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MeriBear's avatar

I saw this in Newark, NJ when I was an adjunct professor in the summer of 1990. I had been a teaching assistant for three years at Rutgers during my masters program and graduated in the spring of 1990. I taught Freshman English/Writing courses. I had a remedial section in the summer after I graduated. All of the students had graduated high school from Newark public schools. I did not give any grades higher than a C. I told them I could not grade on a curve because when they passed my course they would have to compete with the general student population in English 101 (Introduction to Writing). I told them if I graded on a curve, they would be devastated to see their grades when competing with the other students in English 101 and would not likely pass. I told one student, who improved from about Third Grade level writing to Ninth Grade level writing over the summer that she needed to take the Remedial Course again and keep working on improvement, in order to be able to compete with the rest of her Freshman Class peers. It was really hard to have to do this but I felt it would have been misleading to grade these summer students against themselves then throw them to the wolves with the rest of the Freshman Class in their next section.

I think of this a lot as an attorney who works in public interest law representing parents in juvenile dependency (CPS) cases. We do no service to people when we lower our expectations for them based on external criteria. We must believe in people, share our beliefs that they can accomplish what they set their minds to, and give them the resources to succeed. People rise to meet expectations when people believe in them and inculcate in them the same belief that they have the ability to succeed. We must give them the resources to succeed or our efforts will fail. I remember telling my high school 11th Grade English professor that “My worst was my best for her.” Sadly, she DGAS and just went through the motions of teaching, in my case, the daughter of a university professor, I knew what I could achieve, but like any teenager, I needed to be prodded because most teenagers are lazy and not self motivated.

Imagine if we had teachers, all over the country from Kindergarten on up, that believed in their students and gave them the resources to succeed. Did not accept any outside excuses, like race, family origin or style, neighborhood, ethnicity, and so on. Had IEPs for those with learning and cognitive issues. We need to get rid of institutionalized education. No more teacher unions. Let teachers teach without the heavy hand of politics, metrics, and federal funding.

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Denis Rancourt's avatar

Jeff Schmidt sent me this comment, and I have permission to share it:

"It's great to see that people have commented on the complaint.

The liberal establishment won't talk about this stuff. When they are confronted with the failure of their schools, they say "we have to do better." They are happy to spend more money, much of which is wasted on high salaries and graft, but they refuse to hold anyone accountable for the educational outcome. They may be buying people's silence with the high salaries."

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