TFA Alumnus Describes Barriers to Student Achievement

How My School and District Failed its Students

The following is by Frank Beard, a graduate of Drake University and a former Teach For America corps member (Kansas City ’08). He taught middle school science, social studies, and communication arts in the Kansas City, Missouri School District. 

A large number of this country’s schools are failing its students—but not in the way that many columnists, education reformers, or school experts would have you believe.

From 2008 to 2010, I taught at the middle school level in Kansas City as a Teach For America corps member. But don’t worry, I’m not going rehash Freedom Writers, and I certainly won’t tell one of those sappy “this is why I Teach For America” stories.

Instead, I want to offer some very candid thoughts about why I think my district and school were such abysmal failures.

When people ask me what I believe was the number one barrier to student achievement at my school, I always offer the same answer: the failure of the school and district to address chronically disruptive students. It was a problem created by negligent leaders who willingly allowed a free-for-all environment that was conducive to chaos instead of learning.   

           

I’ll never forget the first day of staff development my second year. During the “welcome back” talk, my principal handed out a sheet which detailed the number of discipline referrals submitted by each teacher the previous year. We were informed that it is wrong to submit a lot of them because discipline is a classroom-management issue and therefore must be addressed within the classroom. Sending students to the office, she said, is simply not acceptable or allowed.

I didn’t think much of that at first. After all, I had just come from an amazing summer school experience in which I had supportive principals, a fantastic assistant principal who liked to hang out in my classroom, and students who were simply a joy to be around. Even though many of my students had received no science instruction at their regular schools (that time was used for extra reading and math test preparation), they were veritable experts on the scientific method at the end of our six weeks. I was continually impressed with their hard work and desire to learn.

Coming from that experience, I ignored my fellow teachers’ warnings that the new year was going to be complete and total chaos. I also ignored the fact that losing our vice principal—who tried his best to be an effective disciplinarian—was sure to affect the school’s climate. Instead, I was excited and ready to teach. The other middle school teachers and I collaborated and developed a student handbook in which we standardized all of our rules, expectations, grading practices, behavior management systems, and other relevant policies and procedures. We were a united front, and our students were going to have a successful year.

Or so I thought.

Everything was great for the first three weeks, but then a few students began testing the limits of what was acceptable behavior. It’s one thing when a student throws a paper ball at his friend, or when someone utters a rude comment. It’s quite another thing when a student tells you that she’ll “crack” your “bitch ass” or demands that you “get the fuck out of [her] face”. Unfortunately, as the students soon discovered, our principal offered no support whatsoever. Nearly ever discipline referral sent to the office was returned with a polite reminder to please contact the students’ parents. Clear and consistent consequences simply did not exist—even though they were mandated by the district’s code of conduct.  

Once that realization spread, the school effectively went from quality to chaos overnight. The following is but a sample of what an average day looked and sounded like:

-         Students standing in the hall and kicking classroom doors for five to ten minutes at a time

-         Students fighting

-         Teachers pelted with paper, pencils, erasers, and rocks whenever they turned their heads

-         Assignments torn up and thrown on the floor the moment they’re passed out

-         Teachers cursed at, threatened, and sometimes even assaulted

-         Classroom supplies vandalized or thrown about the room

-         Groups of students running the halls and showing up to one or two classes at most

-         Constant yelling and shouting from the hallways

-         Gang writing written on the walls with permanent markers

-         Students talking and yelling so loud in the classroom that nobody could hear the teacher

By “students”, I’m of course referring to the 15-25% that were chronically disruptive. The truth is that the overwhelming majority in each class were great kids who came every day ready to learn. Besides being from an impoverished part of town, they were no different than students at any other school.

This wasn’t just a problem at my school. When I spoke with other teachers throughout the district, they told me that the situation at their school was nearly identical to mine. Some of their stories are just as outrageous.

When students are subjected to a toxic environment that prevents learning, all other education concerns—curriculum, standards, integrating technology, etc—become totally irrelevant. Unfortunately, this is something rarely ever addressed in both local and national media. And education reformers—whether from watching Freedom Writers one too many times or just understanding that blaming teachers is politically expedient right now—repeat until they’re red in the face the idea that a teacher with leadership skills and high expectations can fix everything short of the conflict in the Middle East.

So what did our school leaders focus on, if not the toxic atmosphere in the schools? The superintendent—a product of the Broad Superintendents Academy—was concerned mostly with “right-sizing” the district, preparing to implement standards-based learning at pilot schools, and token efforts towards “community involvement”. As for the school board…well, that’s anyone’s guess. I think they were more concerned with political in-fighting and a sudden attempt to appear legitimate.

I should be surprised that the toxic atmosphere wasn’t addressed, but I’m not. I came to realize a certain truth about this country’s urban schools: their leaders—especially those at the district level—rarely have any stake in whether or not the schools are successes or failures. They’re not a part of those communities, they don’t send their children to the schools they oversee (except, sometimes, the selective admissions-based ones), and at the end of the day, whatever happens doesn’t really affect them. They’re working with other peoples’ children. The only thing they have to lose is their jobs—and that’s easy to protect if they cover their rear, furnish the necessary documentation, and blame those below them.

Though I was also not a part of my district’s community, it was different for me since I was a teacher. Teachers bond with their students, become their advocates, share in the joy of their successes, and help them learn from their failures. They feel the pain of their situations at home, keep extra granola bars and juice boxes on hand for those who don’t get enough food, and go above and beyond to ensure that they get the education they need. Their students are real people and they care deeply about them. They’re not just a statistic on some document.  

As a teacher, I saw firsthand the very people who were failed by my district’s leaders:

-         They failed C.P., a quirky, wonderful student who was reading Plato’s Republic for fun in seventh grade

-         They failed D.W., a bright, talented student who although sometimes lost his temper due to problems at home, would always apologize afterwards.

-         They failed M.J., the sweetest, nicest, most prim and proper student I’ve ever met, who was forced to endure disruption day after day by one of her classmates who threatened to shoot others, was arrested for armed robbery, and made sexually harassing comments to girls

-         They also failed M.W., a student who although acted as a class clown at times, was incredibly smart, motivated, and had the potential to do anything he wanted to in life

Were there other problems? Of course there were, but the chronically disruptive atmosphere was by far the most significant and destructive. It’s a problem that’s conspicuously absent from successful suburban schools—which don’t tolerate outrageous misbehavior—and is usually never mentioned by education reformers, policy experts, consultants, and the other people who pretend to know what’s best for our schools.

Perhaps my expectations are too high. After all, how can I expect them to understand the seriousness of this problem if they’ve spent little or no time working in the very schools they pretend to be experts about? 

You can follow Frank Beard on twitter @FrankBeard, or email him at fbeard@gmail.com.


Franks has since followed this up with a post on what actions he thinks need to be taken by the KCMSD leadership in a post entitled Fixing Chaotic Schools Requires the School Leaders Step Up.