkable contributions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, local fire departments, or DARPA, the defense department think tank that has one of the most incredible records of innovation in human history. DARPA developed the Internet, nanotechnology, cloud computing, the research behind Siri, digital libraries, and autonomous vehicles. The Entrepreneurial State by Marianna Mazzucato extols the value of government entrepreneurship. The Lubienskis reviewed vast student databases and found, to their own surprise, that public schools outperformed private schools and charters when comparable students were matched.

Of course, this was contrary to received opinion and what was predicted by public choice theory. These findings are consistent with the research I have cited above. The Lubienskis offered several reasons why this was so. Certain societal enterprise is of a public nature and better performed by a public institution that is staffed by dedicated professionals committed to broader social purposes, and subject to democratic control.

Many charter schools overspent on marketing and high-priced CEOs, and the idea that public schools could not innovate without competitive external pressure turned out to be false. Andy Rotherham, a major supporter of reform initiatives, wrote an article arguing that market forces often cause detrimental choices.

Diane Ravitch summarized findings from extensive research that show private firms taking over public functions often cause harm by putting profits above service. Moreover, widespread charter expansion often results in considerable resegregation. Finally, one of the main justifications for charters has been that they are responding to market forces and parental choices.

This turns out to be largely fallacious. It is not free market forces that are in effect, but government policies that favor privately managed charters over publicly run schools by closing neighborhood schools and replacing them with a charter. It is not even true that charters relieved of government regulation will be more efficient and spend less on administration. According to a summary of the research by Gary Miron, one the leading scholars on charter schools, they spend more. Nor do charters give more bang for the buck.

A study in New Mexico found that the state spends more on charters without the charters outperforming their public school counterparts. Further, what choice do parents really have if their local school is closed or neglected? Even if they are satisfied with their local school or would prefer its revitalization rather than applying to a charter, the only real choice parents are given is the uncertain chance to enroll their child in a charter school.

Despite the fact that most for-profit charters perform abysmally, for-profit charter operators who made substantial political contributions have enjoyed political support in many states. One example is Ohio, where for many years charter owners successfully lobbied the legislature and Governor Kasich against any effective financial transparency and performance accountability. As a result , a shocking amount of fraud, mismanagement, and self-dealing has taken place. In late , a reasonable accountability measure supported by the governor was finally passed, but closure of the large numbers of existing low-performing charters still remained problematic.

So much for rewarding schools for high performance. According to one report: One person who has paid close attention to the spread of charter schools in Florida is Sue Legg. As a public school teacher, college professor and an administrator of state school assessment contracts at the University of Florida for over 30 years, Legg has had a ringside seat to the Florida charter school circus.

In a series of reports produced for the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters, Legg revealed the many ways charter schools in Florida spread political corruption and financial opportunism while doing little to improve the academic performance of their students. Her year-long study , conducted in 28 Florida counties, found a 20 percent closure rate for charters due to financial problems or poor academic performance—a closure rate that has now increased to over 40 percent. The charter schools studied generally did not perform better than public schools, and tended to be more racially segregated.

A significant number of these charters operated for-profit and operated in church related facilities. The lost capital came from public education funds. John Romano wrote a devastating article in the Tampa Bay Times about the double-dealing in the legislature related to many Florida charter schools. The Chicago Sun-Times reported similar results for charter schools in Illinois.

Finally, The Salt Lake Tribune castigated charter school fraud and low performance by some well-connected charter operators. Another ploy used by a growing number of charter schools and franchises is to acquire multiple sponsors to avoid any real accountability or to hop to another authorizer to avoid closure or strong accountability. He was commissioner of education in Tennessee from to To his credit , Huffman tried to close the worst school in the state—a virtual school operated by K—12, Inc.

Through political donations and extensive lobbying, K—12, Inc. Sadly, most virtual schools, including K—12, Inc. In , the Center for Media and Democracy issued a report castigating the federal government for a lack of oversight and financial accountability. The report claimed that millions of dollars in expenditures went to ghost schools that never opened.

Finally, at the local level, although charters claim they are public institutions, many resist transparency and complaint procedures leaving disgruntled parents with nowhere to go to register problems. Many charter advocates have understood that fraud, low performance, and lack of effective accountability could kill the charter school movement and have supported corrective action. Some states, such as California, have enacted a much more rigorous charter accountability system.

In addition, under the leadership of Jed Wallace the California Charter School Association has been advocating for stricter accountability for low-performing charters and for questionable financial practices. It has also sponsored legislation to restrict for-profit charters in the state. However, the California Charter School Association and other charter advocates have been extremely aggressive in promoting charter expansion, limiting the ability of local boards of education to deny charter formations when deemed harmful, and supporting pro-charter legislators and board members.

