"Rio Deserves Real Change This Time"

There is an op-ed piece in the Journal this morning; (link thanks to Natalie).

It is written by Barbara Armijo, unidentified except by name.

She writes about Rio Grande High School and the limited success that it is having in providing a high school education to students there.

The problem at Rio Grande, and at other failing schools, is people who attack problems by first coining a cute phrase to embroider upon their banner. APS' slogan is "Every Child Can Learn."

On its face, the slogan is nonsense. Consider the child who does not want to learn. Those who think that they can educate a child against the child's will are delusional.

I have believed for a long time that there is no such thing as "teaching". There is only learning. Those who function as teachers are there to facilitate learning; they are there to make learning as easy as is possible. In the end, learning is the responsibility of the learner, and if they don't want to learn, they will not. Consider the old saw; you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

So the students who don't want to learn are stuffed into classrooms with the students who do want to learn, with an absolutely predictable result; no one learns to their capacity.

At most, you can explain to a child all of the advantages of an education; you can try to make education fun and interesting. But you cannot motivate a child to want something that they don't want.

So what do you do with those who do not want to learn; who show up at school each day, not to learn, but to hang out and invariably end up causing trouble?

Perhaps I don't have all the answers to that question. But I do know that the question needs to be answered.

And I do know what isn't an answer to the question; to march under a banner proclaiming Every Child Can Learn (the same curriculum). And I do know that putting kids who don't want to learn, including chronically disruptive students, in the same class rooms with children who do want to learn, is done at the expense of the learning process for everyone.

In other parts of the world, they recognize this fact, and separate serious students from other students. It is not tracking. It is not racism. It is not class-ism. Students are not forced to become laborers if they want to become rocket scientists.

It is simply a pragmatic and realistic solution to a real problem.

Acccording to Armijo; "Another "basic" approach, throwing money at the problem, hasn't helped. Rio gets nearly $1 million a year on top of state per-student funding."

Neither has throwing more "leaders" at a problem.

APS' new plan; "Deputy Superintendent Tom Savage, who will spend "Mondays" at the school, and Associate Superintendent Linda Sink, are the latest educational makeover artists at Rio." according to the Journal.

Have we learned nothing from gradegate? Weren't RGHS Principal Al Sanchez and his colleagues doing much better before the leadership of APS stepped in to help?

The idea that problems can be solved by throwing more leaders at it, is manifest administrative conceit and arrogance.

How many teachers left Rio last May thinking; Jeez, if only Tom Savage and Linda Sink were here? How many left the first staff meeting this year thinking; Tom Savage and Linda sink are here; Oh fabious day, calloo, callay!

Has anyone asked a Rio teacher what they think they need? Perhaps instead of two new administrators; they would rather have seven or eight social workers, or twenty or thirty more campus aides.



It has been observed that doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, is the essence of insanity.


Perhaps what they need at Rio, is some sanity.