Calling a Cab for Oregon Students

Abstract

students in Ms. Thomas' classes are struggling with poverty, learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, transience, and home languages other than English. Ms. Thomas is struggling to understand how they are going to meet the same standards as students who don't face such difficulties. PRESIDENT Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, signed in January 2002, is the latest easy solution to education's woes. According to NCLB, all groups of students will be tested and will be required to meet the same standard. means that schools must raise the achievement of the nation's historically lowest-achieving groups: students in special education programs, those from impoverished homes, minority students, and English-language learners. Susan Castillo, superintendent of Oregon's Department of Education, objected to NCLB, saying that the new requirements were unreasonable. In the end, the federal government rejected Castillo's plan to implement different standards for different student groups, and Oregon has had to fall in line. As a classroom I find that NCLB's requirements sound like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Last year the students in my remedial classes at Reynolds High School were years behind their peers. And as Oregon schools watched their funding evaporate, leading to fewer days in the school year and cuts in staff and programs, the chances that my students would be snatched aboard the education train before it pulled any further out of the station were slim. I don't disagree with NCLB in theory: because every child is important, no child will be overlooked, and every child will meet the same standard. I would love to teach in this school and live in this world. But in reality the problems schools face are huge, and easy words on paper will not make them go away. NCLB requires teachers to be trained in their subject areas. Reynolds High School is perched at the windy mouth of the Columbia River Gorge. I've taught there for eight years, mostly English -- and My bachelor's degree is in English. My master's is in teaching English. I'm pursuing a second master's, in writing. I'm clearly a qualified English teacher. But is another story. I took algebra and geometry in high school, and in college I earned three credits through a correspondence course. That's it. In 1997, as a new I passed, on the second try, Oregon's test to certify teachers of basic It was an essay test. makes me a so when my assistant principal had two overflow sections of low-level and no teacher to teach them, he came to me. I'd like to hire an experienced teacher, my assistant principal explained. Someone trained to teach low-level math. But there was no money to keep the teachers we had, and certainly none to hire more. (In the spring of 2003, we cut eight days from our school year.) No one was happy about it, but the job of teaching the low-level sections was mine. Prep Math At Reynolds High School, math is our lowest class, loaded with the kinds of kids that President Bush says should not be left behind. It's easy to say we're going to bring these kids up to par with their classmates. Doing it seems impossible. Most of our prep students are freshmen, but others are older -- sophomores, juniors, seniors. These kids have minimal skills. Many of them struggle to subtract two-digit numbers without a calculator. Ask one of them what four divided by four is, and you might get a blank stare. Ask what seven times nine is, and the student will look it up for you on the multiplication chart. These kids have no idea how fractions, decimals, and percentages are related. Mistakes like these are not uncommon: This is stupid, the prep students say. When are we ever gonna use this, anyway? I'm not sure I know the answer to that. I'm not sure I'm teaching them what they'll need to know. …