I quit teaching at the end of the 2021-22 school year, a year earlier than I had planned, after 22 years as a 4th grade teacher in Montgomery County, Md., just outside of Washington, D.C.
I got into teaching after 20 years in journalism. It turned out to be a fortuitous career change as I watched many of my fellow reporters lose their jobs in an ever-shrinking news market. I enjoyed most of my years in the classroom. I was fortunate to work for principals who trusted the staff and gave us the freedom to teach. My teammates and I were given objectives and a timeframe and the materials needed to reach our goals. We could differentiate in order to reach our students where they were. We experimented, devised alternate lesson plans, introduced materials from other grade levels to challenge the kids who had mastered on-grade level work and support those who hadn’t yet grasped the concepts outlined in the objectives. It was exciting and fun and rewarding. There were many “Aha!” moments, those magical instances when students who had struggled to understand finally “get it.” Those moments of accomplishment were good or kids, both intellectually and emotionally, For teachers, there’s nothing more gratifying.
The Scourge of Testing Mania
But then came testing mania. Of course, schools have always tested students. Tests are critical to understanding what “stuck” with students and what needed to be reviewed and retaught. Tests give us a window into how effectively we are teaching and where we have failed. They’re a measure of output from input.
Unfortunately, standardized tests do all of this poorly. Too often the tests simply don’t match what was taught. For example, year after year, I monitored math tests that included questions on geometry, even though my curriculum didn’t include geometry until much later in the school year. As a result, my 4th graders were being tested on 4th and 5th grade concepts they had never been taught. Predictably, the students scored worst on the geometry sections, which then pulled down their overall scores.
Similarly, in a well-intentioned but poorly thought out effort to “challenge” students in reading, the snippets from novels, poems, and informational texts found on the standardized tests were often well above most of my students’ reading comprehension levels. What’s more, the passages were completely unrelated to what we had taught in class. Even those students who could read the words on the page (decode, in eduspeak) had difficulty comprehending what the passages meant because they simply lacked the “background knowledge” needed to make meaning of the writing and respond appropriately to the questions posed or the writing prompts given.
Monitoring the classroom, like a cop on a beat, to ward against cheating, I watched student after student simply choose random answers, write a few words in a response space, and put their head down for a nap. Even though they were usually given well over an hour to complete the test, many would be “done”—in every sense of the word—in 20 minutes or less. Frustrated, disheartened, defeated, they just threw up their hands. Even though we had urged them to do their best, the students knew that the test they had just bombed would have absolutely no bearing on the grades they would see on their report cards. They had no skin in the game.
The hours wasted taking the tests were just a small part of the overall impact of the standardized testing madness. Staff who would normally pull small groups of English language learners for intensive instruction would instead be called upon to also monitor classrooms where testing was taking place to ensure that the classroom teachers wouldn’t cheat in order to boost the test scores on which they would also be judged.
Physical therapy and speech therapy sessions were also disrupted as those specialists would be pulled into the “cop on the beat” role. Art, music, PE, and Media specialists, counselors, and administrative staff might also have to suspend their duties, depending on the number of monitors needed. In a school like mine, where many students had Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) that included legally binding mandates for one-on-one test taking or a test setting with fewer distractions, virtually the entire staff would be caught up in testing. Since many of the specialists taught multiple grade levels, the disruption of small-group sessions and needed therapies wouldn’t be limited to the grades taking the tests. Usually, a block of days would be set aside for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade testing. A different set of days would be set aside for testing in the lower grades. This would go on for weeks.
But the disruption in day-to-day learning wasn’t limited to the “testing window.” Gaining familiarity with the testing program and procedures, learning the “tricks” to a better score, taking “practice” tests and reviewing those tests ate up still more teaching time and interrupted the flow of lessons.
What’s more, the results from the tests—such as they were—were often not available to teachers until the very end of the school year, so they were useless in planning instruction. (There are exceptions. Some tests results were available 24 hours after the tests were taken, but most were not.)
Covid: From Heroes to Zeroes
Then came Covid. It seems like ages ago, but before Covid vaccines were developed and widely available, the best advice to lessen the chances of getting sick was to avoid gathering with lots of people in enclosed spaces for an extended period of time. In others words, school.
