Public education should prepare children for college, for employment and for adulthood. This noble intent is an adult responsibility, and we have failed.
According to the latest Scholastic Aptitude Test results, less than half of the high school juniors, both Lewiston’s and Auburn’s, are proficient in math or reading; less than a third are proficient in writing; the remainder are functionally illiterate and innumerate.
Since those students entered school as children and were children for most of their school experience, it would be wrong to blame them for the failure of public education. We could apportion some blame to their adult teachers, some to the adults who select and are responsible for teachers, some to the teacher’s union, which zealously protects and perpetuates ineffective teachers, and some to state legislators, who, corrupted by a powerful lobby, selfishly pass legislation favorable to teachers and their union and unfavorable to students.
School committees are entitled to a share of blame, as well. During contract negotiations, instead of helping students, they consistently vote to financially benefit teachers and improve their working conditions.
The teachers, and their schools, deliberately deceive students, parents and the public. While pretending to teach or, more accurately, incompletely teach, they pass and promote students from grade to grade — those who learned and those who didn’t — pretending that all their students are prepared for the next grade when, oftentimes, they are not.
Perhaps worse, when confronted, educators claim a noble purpose. A favored mantra is: “It was in the best interest of the child.”
This deception, noble or ignoble, continues undetected until (and only because Maine requires it) students are tasked with a standardized test such as the SAT. Then the failure of schools and teachers, and any fractional success is revealed.
Admittedly, there are effective teachers in the community who love their students and work hard for their benefit. But even good teachers go along with the crowd, deceptively grading and promoting failing students.
Local public education can be encapsulated as follows: Simply, but cruelly stated, we know statistically that when the school districts undertake to educate an ordinary child, we are like gamblers, who have less than a coin’s toss chance of succeeding.
What does failing the SAT mean? If we were to observe high school juniors and seniors socializing in a school cafeteria line, we would know, regretfully, that statistically, out of every group of four, two or more are unable to read at a level necessary for college or sufficient for some employment.
Will these students later be able to support families?
Will they be able to avoid unemployment lines?
What needs to be changed?
Teachers need one-on-one time with struggling students. They need time to collaborate and learn from other teachers. They need a longer work day — one judiciously expended.
Presently, Lewiston teachers work a maximum of 35 hours a week, reduced by daily duty-free lunch periods. Incredibly, teachers may leave the school building without requesting permission during their scheduled duty-free periods.
How can the School Committee justify an hour off for a teacher to pick up dry cleaning, or for other personal errands, when more than half of the students lack academic proficiency and desperately need a teacher’s attention?
The Lewiston School Committee, presently negotiating the teachers’ contract, should do so to favor students, not rush to please teachers and their union.
Teachers need to be honest in their grading, they need to retain students who haven’t learned and administrators and principals should support them. When a school’s students receive passing grades and grade promotion, but are revealed to be failing by a standardized test, the school’s principal should be replaced and the school’s teachers counseled. That, admittedly, is severe; but, for their students, so is unemployment, poverty and a loss of hope.
The public must get involved and complain. If it doesn’t, educators, legislators and, especially, the school committees will mistakenly believe the public is satisfied.
As adults of this community, each of us, in our separate ways, are aware of school failure.
Unfortunately, like the Russian farmer who, in the severity of winter, had to bring the family’s cow inside his home, we, after continually experiencing education’s failure, as unpleasant as it is, have become accustomed and accepting of it.
Richard Sabine is a resident of Lewiston.
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