From minimum performance to maximum performance | Eastern North Carolina Now

It's a systemic problem that we must solve

    A high school in Pennsylvania, McCaskey East High School, is in the news as a result of intentionally segregating students by race and gender. You can read the story by clicking here.

    I want to say upfront, that based only on what this article reports, that I do not think this is a good idea. But I do think it raises some very significant issues that our local school system, and particularly our middle and high schools, should be discussing.

    The problem McCaskey is addressing is pandemic. In a nutshell it can be described simply: Black students don't perform as well academically as do other students. Note that we did not say "minority" students. Minority includes Asian students and in general they perform not only much better than African-American students, but often better than white students. And that is an important fact in this discussion.

    We'll spare you the numbers. The pattern is essentially the same in most (but not all) schools and school systems in this state. Black students simply do not, as a group on average, perform as well as white students, and on average the white students don't do very well either when compared to students in other countries.

    The difference between performance by black and white students has been euphemistically called the "achievement gap." The concept of gap is based on the presumption that something is wrong if one racial group, taught in the same setting as another racial group, does not have about the same average performance as the other group. We think that a reasonable assumption, at least as a starting point.

    So suffice it to say here that we have a problem. And I think it is the most serious problem our local schools face at this point in time. We are literally wasting the talents of many, perhaps most, of our students and we are abysmally failing at least a third of our students, many of whom simply drop out of school while others skim through, only to encounter a world for which they are ill-prepared.

    What makes the problem so bad is that what causes the "achievement gap" I believe is systemic and thereby negatively effects nearly all students. In a word or two it is: Low expectations. More specifically, low aspirations and acceptance of low achievement.

    My wife and I are in a rather unique position to have witnessed this. Our daughter went to Southside for her freshman and sophomore years following most of her elementary and all of her middle school years in Beaufort County. Then she graduated from the N. C. School of Science and Math in Durham. She experienced the difference and has a compelling story to tell. One that I think the local school system should hear. Not only listen to, but actually hear. But that is for another day. She had some excellent teachers in Beaufort County but the problem is in the system, not the individual teachers.

    Here I would like to suggest the reason for the "achievement gap" with the intent of suggesting that McCaskey may be on to something, even if misguided.

    I believe academic achievement in secondary school is driven by two primary factors: Ability and Motivation.

    Ability is basic. You have to have a certain amount of basic intelligence to learn and the more intelligence you have the better the odds are that you will learn more...but that is not necessarily the way it actually happens. Our brightest students do, relatively (to their ability) more poorly than any other group. That is the first systemic problem that should be confronted.

    And Beaufort, like many school systems in the state, is actually doing something about that. The dual enrollment programs do just that. The Early College programs are also right on track for addressing this problem. I and our daughter could write a book on how our schools could better challenge our brightest students but we'll save that too for another day.

    The greatest waste in America and what could be argued is the greatest threat to America's future is the waste that takes place in our high schools with the bulk of students who could do much better but are allowed to simply skim by.

    And that is where motivation comes in.

    Books could be written describing this phenomenon. Standardized test scores, drop out rates, attendance rates, SAT scores and the participation rate, post-high school grade point averages, the number of students going to highly competitive post-secondary institutions, the number of students needing remedial classes in their early college careers are all statistical jackpots for documenting the problem of wasted human resources, and cheated lives.

    But if I had to choose a single indicator of this phenomenon it would be the lack of rigor in our modern secondary schools. The expression of this can be seen in the courses offered and the number of students who take the most rigorous courses and program of studies.

    You can't do as well on the SAT if you don't take upper level science and math courses. But it is more, much more, than doing well on a test. Students who choose to stop taking Math after the minimum requirements either have developed or are sure to develop a mindset of under-achievement. They don't expect much of themselves and guess what: They get it. But we all also get the result of the mindset of "minimum performance." I would simply call it the "dumbing down of America" because of the dumbing down of our educational system.

    Nowhere is this problem more evident than in our state's accountability system (testing program). It focuses on "minimum performance." When you hear a report on "test scores" what you are listening to is the number of students who scored above an arbitrary minimum level of achievement. The accountability does not reward excellent teachers because it does not, for the most part, collect data on performance above the minimum performance.

    What is absent is a motivational system that says to every student: You must do as well as you are capable of doing.

    And the next thing our schools need to do, after revising the system of expectations from minimum performance to maximum (capable) performance is to build a culture that supports, insists upon and rewards maximum performance.

    And that brings us back to McCaskey High School's experiment. Segregation.

    The major reason black males as a group do more poorly than any other group is that they are trapped in the group. And more particularly, in the "group-think" of the group they identify with.

    And hear those words. The group they identify with.

    We have been brainwashed by teachers' unions that "parental involvement" makes for student success. And up to a point that is true, but only up to a very low point. And then mainly in elementary school.

    By the time a kid is in middle school it is the peer group that dominates. And if the peer group subscribes to a minimum performance culture then guess what kind of performance you're most likely to get. But if the peer group's expectations are high you get an entirely different level of achievement.

    That is what our daughter experienced at the School of Science and Math.

    I will never forget my first visit, on parents' day, to SSM. You know the gig. We heard a speech by the head honcho, then several by his top staff and then went around and "met the teachers."

    There was a common thread in all of the comments that day: "We expect our students to be the best they are capable of being. And they will be." It is ordinary there to be extraordinary.

    If McCaskey can build a culture of maximum achievement by segregating the black males and building a system that motivates each of them to achieve as much as each is capable of achieving then I say "go for it." If they can build a "group think" that says: "Be the best you can possibly be" then the risks and dangers of segregation will be worth taking.

    But the reason I think it is misguided, is that they are focusing on race and gender. The focus should be on all students not just one or two groups.

    And what they do within a segregated group will make all the difference in how justifiable it is to do it that way.

    What is essential is to transform the peer group expectations. It is the success of getting peer pressure to work in a constructive way that will determine the success of closing the achievement gap. Not only the achievement gap between groups but the achievement gap between what our students are capable of, and what each one actually achieves.

    If it is necessary, or even if it is more efficient, to segregate racial and gender groups to do this, so be it. But the essential thing is for those who run the system to understand that the problem is not in our students. It is in those who control the system because it is the system that is at fault here. We must transform the system to one of maximum performance rather than one of minimum performance.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




School Board relaxes student dress code, again Teacher's Desk, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics What's really behind the WDN's frustration?

HbAD0

 
Back to Top