One dirty, not-so-secret fact has too often been ignored: While the U.S. dropout rate has been declining, the pace of that decline remains glacial in many zip codes. For the year 2013, the U.S. government estimates that 5.1% of whites dropped out of high school, 7.3% of blacks, and 11.7% of Hispanics.* (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_219.70.asp) The government defines drop-outs as “16- to 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and who have not completed a high school program, regardless of when they left school. People who have received GED credentials are counted as high school completers.” These percentages should be viewed as approximations. Standards of error in the chart vary considerably. GEDs don’t work as well as diplomas for future employment purposes. Most importantly, school reporting has historically suffered from over-optimism that could be said to border on fraud. Schools have been known to count students who are moving or dropping out as graduates when those students told administrators that they intended to get their GED later, for example. My district used to do this. For all I know, they still do. The government has tightened reporting requirements, but historical data will always be suspect.

Admittedly, the U.S. drop-out rate has become one area in education to see real progress. The 2013 drop-out rate for all races in the government charts totaled 6.8%, a decline from 9.9% ten years earlier. If increased government scrutiny and regulation has led to any wins, the falling drop-out rate must be counted among them. Despite our disproportionate drop-out rate among Hispanic and African- students, America has whittled down a rate that stood at 14.1% in 1980 to less than half that amount today. Even if these percentages are fuzzy numbers fed by sometimes questionable data, a real decline in the drop-out rate has occurred. More students and parents are acknowledging the long-term importance of a high school diploma.

I’d like to focus on that 11.7% or Hispanics and 7.3% of African-Americans, though. We are marketing the most important product that anyone will ever try to sell these students, yet many still walk away from high school on the first day they are legally allowed to exit the premises. We are doing this in a time when any kid who is not living in a closed bomb shelter understands how tough America’s job market has become. Why are these students leaving school? What are we doing wrong?

At least in some cases, I would like to suggest that students are leaving because of fictions created by educational leaders, starting with the idea that students can leap huge chasms in their background learning levels if only we push hard enough. Last year, I was required to give my bilingual students exactly the same tests and quizzes as the regular classes in their grade. The special education teachers were also required to give the same tests and quizzes. Materials presented were essentially undifferentiated. It didn’t matter if you were a life-time special education student, a new arrival from Honduras, or the kid with the highest state test scores in the grade. You received the same tests and quizzes as everybody else. Then teachers shared data. Failing students were entered in red. My classes were often a sea of red, especially if a quiz or test had many story problems.

When I first learned about this educational experiment, I made a prediction: The kids at the top would benefit, hard-working kids in the middle would sometimes benefit, and the kids at the bottom were about to be clobbered. The data eventually proved me right. Why does this concern me? Aside from the fact that students should never receive test questions they cannot even understand, and aside from the fact that a student should be able to succeed at any fair test or quiz with a reasonable amount of studying, I have become convinced that we are setting up a subset of students for failure.

Research has identified characteristics associated with dropping out (http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/Keeping-kids-in-school-At-a-glance/Keeping-kids-in-school-Preventing-dropouts.html), such as a history of being held back in school, attendance difficulties, lack of family or peer support, becoming a parent, inability to balance employment with school responsibilities , low grades and test scores, and especially failed math and English classes. By middle school, we can do an excellent job of predicting whether a student will stay the academic course: Any one of the following traits suggests students have only a 10 to 20% chance of graduating on time:

• Attending school less than 80 percent of the time
• Receiving an unsatisfactory Behavior grade/demonstrating mild but sustained misbehavior, or
• Course failure (particularly in math or English/reading)

(Edutopia: Middle School’s Role in Dropout Prevention, August 21, 2012 http://www.edutopia.org/blog/dropout-prevention-middle-school-resources-anne-obrien)

Yet despite the fact that failed tests and classes are big predictors for dropping out, we are rapidly reaching the point where our educational “product” consists mostly of standardized test preparation, combined with classes specifically pointed toward a possible university education. We prepare for those tests by taking more tests, sometimes tests that students cannot even read. For the student who never does well on tests, we don’t have much of a product to sell. For the student who has no aspirations to climb onto the college track, we don’t have much to sell. For the student who struggles and often fails the many tests and quizzes in the year’s pipeline — tests and quizzes possibly linked to a curriculum that is neither realistic nor age-appropriate for that individual student – today’s school has become a depressing place, punctuated by frequent failures that mark the year’s best efforts.