For a short time, as the public recognized just how complicated teaching is, educators were heroes. As flattering as it was to hear, I never bought into that narrative because I knew a backlash was coming. Soon, we were portrayed as selfish, obstructionist “union thugs” who cared more about our paychecks and job security than our students’ education. As a union rep, I had first-hand experience during the negotiations that established the safeguards and protocols put in place for a return to in-person learning in our school district. At first, the protections were laughably inadequate. For example, MCPS offered to provide teachers with two cloth masks…for the year. The idea was, teachers would wear a mask at school, take it home each night, wash it, and wear it again the following day. The other mask was a “backup.”
Concerns about things like air circulation and ventilation, particularly in windowless rooms, were dismissed. In fairness, early on, nobody knew much about Covid or how best to control its spread. We didn’t know cloth masks were largely ineffective. Lots of time and money were spent sanitizing surfaces before we learned that Covid was primarily an air-borne disease.
As Covid was politicized and anti-vax misinformation spread, pressure to return to in-person learning mounted. MCPS was among the last jurisdictions to return. For a time, in-person class sizes were limited to hybrid learning—half the students in the classroom, half online. It was awful for all concerned.
There’s no doubt that in-person learning is preferable to on-line, academically, socially, and emotionally. (There are some exceptions, however. Students who learn better when there are fewer distractions or who want to take a course not offered at their school benefit from the online option.) But I think we made a grievous error by not offering parents and students the option of repeating the year “lost” to Covid. “Learning loss” is the new buzzword and many of the same people who have made a bundle developing and selling standardized tests are again at the trough offering “solutions” to the problem.
There is virtually unanimous agreement that the hastily thrown together online learning prompted by the crisis of a once-in-a-century pandemic was no match for in-person instruction. So why are we still measuring student success as if there had been in-person instruction?
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to give students a second bite of the academic apple? Yes, they might be covering some of the same material they were exposed to during the height of Covid, but that foundation could have lead to a deeper, fuller understanding of the subjects. Some students might have even tackled the “accelerated” work that is almost always included in a curriculum, but rarely touched because of time constraints.
Students “held back” or “retained” might have graduated from high school at 19 instead of 18. So what? Kindergarten classes would likely be larger than usual, but not all parents would have chosen the “do-over” option, so the impact could be lessened.
Generally, retaining students is frowned upon because the student might feel stigmatized or defeated as classmates move up a grade level. But if several families chose a “do-over” year—because of the disruption caused by Covid—the onus would be on the disease and its impact, not on the students. I suggested this approach in meetings with school leaders, but it was dismissed as “unworkable” or “too complicated.” Now, we’re desperately playing catch up and all of the non-academic implications of Covid are coming home to roost. Students asked to tackle material for which they are not prepared because of the gaps in learning caused by Covid’s disruption are frustrated and acting out. They feel like failures. They feel dumb. They feel like they will never “catch up” to the pre-Covid standards we set. So truancy is widespread and drop out rates are on the rise. I think some of this could have been avoided if the Powers That Be had listened to classroom teachers. But, they rarely do.
Dysfunction and Disrespect
For years, I kept a baseball bat, the biggest, nastiest pair of scissors I had ever seen, and a can a wasp spray hidden in my classroom. Working with my long-time classroom aide (whose three sons were all in law enforcement) we slapped together a plan aimed at slowing down a gunman coming through our classroom door. I’d blind him with the wasp spray and hit him with the bat. She’s stab him with the scissors. We had no illusions about stopping a shooter, just buying some time. In a briefing on school safety, local police had told us that delaying a shooter, even just a few seconds, could save lives. I had no idea how I might react in real time, but I didn’t plan on just sitting and waiting to be slaughtered.
In my last year teaching, my school went into lockdown when a man with a gun was spotted on school property. It turned out he was a Federal Marshal who was hunting for a suspect who had bolted from his car when the Marshal, who had a warrant for the runner’s arrest, pulled him over.
My students hid in the front of the room, we closed the window blinds, shut the lights, checked the rest rooms, pulled kids in from the halls, and locked the classroom door, just as we had done during innumerable drills over the years. But hearing the fear in my assistant principal’s quavering voice as she announced the “Code Red” I instantly knew this wasn’t a drill. I grabbed my bat.
I silenced the alert ding on my cell phone, as worried colleagues shared tidbits of news, trying to collectively assess the danger. The situation resolved in less than 15 minutes, but in the aftermath it dawned on me for the first time in my teaching career, my students and I really could be killed just trying to learn.
