Listen up, Secretary Duncan!

Recently, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan embarked on a listening tour of 15 states, hoping to gain insight from educators, students, and parents regarding education in America. In an attempt to reach those who cannot attend one of his meetings, he has launched a blog where he will post various questions aimed at gathering insight into possible solutions for our failing educational system.

His first question: “Many states in America are independently considering adopting internationally-benchmarked, college and career-ready standards. Is raising standards a good idea? How should we go about it?”

My response: Yes, we need to raise standards—studies prove that if you raise expectations of students, the students will meet those expectations. My concern, however, is the creation of a national criterion for what the teaching of these standards should look like. My state has a state-wide comprehensive curriculum that each district then has the authority to edit and manipulate, so that it really is no longer a state-wide curriculum.

I teach the standards and grade level expectations as addressed in the curriculum—among the plethora of other things I must teach in my classroom each day that have nothing to do with British literature—however, many my counterparts across the district, who supposedly teach the same curriculum I do, have a more lax view of what those standards and GLEs should look like when they are met. They expect the minimum from their students, and they get the minimum.

So, what good do national standards do us if there is no national standard for teaching them? We have teachers in our district who are blatantly racists, sexist, incompetent, and inept, but there is no way to get them out of our classrooms. So each year, they are given new groups of low-income struggling students whom they give the least amount possible in terms of an education.

How do we change it? Hold me and my fellow teachers to higher standards. Create a way to asses us. Make it easier to remove those of us who are ineffective or even counter-effective. Require us to have high, uniform expectations of each and every student we teach. Enforce the laws and guidelines for ESS accommodations to ensure that we are providing those needed accommodations. Make federal monies available so that we have the resources needed to help these children who have no other way to access these resources.

Hold us all to higher standards, Mr. Duncan. Please.