The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) specifically determines the quality of teachers in a school as one of the basis for high school rankings. According to the provisions of NCLB, teachers are required to be highly qualified to teach core academic curriculum, and are required to prove their competency through tests. Teachers need to have a bachelor’s degree and must demonstrate their proficiency through completion of an academic major. Finding such teachers is proving to be easier said than done. Qualified teachers are hard to find and this shortage has inevitable repercussions on high school rankings for those institutions that fail to attract and retain top quality teachers.

High School Rankings and Under Qualified Teachers

According to a study conducted last year, schools that are in minority neighborhoods or high poverty areas are likely to be staffed by teachers who are under qualified and lack a minor or major in the subject that they teach. It’s not surprising therefore that many of these schools fare so low when high school rankings time of the year rolls around.

Recruiting Teachers Who can Maintain High School Rankings

Educational authorities say that the country’s schools will need between 1.7 million to 2.7 million teachers next year. These will be required to replace aging teachers who retire, and those who abandon teaching or relocate. With the quality of teachers being such a prime condition of NCLB and high school rankings, school authorities are raising the stakes as they compete fiercely to attract the highest quality talent for their schools. As usual math and science teachers, who are the hardest to find, are being chased the hardest in an effort to boost high school rankings.

Innovative New Schemes to Attract Teachers

At some school districts, authorities have taken to promoting teaching as a career among college football players in an effort to attract more talent. These players are encouraged to join as substitute teachers and then make the transition to full time teachers. It’s hoped that this will help counter the shortfall of teachers and mark an improvement in high school rankings. In Miami educational authorities are turning to the military to tap potential teachers. The district hosts career fairs that showcase teaching as a career to former service men, and is involved in the Troops to Teachers Program. Some schools have turned to the local minority community to fill vacancies.

While the role of teachers in determining high school rankings is unquestionable, many schools have begun to realize that finding quality teachers can be a challenge. While better compensation packages can go a long way in attracting talent, schools also recognize that combning a support system for teachers, giving them respect and greater involvement in the decision making process attracts quality to the teaching ranks.

In the district I work in, just like others across the United States, special education departments have been dismantled and special education certifications have been debunked.

Because special education certifications no longer carry the same weight as other teaching licenses, said educators no longer have the right to teach their own classes. This has lead to most special education students being taught in regular education classrooms.

This type of inclusion does not always work.

In theory, this form of mainstreaming may seem ideal for special education students, since they are now in an environment with their peers and have the support of another teacher in the room that will adhere to all IEP requirements, including test modification and extended testing time. In practice, however, this only furthers the euphemism of the dreaded No Child Left Behind Act, which seeks to dismantle the public education system through unattainable goals of proficiency for all students by 2014. This can also further isolation of the aforementioned students and distractions to regular education peers, resulting in stagnated social development and more frustration.

Money and Education

Some mainstreamed students do very well in a regular education classroom, provided they have assistance in implementing their IEPs, but not all special education students work well in this type of environment.

Most districts hope to save money by placing disabled children out of the small, specialized classes that many of them need to succeed, and instead educate them in a classroom where they will compete with non-disabled peers. About 5 1/2 million children — 11 to 12 percent of the average public school’s population — are categorized as having special needs. The U.S. Department of Education estimates the cost of educating the students is at about $30 billion annually, up from about $1 billion 20 years ago. This 22 percent of total education spending is then educating less than 13 percent of the children, with about three times as much spent on each full-time special-education student as on each regular-education child.

On the other hand, some parents and teachers see this as beneficial, because it allows the special child to interact with other “normal” children and therefore learn at the same pace; however, this mentality about special needs students implies that disabilities are due to a lack of motivation rather than caused by biological imbalances or mental disturbances.

Mainstreaming is being justified by the notion that segregation is damaging, since it promotes isolation and stereotypes, and that diversity is an undeniable social good. However, if this is the rhetoric we are forced to adhere to as teachers, we and the other special education teachers we work with can offer all the support and help we have access to, but some students who are developmentally delayed will not be proficient, no matter how much support is laid at their feet.

Why does everyone get it but me?

Mainstreaming does not always produce efficient results. Parents who have seen their special student flourish in a special environment, one that is small, equipped, and lead by a certified instructor, are now seeing their students in a classroom where they feel they are competing rather than learning. For example, some mainstreamed students will speak with me personally about how they “just aren’t getting it” but cannot ask questions during class for fear of being branded an “outcast” by peers who are moving at their normal pace. Other special needs students, especially ones with violent tendencies, also put other students as obvious risk, even with two support teachers in the classroom.

