Pity Jade Bennett. Ms. Bennett, a newly-minted teacher in East Lansing, Michigan, has a problem: she doesn’t know if half her students are in class or not. Many do not turn on either camera or microphone for her COVID-era remote Psychology class regularly. Half have never done so. Describing her job as “really soul-sucking,” she talks about bribing the recalcitrant with extra credit, to no avail; their computers remain stubbornly blank and mute.
If this were a face-to-face class in a non-COVID year, there might be a resort to empty threats, such as a reminder that “participation is an important element of one’s final grade.” Alas, the threat would have even less traction now than it would in a regular year, which is to say very little to none. Students are not stupid; many of them – and one would imagine, a large percentage of the never-o’clock-scholars in Jade Bennett’s class – know full well that although only 46% of high school seniors in the district rated even “proficient” in math or reading, 93% of them graduated. That, according to “Public School Review” in 2018, B.C. Yes, “Before COVID.” And this district is not unusual.
Why are students not accountable for poor performance? Not many decades ago a student showing less-than-passing grades could expect to see the same room again the following year, or at the very least to have a less-than-pleasant summer bringing grades up to an acceptable level while their better-performing colleagues recreated themselves. Now a large percentage of the underperforming cohort are simply passed along until they can be foisted upon employers in desperate need of those who can read, write, count and reliably show up on time to do so. Their underperformance then becomes an S.E.P. – someone else’s problem.
More interesting is why all parents do not demand higher educational standards and their enforcement, replacing administrators and politicians who stand in the way. Is it because they, too, understand that in our enlightened no-fault society failure can always be laid off on others, and loss of employment means mere inconvenience rather than an existential challenge?
In many ways we ourselves are the problem. Many parents have absorbed the modern ethos which holds as a central tenet that how one feels about one’s self is of greater importance than competence at any task – which has its own ego-boosting qualities but also involves the deadly tedium of hard work, concentration, objective measurement, correction and incremental improvement. There are those who, at the merest whiff of a suggestion that Johnny or Jane is not the apotheosis of scholarly achievement, will seek out the nearest school administrator for a lengthy howl about the injustice of it all. Which is tricky to deal with because in some districts the curriculum is so thoroughly “woke” that even a well-rounded sixth-grader knows some of the stuff being spouted is a reeking pile of compost; nonperformance could be a measurement of being well-informed rather than lazy or dull.
Whatever the situation, said Administrator will more than likely take the least risky path: attendance or absence, achievement or failure, mastery or not, Jane or Johnny will advance to the next level in the coming year. Everyone involved – parents, administrators, teachers and students – especially students – knows this. A more certain method for short-circuiting a child’s ability and willingness to master vital but challenging subjects could hardly be imagined.
So Ms. Jade Bennett is frustrated; her students know they are cheated and feel frustrated as well. Parents notice a lack of mastery in areas that are essential to success and worry for the future of their children. Business leaders view the new crops of potential employees with some trepidation, knowing they will have to invest time and money into creating what our public schools promised but failed to provide in exchange for substantial public funding. When these frustrations meld and grow, that funding will be called into question in a serious way; until then the current dysfunctional situation will continue unaddressed and will probably worsen. A major element of the Democrat party, led by the current Executive branch, wants to add two more years of this charade, also at public expense. How they expect a better result from more of the same is unclear.
Perhaps first they ought to develop a simple and cost-free system to ensure that in future, most of the cameras and microphones in Ms. Bennett’s class are on.
Don’t bet they will…
