I know how Rodney Dangerfield felt

                                        How about a Little respect!

Did you ever wonder....  This is for all my friends in Public Education and for some who aren't but...!

        It would be presumptuous of me to listen to an engineer in a field not of my cognizance and then ignoring his expertise, tell him how he should have done his job, or that his opinions regarding his field are wrong. It would be grossly incorrect for me to tell my dermatologist  how to do  her job or what to prescribe. It would be inappropriate for me to correct someone who has been successful in their chosen field, a field other than mine, on matters related to their expertise.   All these things being true, why does every non-professional  under the sun think they know how the professional  educators  should do their jobs?

                 I was asked very recently to help a young teacher who is struggling with teaching a subject where I am an acknowledged  master teacher with far above average success rates on Advanced  Placement exams. The young teacher responded to my offer to assist in any way I could. I went to the Villages Charter School (carpeted hallways, wallpapered corridors with chair rails!) This high school accepts the best of the best in the area, built with assistance from The Villages corporate coffers and open to the children of their employees. My expectation was that I would see an environment better than the public high school at which I until recently taught.

                Here is what I found when I met with the young teacher in question. They (the teacher) were hired to coach a major sport, not for their academic prowess (by their own admission) and thrown into the Advanced Placement briar patch immediately, in a subject they had never taught at any level.  The exam in this subject is 50% multiple choice and 50% essay, and the kid knew they were in trouble because  "with basketball and all..."  The students, as of early March hadn't written any essays and had been given no instruction on how to do so!  The teacher, and according to them the students as well, hated the text and  recognized its bias. I was told that it was ok, because they are getting a new text. I asked which one and the answer was "I don't know."  I responded "What text did you tell your department chair you wanted?" The response floored me.  "We don't have department chairs for subject areas and no one asked me about it."  Not surprisingly, the pass rate for the course last year  (pass defined as at least a 3 on the exam) was under 20% even though class sizes were between 9 and 11 per class!!!

                I was stunned at the lack of support and left the teacher after about 90 minutes with about 10 gigabytes of supplemental materials  on writing, as well as PowerPoint presentations in areas of interest for review.  My professional educator friends will instantly recognize all the problems in what I have just described.    

  I was telling some friends about the experience. The first, a retired educator, was appalled and urged me to contact the principal, which I declined to do, because obviously  it's not that important or things would be different. Two other persons (consummate professionals in other fields) acted as if I were picking on the school, and just being critical (I know not why I would do that). One asked me  how then could I explain the high success rate of the school in getting students into the schools (mostly state universities)  to which they applied. Apparently this was the point at which I, the professional educator, simply had my head up my ass, so I explained  that  1: The students are bright kids and probably have great SAT/ACT scores   2: They also have high GPAs because the teacher realizes where the fault is and gives mostly "A"s.  3. State Universities in Florida and elsewhere look at GPA, SAT, and AP courses taken, with the national AP exam pass rate a relatively minor  concern. 

      Of course they get into good schools and they deserve to! They also deserve a chance to get the 6 college credits  most schools award to those students passing the APUS History exam with a 4 or 5. If you convert two one semester courses to dollars, these kids are being cheated of opportunity by a charter school which gets freedom from some state regulation on the premise that they will do it as well or better than a regular public school. They aren't, at least as far as this course is concerned.  I find it offensive that any organization should be held above valid critical analysis and the critic become the problem. Nothing ever gets fixed that way.  Of course what the hell do I know? After all, what use is 32 years teaching experience, 20 of that in public schools, a Master's degree and two bachelor's degrees, since obviously anyone can do it!