While mainstreaming may seem appropriate as per the parents, mainly because this means the state and federal governments are giving their child a free education, this act is taking away from “normal” students, even gifted ones. In my old high school, for example, we had an ADHD student in our classroom mainstreamed over from the special education department. This student exhibited all the signs of ADHD, including constant fidgeting, inability to concentrate on the main lecture of the class for too long, and made constant interruptions throughout the class, making it nearly impossible for the educator to teach other distracted regular education students. We, as teachers, cannot slow down a classroom’s pace if 89% of the students are comprehending the material while another 11% is struggling and distracting others.

Tricks of the Trade

Some students who are mainstreamed can learn in a regular education environment and then seek external assistance through learning support teachers; other students, however, with more immediate needs, cannot or will not be their own self-advocates and therefore, help will be given too little too late.

In media, the kid in the wheelchair has become a kind of mascot, beloved by all in his gang, but this is only a fragile and idealized image. In a real-life classroom where all of the children are non-disabled except the one who drools uncontrollably, who hears voices, blurts inappropriate statements out, or who can’t read a simple sentence when everyone else can, further isolates himself, becomes secluded, will not ask for aid, and eventually close up to any other assistance offered since he/she is already branded “stupid.”

If these students feel the world is against them, and that if they open their mouth they will be ridiculed, it is easier for them to escape by pretending to be invisible and only look as if they understand. Regular and special education teachers can only do so much for a disabled student who will not open up, or who are smart enough to fake comprehension.

Options and Conflicts

By placing said type of student into a regular education classroom, an environment that may seem threatening at times, the student may feel the content of the class is too overwhelming. If there is no other place for the student to go except an alternate setting, which might not be the most suitable environment, but also since the education facility lacks any other transitional curriculum, which used to be the special education department, the student is faced with two less-than-perfect options: a regular education class that “goes too fast” or an alternate setting that “goes too slow.”

Another concern that was recently been brought to the attention of administrations across the States is the issue of diplomas. Is a special education student, one who receives extra testing time, testing modification, and learning support entitled to the same diploma as a student who went through the process without such aides? For example, students who needs tests read to them because they lack the reading level required for that class will graduate high school with the same honor as regular education students, only to have that support pulled from them as they lead a life post-graduation. This is an injustice to both types of learners since one is being “pushed through” while the other earns the right to proceed to the next grade or graduate.

Conclusion and Analogy

To remove the special education department from public schools does not give all students the ability to reach their potential. Placing idealized goals on teachers and students will not only hinder student development, it will also foster more frustration and anxiety for teachers. All students can learn, but every student learns differently. Placing students with a similar peer group in a classroom that fits the students’ differing learning styles will promote more comprehension and learning, which leads to a sense of accomplishment, rather than lumping all together into one big pot and hoping the teacher can handle it all.

As an analogy: no one would ever expect a dentist to cure all patients of cavities, regardless of what they ate, and yet all teachers are expected to have their students testing proficient or higher by 2014, regardless of external factors, including disabilities and parental influence. There are other factors that help or hinder a student’s education, just as there are other factors that cause cavities, and just as dentists cannot cure everything, a regular teacher cannot teach all special education students, especially since said teacher does not have control over external factors. There needs to be a learning environment for all students that will take their needs into consideration and offering the latest equipment to do so. Not all special education students will flourish in a regular education classroom, so we need to place them in environments that meet their needs just as we do with all students.

Just take a look at your own “best” teachers growing up. Didn’t they all kind of “do their own thing” rather than just read out of a textbook to peak your interest?

We’ve got to get back to letting teachers teach as they see fit! Would you go into a doctor’s office, and say hey, don’t use that knife, use the new one put out by Dupont, it’ll cut faster. Only this doctor is comfortable with this blade and has used it for years to set records for surgery and recovery time.

Yet, in in our education system, we are letting top officials tell our teachers exactly what to teach, when to teach it, how to teach it, and regimenting time slots for learning to spelling 30 min, math 60 min, etc. When does it ever stop? The newest one in our district is “there will be one hour of ELD” every single day and you will have a time slot for it, or you will be called to the carpet on it.

I’ve got news for all the government know-it-alls out there. None of us grew up with such regimentation, and the best teachers on the planet, aren’t going to stay regimented into instructional time slots and mandated teaching styles.

Listen to what my teachers did to forever leave their mark. There was Mr. K who had us do a virtual country simulation in the 5th grade. We all had to create our own country on paper. I think Mr. K was the only one who owned a computer at that time, and I think it was Bill Gates’ first ever PC. It had a black and white screen with gold letters on it. But Mr. K didn’t let that stop him!

Mr. K gave me the assignment of being the president of “Bilmore” the smallest of all the countries, and I was in charge of it’s military, it’s economy, it’s communication with other countries, and it’s budget. I was thrilled, and I had to learn about running a country in a big hurry!

