The Education Wars

Nobody should be shocked at all teachers in Chicago (and all over the country) are feeling pressure from their principals to change grades.

The public should not be shocked over this. Teachers are NOT professionals; they are NOT treated as professionals, despite the tons of propaganda spewed in teacher training programs and by college professors. Public schools (to say nothing of private schools) are run like the military, and teachers MUST follow orders or face retaliation. Once they are on a principal's shitlist, it is over for their careers. These principals who have no principles and higher-up administrators will target them for termination, and then teachers are forced to go through a stacked deck of a legal system.

But people think it is impossible to fire teachers except for gross misconduct involving children or for criminal offenses. Nothing can be further from the truth.

A snip:

Teachers reported pressure from principals, "upset" parents and even other CPS employees who were parents of their students. They said the squeeze was put on them to pass failing students, to give ill students a break or to help athletes. Some felt prodded to goose up grades to help kids graduate, avoid summer school or get into an elite high school.

Such heat was twice as common among teachers in high schools, where the push is on to reduce failure rates. Several such teachers said they felt pressured to offer last-minute deals to kids so they wouldn't fail. Another said her school lowered its grading scale and "still we are pressured to change grades."

As this passage notes, even if teachers don't change grades, the principals will do the dirty work.

You can thank the "accountability" movement for the wholesale destruction of public education.

By the way, some classroom teachers reported "pressure" from special education staff to change grades. Well, special education students have to be graded on a separate rubric from the regular student population; that has to do with federal law. When I taught life skills and had my kids pushed in for middle school science, for example, they were accommodated and graded on their own abilities and participation. The same was true for their elective classes. One could not expect them to take the regular tests that the general student population took--those kids would fail. Those kids, most of whom with some cognitive deficiencies, could not possibly be expected to be held to the identical standard. These students also can get high school diplomas--I don't remember what the term is whether it's an alternate diploma or adapted diploma or something.* That is NOT cheating or being unethical.

*--I believe they were called "adjusted" diplomas in my district.