After too many such failures, academic efforts may sputter to a sad halt, replaced by “unsatisfactory Behavior grade/demonstrating mild but sustained misbehavior.” Why does a student who started on track in elementary school fall into sustained misbehavior in middle school or even earlier? Hormones are sometimes blithely thrown out as an explanation, but many excellent students undergo identical hormonal changes. In my experience, one of the best predictors of misbehavior is being out of sync academically with peers, especially for students who have fallen behind.

I believe furious attempts to raise standardized test scores ironically create misbehaving, failing students in some cases. As we stuff classrooms with students ranging from a third-grade level to a ninth-grade level academically, and then hand those students common preparatory materials chosen because those materials are expected to provide optimal test preparation, we create a group of lost students who simply are too far behind to succeed with the material they have been given. A student reading at a second grade level and doing math at a third grade level cannot do seventh grade work on any regular basis. Period. That student is unlikely to sit quietly staring at activity sheets that might as well be written in ancient Greek.

The kids at the bottom know they are at the bottom. Even if we can create a safe-learning environment — which should always be a top priority in an academically-diverse class — those kids can see that they have fallen behind most of their peers. Frequently, those students feel embarrassed. To avoid feeling embarrassed, they may act out. The class clown is frequently deflecting attention from the fact that he can’t do his classwork, much less the homework.

In yesterday’s post, I also discussed the problem of inappropriate curricula and materials. I believe we are creating at least some of the difference between our Hispanic, African-American and white drop-out rates. My students all came from homes where English was a second language. They were all behind in reading. If you can’t read the book, you can’t do the work. If you can’t do the work, you may be unable to pass the class. If the only book we give you is the book directly aligned to the standardized test for your grade, you may be, to quote from yesterday’s post, overwhelmed. Demolished. Smashed. Disintegrated. Incinerated. Annhiliated. Obliterated.

Or we could simply say nuked.

When the focus of instruction becomes almost solely the content of the state standardized test expected in the spring, students who are unready to access that content are necessarily left behind, short of valiant tutoring efforts that these students may be unwilling or unable to attend. Even with tutoring, students who are too far behind mandated materials may be unable to catch up. In my experience, after awhile less resilient students give up.

Eduhonesty: Students who enter school with substantial English-language deficits should have longer school days and a set of curricular goals based on their need for English-language acquisition, not on their need to pass the year’s standardized tests. This includes English-speaking students who speak a dialect in the home that does not fit the dialect of tests and students who simply lack vocabulary. Words are the tools these students will require for long-term success. Skipping ahead when students have not acquired the language skills they must have to succeed is nothing short of pedagogical malpractice.

* No offense to those who find the terms black and white to be overly simplistic. Those are the terms used in the government’s charts.

Last year, I was expected to teach this book to a group of bilingual students with limited English skills. In one class, all but one student was testing at a third-grade level mathematically. Overwhelmed does not begin to capture my struggles. Try blasted for a description. Or demolished. Smashed. Disintegrated. Incinerated. Annhiliated. Obliterated. We could simply say nuked.

In these times of canned curricula, when both special education and bilingual classes are sometimes supposed to be on the same learning plan and even using the same materials as other classes — I sincerely hope readers are working in saner districts, but I know from experience that some will not be — you may come up against a challenge like this one. If you do, please remember that impossible remains impossible, no matter what rabbit holes administration seems to have fallen down.

Come spring, your first move should be launching a job search. Prepare questions that will help you determine whether or not a prospective district will allow you to appropriately differentiate instruction. Check the materials you will be expected to use and find out what supplementation is allowed. Don’t complain to prospective employers about the challenges you faced, but make your exit to a better-run district if possible.

In the meantime, you have a school year to finish. I recommend tutoring before and after school if you can make that work. I met with groups on Saturday mornings at McDonalds. However you have to arrange your time, your goal is to avoid nuking your students. If everyone is failing the quizzes and no one can do the homework, find out what your students know and then present them with the next level up. To pacify administration, you can teach more challenging, required material in bits and pieces, one story problem, short story or novel at a time.

Eduhonesty: Students who are trying to succeed absolutely must be given a chance to win. Your best bet will be parallel instruction. You can teach the appropriate and inappropriate material at the same time, grouping to make this work more efficiently.

I am sorry to have to even write this post, but I know some new teachers out there are about to get hit up the side of the head with these inappropriate curricular demands. One clue can be found in homework compliance. If kids can’t do the work, they won’t do the work. If most of the homework is not coming back and the quizzes are coming in with low scores or obvious cheating, you need to try parallel instruction. Do the MAP™ or other scores suggest your eighth-grade student is operating academically at a fourth grade level? Find that student fifth grade work and push hard. You have a lot of catching up to do, but that catching up won’t happen if a student can’t even read his or her assignments, let alone answer any questions.