Well, long story short, I, and my team of five other friends had to daily handle little papers or “memos” that Mr. K would hand us that were country challenges or rewards on a daily basis. Based on the fact that our country, “Bilmore” was the smallest geographically in the world, and the economy of some of the other countries was at risk, all of the other countries had written on their papers as a goal: Destroy Bilmore and take it over.

Well, I remember the day I received the paper from Mr. K that we had just had war declared on us by every single country, and that we were due to be attacked at 8am the following morning. Thus, as president, I was given the task, with our limited military (which did have a few good weapons, but a small fighting force) of protecting my country from a worldwide attack.

Well, I did what the best president’s have done in this situation, and I got some advice from the smartest person in my life: my best friend “Chip.” I called him, as young people do, on the phone as usual to see what’s up, and I explained this Bilmore problem to him, and my need to make a presidential decision. His quick intellect amazed me. Chip told me “Take five of your biggest tanks, and place them on the Islands out from the shoreline of each port. Then order them to fire at a missile that you will launch at the same time that will detonate over the oncoming armies. Follow that through the smoke with all of your best F-15 fighters and have them shoot through the fog, so that the oncoming armies will not be aware of how many fighters are shooting at them, fooling them into thinking they are being counterattacked by a massive air strike.

Then he said, take some submarines and place them underneath the water at the same time, but also have several smaller military boats on the top of the water, making it look like you are undermanned and outgunned, so that the armies will come close enough to the tanks to destroy the oncoming enemy.

Chip’s plan worked, and I ordered the tanks to fire at 8:00 am as five separate armies airborne and by sea attacked us full force. When the tanks fired they blew the first ships to smithereens and the smoke rose up higher than eyesight. I also ordered a full air strike by my best F-15 fighters, and they were all brand new planes, since we had such a small military force. The F-15’s destroyed a dozen or so planes in the smoke, and then every single army retreated due to the smoke screen and they took evasive maneuvers to retreat at light speed. I also ordered my submarines to fire as soon as their huge ships had our small boats in their radar.

I saved my country that day. Bilmore went on to thrive and also become one of the strongest countries in the entire world, because we done of the armies to surrender, and took over there entire economy, money, oil, everything. That country was the one who swore an oath to one another: “We will destroy Billmore.” Actually our F-15’s cut them all down from the south side of the country and they were forced to surrender at gun and helicopter point!

Anyhow, I said all this to just make a point, this “Country Simulation” took about two months to complete. Yet, when all was said and done, I hand hands on experience about how to run a country and serve it well as President and Commander-In-Chief!

We need to stop making our teachers teach according to the textbook, and teach toward these state tests and nothing else. No Child Left Behind has incredible goals, but the implementation of those goals may be creating students who are more like learning robots, than those who can really deal with society at large.

My point is to remind officials that we can no more take the individuality out of teachers, than we can to say “All kids can and will act the same.” Isn’t that kind of like Communism? Yet, it’s crept in, and here we are, as educators, being told that we “must increase test scores” at any cost.

Test scores will rise far above where they are now, when we give teachers the freedom to be themselves and yes, follow district mandates for increased test scores, but do it in a creative manner that only that individual teacher can express.

My next teacher I’ll never forget was Mrs. Mercer. She had us do an 85 page research paper in high school! I never had to do that big of a paper in college or in my masters program. She prepared us. She locked us into success because she believed in us. She taught us how to stand up straight and walk into a room. She had others comment on our posture and demeanor.

Mrs. Mercer wrote a reference letter to a future employer for me that I keep as a part of every resume package I’ve ever submitted. It said: “It is the Don Alexander’s of this world, that make it great. I’ve never seen someone before that exemplifies the term “gentleman” as much as Don Alexander does. Those words changed my life. Those words were the reason I graduated from college with a 3.9 GPA and went on to become a Teacher and an Assistant Principal.

Yet today, it seems in this mad world, we are so all consumed with test scores, test scores, and test scores! Yes, we need to score high on tests. But we also need to look harder at the individuality of the learner, and most of all the individuality of the teachers.

I fear God that if we don’t stop taking the individuality out of our teachers, we may become like some third world country that has no real direction or dreams for our students. If this is America, and we know that it is our country, we must defend it from those who would come into our classrooms, and force our teachers to teach how they see fit.

And…if we don’t do something quickly about it, it’ll be our grandkids that will suffer the most. Thus I urge you, write your congressman, get involved at School District Meetings, and do everything you can to insure that our teachers are not being told how to teach. That is the greatest “disservice” I can think of to our precious students.

Protect American education and vote this year for a candidate who will give teachers back their creative freedoms, but most of all, vote and pray daily for your child to get the Mr. K’s and Mrs. Mercers of this world, and pray that our government doesn’t do anything to discourage them from doing what they do best: “Teach.”