Posted on by Californiacontrarian

The Results Are In


Right from the git-go I need to ask your indulgence as I do not speak “teacher-talk.” Hopefully, I will be able to convey my point clearly enough without actually knowing the finer points of “teacher-talk.”

At the beginning of each school year the students get tested, and the they are again tested at the end of the year. This is done basically to measure the progress that has been made over the course of the school year. These results can be applied to each individual student and they can be used to access the progress of a certain class of students, e.g. Ms. Collins’s  third grade at the  Juan school. Did this particular third grade class learn as much as the third grade class of Mr. Juan at the Collins school? Also how much did this year’s third grade learn compared to the third grade of the previous year either in the same school, or even statewide.

For those schools that have been in session (mostly online), the results are in for the tests that are given at the beginning of each school year. Granted I cannot pretend to know these results for the entire state, but I do know the results from a middle class neighborhood school in a major California city. You can look at these results in one of a number of ways, depending on whether you are an optimist, a pessimist, a teacher, or “an all-knowing official.”

To cut to the chase – the evaluation of students across the board in grades 1-6 shows that in comparison to past years at the same school, the students are starting off the present school year substantially behind where they have been in past years, undoubtedly due to finishing the last three months of school last year on Zoom instead of back in the classroom.

-For the optimist, this means that there is a high ceiling. Because the students are way behind where they should be, the amount of progress that can be achieved over the upcoming school year is close to unlimited.

-For the pessimist, this means that because the students are starting off from a big deficit, it is likely that they will not catch up . . . ever!

-For the teacher, this means that unless something changes very soon, these students not only will not catch up over the course of the year, but in fact will fall progressively behind. Why? “Elementary(excuse the pun), my dear Watson.” With distance learning even the good teachers are able to cover significantly less than can be achieved in person. With teachers who are less than average, the upcoming year’s learning deficit will only increase in their classes. Keep in mind that I am referring here to the results in a typical middle-class neighborhood school. Most everybody realizes, for a variety of different reasons, that the worse the neighborhood, the larger this deficit will become.

-For the “all-knowing officials”, they say, “trust in us, as we know what is best for everyone,” as they cover their eyes, their ears, and their mouth in succession with both hands, because they are promulgating something they know is morally wrong. However, behind their poker faces, they know that the present policy of distance learning will only make things progressively and dramatically worse for inner city kids. 

Are they thinking . . . “too bad for you, inner city kids; que sera, sera!”

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