That fellow Lev Vygotsky from your education classes? No one has ever proved him wrong. Students learn best in their zone of proximal development. In concrete terms, that means when a student finishes fourth-grade math, the next math that student sees should be fifth-grade math. A student reading at a lexile level around 500 can be pushed to read a book at a lexile level in the 600s or 700s, but not a book in the 1200s.

A few kids can make giant leaps, but those kids are exceptions.

Good luck. What I’m suggesting is not easy. As the title of a good book says, “Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire.” You can do it.

(I wrote about not taking student criticism personally somewhere in a previous post, but thought this idea deserved space of its own as part of the recent classroom management for newbies series.)

You spent hours the evening before looking up the details of the Nitrogen cycle. You found a plant to bring in, maybe even created a cut-out cardboard box. Your PowerPoint has exactly the right number of slides. You timed it. Those slides are colorful and well-labelled. Your drawing activity will make great notes.

Christopher is looking with contempt at your admittedly scraggly plant. He pretty much ignored the PowerPoint, talking to Owen some of the time. They have barely started drawing and those drawings aren’t labelled. When he sees you looking at him, he glowers back. He’s been looking surly since the start of class.

“Christopher, you need to get started on your drawing,” you say.
“This is stupid,” he answers. “Nobody cares about this dumb stuff anyway.”

What next? If you are unlucky, Owen will agree with Christopher. Other students may get involved.

Eduhonesty management tips:

1) When a student walks in with an obvious bad attitude, you will be better off going over to his or her desk to try to talk quietly. You want to minimize outside involvement.
2) You can’t let this go now. “Stupid” addressed to you, even if it’s about your PowerPoint, requires an immediate response. But you are on tricky ground. You probably need a real consequence, but maybe not a take-this-referral-to-the-Dean’s-office-right-now consequence.
3) Recognize this problem may have zero to do with your lesson. Yes, you worked hard to create a clear and compelling explanation of what you were teaching, but problems in Christopher’s life may overwhelm your best efforts.
4) If this behavior represents a real change for Christopher, ask him to talk to you in the hallway.* Find out what’s wrong. He may need a referral to the social worker, rather than a consequence.
5) Let the source of the problem determine the consequences.

If you find out Christopher got no sleep the night before because he was gaming all night, you can tell him you are sorry he feels so grumpy but, especially if Christopher has any track record of mouthing off, you should probably write a referral to the Dean or administration. At the very least, Christopher’s earned a classroom consequence. An afterschool detention in which he finishes his drawing would be perfect. You should call home. For one thing, his parents need to know he spent the night gaming. You might also put together a short lesson on the importance of sleep for the next day or two.

But if Christopher’s parents screamed and fought all night so he could not sleep, that’s a wholly different call. You might actually let this one go, telling the class that Christopher had a rough night so you plan to drop the issue. Don’t spell out details of your private hallway conversation. Christopher will most likely share the story with friends later. Kids appreciate being understood and cutting Christopher a break at the right time may ensure that Christopher’s future behavior will be better, not worse, because of that dropped consequence.

Compassion won’t hurt you — if you are careful. You can’t let too many excuses lead to too much compassion. If you do, you will be listening to long, sob stories all year. You will also be teaching students to use excuses to get out of trouble. It’s a short step from making excuses to whining, too. You most emphatically don’t want to teach that.

6) Any situation calling for a compassionate exemption from consequences probably calls for a discussion with the social worker as well. Christopher may need help.

I’ve skewed towards the practical here, but I wanted to provide support for an intangible as well. That lesson you thought was great? You were probably right. When you put twenty-some or thirty-some adolescents into an audience, you will always have days when your best efforts go wrong because of nothing you did and nothing you could have predicted. That’s life. That’s teaching.

Your students know you care when you cut out that little cardboard box with its scraggly plant. Just keep cutting. And planning. And pulling out the colored markers. And stapling student work on the walls. Al fin y al cabo**, teaching has to be one of the most fulfilling jobs in the world, but it’s one fulfilling roller coaster of a ride.

*With luck you will have a window in your classroom door but, if you don’t, you don’t want to step outside and leave students on their own. If you cannot talk to Christopher and watch the class, talk to Christopher after class or get someone to cover for you while you step outside. Students should always be under supervision.
**Al fin y al cabo — in the end