Many charters, even if performing adequately, drain substantial resources from neighborhood public schools or serve as a vehicle for massive privatization schemes. The end result has been a two-tiered and more racially segregated educational system. In these districts, performance gaps between low-income and minority students and their more privileged peers increased sharply.

Objectives

Charters drain funds from public school districts in several important ways. First, at the state and national levels funds for public schools have been reduced while funds for charters have been increased. Second, charters and their more pernicious cousin, vouchers, attract many students who were previously attending private schools paid for by their parents. Public school budgets must then be charged for these additional students.

Third, local districts can reach a tipping point if too many charters are created in their boundaries since districts have fixed costs and at some point must make drastic cuts in services to adjust. This is precisely what happened in Detroit. Schools are akin to a public utility, and it has long been recognized that it is extremely inefficient to create competing organizations to deliver services such as electricity or public transportation. Finally, there are numerous examples of highly successful public schools jeopardized or forced to close by the unnecessary creation or co-location of a charter.

For example, a stellar school in North Carolina was closed for lack of financial support after a charter was created to compete with it. In Massachusetts , a local board succumbed to pressure and created a charter high school to compete with Brockton High School, one of the most successful turnaround high schools in the country. The recently elected Republican governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, has proposed a hefty expansion of charter schools that will require diverting funds from public schools.

His proposals created a severe backlash in Boston. The taxpayers also pay for high-priced fees and the interest on these bonds. The accumulated debt owed by public funds is substantial. According to Bruce Baker: Charter school operators use public tax dollars to buy land and facilities that were originally purchased with other public dollars … and at the end of it all, the assets are in private hands! Even more ludicrous is that the second purchase incurred numerous fees and administrative expenses, and the debt associated with that second purchase likely came with a relatively high interest rate because—well—revenue bonds paid for by charter school lease payments are risky.

The problem with technology in schools

Or so the rating agencies say. Understanding the Policies That Charter Operators Use for Financial Benefit, the authors chronicle the multiple ways charter organizations siphon taxpayer funds without any benefit to students or the public. A summary of the report lists four major conclusions:.

As Jeff Bryant, one reviewer of the report, commented:. In one of the more bizarre schemes the authors examine, charter operators will use third-party corporations to purchase buildings and land from the public school district itself, so taxpayer dollars are used to purchase property from the public. Thus, the public ends up paying twice for the school, and the property becomes an asset of a private corporation.

In other examples, charter operators will set up leasing agreements and lucrative management fees between multiple entities that end up extracting resources, which might otherwise be dedicated to direct services for children. Another example of questionable practice is the phony formula Texas uses to reimburse charters. An article by John Savage in the Texas Observer states: The horrible record of for-profit virtual schools shows what happens when we allow profit making to drive an educational institution. These schools ignored quality to increase the bottom line and were an educational disaster for the students they pledged to serve.

For this reason, some states and nations allow only nonprofit charters. If this became standard practice, many questionable financial and political dealings would be avoided. Unfortunately, the number of for-profit management charter organizations and fronts for business interests is growing , with an increasing impact in some states. Clearly, charters are no longer grassroots, mom-and-pop organizations. Ominously, the for-profit charter school sector has run into major problems, and failures are occurring across the nation.

In any case, given the large amount of fraud and their lack of success, charters should be required to share the facts about their operation. The question of charter expansion becomes critical when a neighborhood school is slated for closure to be replaced by a charter. The trade-off should be framed as follows: Thus, the one-in-four chance of an improved school must be weighed against the massive dislocations local school closures cause families, students e.

In addition, the very real chance of worsening school performance one-quarter of the time must be factored in. One underreported consequence of charter expansion is that the remaining schools must rely increasingly on late placements and substitutes, which substantially harms student performance. So even if some students are able to attend a successful charter school, many more are stranded in the remaining starved public ones.

Charters Do Not Perform Better Than Their Public School Counterparts

The experience in Newark exemplifies this tragedy:. What parent would agree to a policy that benefits one of her children but seriously damages one or two of her other kids? The Prize [a recently published book about Newark] does an invaluable service in helping to explain how true believers in top-down reform may or may not have benefitted many of the 30 percent of students headed for charters. They did so, however, by harming the schools serving the majority of poor children. They created even more intense concentrations of children from extreme poverty and trauma; they took failing schools and made them worse.

Stated that way, the widely advocated policy prescription of replacing low-performing schools with charters looks horribly off the mark. Of course, if there are stringent controls to assure that only the better performing charters determined by legitimate measures and practices can replace a low-performing public school, then the odds of increased student achievement improve.

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