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NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2010
'This is no way to run a school'
Hayward, Calif.--I teach world history to seventh graders. The East Bay community is ethnically diverse, mostly working class, and to a great extent immigrant. The current economic crisis has hit Hayward hard, with one major employer, Mervyn's, laying off massive numbers of employees. Hayward has a very real gang presence, which is felt personally by its families and young people in particular. My own school has the largest percentage of immigrant students of any middle school in the district. This makes it a great place to be a teacher but a poor match for No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) system of "accountability."
 The district and my school are in "PI 5 status": Program Improvement, Year 5. It has been in this status for more than five years, and by these measurements, a school can't get any worse.
My school is subject to various mandates under the law. An educational consulting firm, at great cost to the district, determines the specific details of these mandates. The goal is to raise standardized test scores. For example, all of our students, regardless of their individual performance on the standardized tests, are required to take two hours of English per day. As a result, no student has any elective classes, save for those willing to add an extra hour to their school day to take choir or band.
From a teacher's perspective, the annual round of pink slips takes a toll psychically. For my first three years in the district, I received a pink slip each March. Indeed, it is normal across the state for new teachers to be laid off for the first few years of their career, excepting those in high-demand disciplines. This results in high turnover and an unwillingness for some to become too invested in a particular school. Teachers without job security do not form close community relationships needed to produce an education. My school has faced a turnover rate of over 50%. This makes reform next to impossible.
This year, my school faced the possibility of "reconstitution," one possible sanction under NCLB for schools which persistently do not meet their test goals. In reconstitution, an entire staff is laid off and the school reconstituted as a charter school. Teachers can reapply, but lose union protection and tenure--things that ensure a stable faculty. Research indicates that reconstitution has no positive effect on test scores.
The prospect of reconstitution seemed absurd, as by everyone's account things at my site are turning around. For the first time, the faculty has been relatively stable, and discipline on campus is the best it's been in years. I've felt like I'm teaching at the best school I have in ages. I spent two weeks with knots in my stomach over the possibility, not just of losing my job, but of finding one at a school to which I was not as attached. Ultimately, the school board recognized that things were indeed improving at my site and passed us over. Two elementary schools in the district will be reconstituted next year.
To me the end result of this process--the teaching to the test, the threat of punitive reforms, the economic insecurity--is a persistent cynicism. I am very lucky to be at a school with a fundamentally positive school culture, which is increasingly rare, but I have no trust in any experts, consultants, or Secretaries of Education. My students, too, like their school and their teachers--as much as middle schoolers can be expected to--but see the school system as a hindrance rather than a help to their education. This is no way to run a school system, or a society.
--Hayward teacher
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