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Schools

One Score Doesn't Say it All

Racine Unified WKCE scores do not give a complete picture of student achievement.

Recently, the WKCE test scores for Racine Unified were published in the newspaper, as they are every year.  This test is almost exclusively used to “judge” the achievement of a school and a district and are used to compare RUSD against other schools and districts around the state. 

The scores are also used to punish schools based on the No Child Left Behind requirements. By punish, I mean remove and decrease federal funding aid to the school or district.

It has often boggled my mind that the schools that are deemed failing or declining, sometimes resulting in a decrease in funding, are urban schools and urban districts. One would think that a worthy assessment would find a much more evenly distributed result.  Yet, schools with a wealthier tax base, low poverty, and a mostly homogenious population are labeled as “successful” or “good” schools. 

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What makes them good? Are those schools good because they constantly find engaging, rigorous ways to teach students? Or, are those schools successful because the vast majority of students attend school everyday, eat a good breakfast, have parental help with homework, get a good night’s sleep, and are able to personally see that an education will get you somewhere in life?

As an urban educator, one whose teaching career has been in high poverty schools, I have to say that a once-a-year, multiple-choice test is of almost no value in assessing the success of a school. In high poverty centers, typically urban, a lot of things are essentially failing. High poverty often correlates with poorer nutrition, inconsistent home environments, frequent home moves, and an attention to survival over education. 

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As an urban teacher, I found myself constantly finding new ways to motivate my students. I had to make the curriculum relevant to students that had a wide range of concerns and challenges outside of school. I had to be on my toes or I would find my day falling apart rapidly. If school wasn’t engaging, other interests quickly filled the minds of students. 

My colleagues and I struggled to make our classrooms rigorous, yet meaningful, to our students. I often wonder how challenged teachers feel in some of our more affluent communities. Would I just need to present information from a podium, assign some good reading, and create enough high-profile activities to make parents think the school is wonderful? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that urban educators are further challenged to address the issues of poverty before they can go to their lesson plan book.

Urban educators have a tall task. Classroom resources are often more scarce, class sizes are higher, and so many students do not come to school ready to learn.  Teachers must rise to the occasion to find a way to present a rigorous and engaging lesson.  So often they do exactly that, and to continuously be labeled as part of a failing school or an undesirable school is simply unfair. Problems we see in some our urban schools and districts are problems for our society to deal with.  School districts, like Racine, are constantly trying to find ways to bring success to students in a challenging environment.  At the same time, the scores are scrutinized as though all students come from equal environments.

We must come up with measurements that recognize the challenges of urban schools.  We must recognize the deep challenges students in poverty face.  And, we must understand that improving the achievement of our schools must be a community wide effort.  

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