Consider race and community
My first recommendation for the next President of the United States is to change what constitutes a black person in the Constitution. There needs to be an amendment for those of mixed race. I recently learned that what constitutes being black varies from state to state and was even told that if a child’s father is black, then the child is black.
Under No Child Left Behind, data is disaggregated in several ways: gender, ethnicity, poverty, age, attendance, grade level; however, mixed heritage students are miscalculated skewing the data in one way or the other. I have seen some school administrators ask parents if the school can classify a mixed heritage student as one race, essentially manipulating the data to make sure the student makes adequate yearly progress (AYP).
Ensure that high standards apply to all students via a National Curriculum and National Standards. Leaving this up to the states has contributed to the steady downfall of education in the United States. Go back to the constructivist approach to teaching. I would also encourage the next President of the United States to strengthen teacher preparatory programs to lessen the number of minorities that are being incarcerated although most are able to receive academic instruction while they are “serving time.” This is a great intervention tool to capture students that were previously not taught in the “traditional school setting”, but also can act as a detriment stigmatizing this population as they overrepresented in jails and prisons.
Learning must be relevant, engaging, and meaningful from Pre-K to 12, so if the next President of the United States could provide some type of universal monitoring and enforcement for this endeavor, both teachers and students would benefit tremendously. From my experience as an educator, the status quo will remain with widening learning gaps between minorities and the majority without universal monitoring and enforcement. Poverty is not always the issue as I have taught students that live in poverty that are quite bright and perform in the gifted and advanced levels. It is society that perpetuates this prevarication.
I have had the pleasure of teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages but recently discovered that not all of my students have documented status. Many have walked from Central America to the United States. Illegal immigration is a grave problem in the U.S. that not only affects education but the economy as well. All illegal immigrants need to be legal taxpaying citizens of the United States or they need to be deported, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter whether they are African, Hispanic, Asian, or European illegal is illegal.
All schools should have a Physical Education teacher, Music teacher, Art teacher, Librarian, and Media Specialist in addition to content area teachers to provide the enrichment that is needed for all students. There is great inequity in staffing,class size, and planning in schools throughout the country.
Lastly, making schools the pillar of the community, forging school-family-community partnerships is critical. Teachers cannot do it alone. We need more parental involvement and community support.
This post was submitted by Tonya N. Jefferson.
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