About a week after the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, I pulled into my school parking lot, early as usual. Waiting for me in his truck was one of my student’s parents. As I got out of my car, he walked up to me and immediately got in my face. I’d never met the man. He didn’t show up at the annual Open House to kick off the school year. He didn’t come to any parent-teacher conference or other school activity. He never chaperoned a field trip, never attended a school concert, never offered to help out at a party. I had spoken to him on the phone just twice during the school year. Both times I cautioned him that his son was hanging out with another student who was frequently in trouble at school. I urged him to talk with his son about making good choices so he wouldn’t end up in the principal’s office as well. He told me his son was a good boy, respectful and hardworking—all of which was true—when he wasn’t being influenced by his new friend. “You do your job, and I’ll do mine,” the dad said before hanging up on me on the second call.
As he ranted at me in the parking lot, detailing my many failings as a teacher and how I “had it out” for his son, the head of a before- and after-school daycare program, who had been watching what was transpiring, contacted my assistant principal, who came out of her office to intervene. She told me to get into the building. I went. She continued talking with the dad, reminding him that the Uvalde shooting was still very much on teachers’ and administrators’ minds. Eventually, the dad calmed down and left. School security personnel advised me to park my car in view of the principal’s office for awhile, just in case the dad came back to vandalize my vehicle or confront me again.
I had been toying with retiring a year earlier than planned. The early morning confrontation sealed the deal.
I don’t regret becoming a teacher. I know I’ve been a positive influence on kids. I wasn’t perfect. I made mistakes and tried to learn from them. I worked hard. I had fun. But gradually I lost more and more of my teaching autonomy. Standardized test scores became the gold standard, the measure of “success.” Exploration of things that sparked interest among the students, deep, meaningful discussions, time to just drop everything and read, all were sacrificed to The Test. Covid exacerbated the problems, our post-Covid response has cemented them, and teachers are being blamed. Add to that divisive book bans, groundless accusations of “grooming” kids, and the constant threat of maniacs with guns.
As a result, we’re fleeing the profession, with far too few in the pipeline to replace us. This school year, in my district, almost half of new hires (43%) are “provisionally certified” educators, meaning they lack state teaching certificates and are simultaneously teaching and taking classes to get certified.
Psychologists are desperately needed to deal with the social/emotional upheaval in Covid’s wake, but are nowhere to be found, because they can make so much more money in private practice. As a result, school psychologists’ caseloads have ballooned. In MCPS, the student/psychologist ratio is 1,900:1, about four times the recommended level. Nationally, it’s 1,127:1.
I was lucky to work in a well-funded school system. I was relatively well-paid and had excellent health insurance benefits. I have an honest-to-goodness pension and about four decades of 401K contributions to rely on in retirement. It didn’t leave teaching because the compensation was inadequate. I left because the system made it impossible to use what I had learned in two decades of classroom instruction. I was reduced to test prep and monitoring. The curriculum became heavily scripted, literally down to the minute. Creativity was squelched. Exploration outside the script was frowned upon. It was considered a waste of precious time that should be aimed at improving test scores.
Until we rein in standardized testing, restore teacher autonomy, and address the root causes of student disrespect and behavioral problems, the rush to the exits will continue. Public education is under attack and classroom teachers are in the cross-hairs.
On Thursday, I watched a Michigan mother on CNN defend herself against charges that her negligence contributed to her son's shooting four fellow students with a rifle she helped him buy. He is in jail for the rest of his life, and she had turned "gun safety" over to her now estranged husband, who will also be tried. Reading this piece by the now retired Dave A, couldn't help wondering if the father who tried to intimidating him (or his son) was armed. The right has stirred up so much hostility towards education and the books students thrive on that they threaten the peaceful existence of our schools and libraries. Standardized tests, which drain the humanity out of learning, almost seem like small potatoes when physical and emotional health are at such great risk. I don't think we can reform our schools until we face the broader problems of mental health and the availability of weapons. My hat is off to the thousands of teachers who go to school under this shadow, and I'm glad Dave A. could retire, but we need some real national leadership right now to address this vulnerability.
Next edition: what should we do? Maybe even a breakdown of what has been done and not worked? Thanks for writing and sharing.