My Kids Are Going To Be So Screwed Up

And not just because of me! (Since I will def­i­nitely be pulling the same shit on them Cau Minh used to pull on me. But that’s another story for another post…)

The Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion has just announced that they are rolling out an incen­tive pro­gram for teach­ers in “at-​risk schools.” The pro­gram is award­ing about forty-​two mil­lion dol­lars this month (I’m assum­ing that the pay­out is annual and just hap­pens to be this month, not a monthly $42M), and the aver­age award to a sin­gle teacher is $5,000.

$5,000 is a lot of money. Espe­cially when the aver­age teacher salary in Amer­ica is about $50,000. (And that is count­ing teach­ers with tenure, who are get­ting paid a lot more than ones who are just start­ing out.) A 10% bonus is noth­ing to scoff at.

Of course, offi­cials are say­ing that there are “a huge amount” of safe­guards in place, just as sta­tis­ti­cal analy­ses that are sup­posed to spot test­ing irreg­u­lar­i­ties. Because that’s worked in the past. (Let me give you a hint before you click that link: It didn’t work in the past.)

Worst-​case sce­nario… teach­ers actively help the stu­dents cheat on stan­dard­ized tests to win mon­e­tary awards for the school and for them­selves. Best-​case sce­nario… teach­ers teach only what stu­dents need to know to pass the test, not what they need to truly under­stand the sub­ject matter.

Do I sound jaded? Maybe I took too many AP tests in high school. Any­one who’s taken one knows what I’m talk­ing about. When I got to col­lege, I was so screwed, because the AP tests did not pre­pare me for col­lege courses at all. And that’s with 5’s on every test I took.

I guess I’m going to take a detour with my rant for a sec­ond to hit stan­dard­ized test­ing. It’s all a load of bull­shit. It makes teach­ers of “core” classes arti­fi­cially focus their courses. It makes penny-​pinching admin­is­tra­tors cut back on classes that aren’t tested, such as art and music. It’s just another hoop that stu­dents have to jump through to get ahead in life. Except they’re not really get­ting ahead. They’re just mov­ing on from the bull­shit they’re cur­rently in.

For God’s sake, look at me! I’m a SIXTH year col­lege stu­dent who got 1600 on my SATs and aced every AP test I’ve ever taken. I’m liv­ing proof that the tests don’t mean a damn thing!

Hon­estly, the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem is a joke. Look at how we com­pare to other coun­tries! Dead last inter­na­tion­ally in physics! Third from last over­all in math and sci­ence! The two biggest prob­lems I see are an inap­pro­pri­ate focus on per­for­mance on stan­dard­ized test­ing and tenure for teach­ers. Both have to be elim­i­nated for chil­dren to do well.

When I have kids, I will def­i­nitely think long and hard about home-​schooling. The only rea­son I don’t want to is because I know I’m already a prod­uct of the bro­ken sys­tem, and I’m not sure if second-​hand results will be any better.

Tags: America, Education, Music, Work