Consequence Avoidance

There is a concerning problem, at least in America, involving the literacy of its citizens. As a writer and reader, this concerns me since it means there is a growing number of people who are less capable of reading what I write and who are also less capable of writing what I would like to read. Such a trend would naturally cause one to look at educational institutions and question whether they are serving their intended purpose. I am such a someone, and also one who has a rather controversial opinion: schools are functioning as intended, and that’s the problem.

To many, that probably sounds like a wrong opinion. Indeed, if schools are functioning as intended, then there shouldn’t be a problem. Except, I argue, the problem isn’t whether schools function or not, it’s what the intention is. That intention, I argue, is to graduate students—not to facilitate and develop student learning. Some may argue back that I’m being pedantic and that learning naturally comes with being able to graduate, which I would agree with if not for many cases in which learning isn’t necessarily a prerequisite to graduating. Grades of a D (60%) or higher are necessary to graduate. That baseline—60%—is really all that matters for students to get their credits and graduate.

Having spent most of my life in school, and more recently spending half a decade working in schools supporting general education students, students with individualized education plans (IEPs) in special education classes, and students with 504 plans (students with a disability and needing accommodations while taking general education classes), it’s surprising to see that a prevalent attitude really is as simple as, “I just need to graduate.” The matter of how is frequently overlooked or outsourced—to schools. This brings me to the thesis of this blog post: students increasingly avoid consequences. Not only that, students are enabled to avoid consequences—by schools (and parents). To be momentarily reductive and once again contentious, schools are akin to what boomer conservatives complain about with youth soccer—everyone gets a trophy for participating.

Because I mentioned it, I’ll assuage any misgivings and say I think participation trophies are fine for activities that aren’t very competitive or important. I do think treating school as something that owes a trophy (i.e., certificate/diploma) to everyone who attends or participates is not the way to go. Being a liberal, equal-opportunity kind of guy, I sure would like everyone to get that trophy and graduate, but not everyone takes advantage of the opportunity school provides—thus there realistically isn’t an equal outcome of everyone graduating. (There are cases where that opportunity of education is limited or unavailable to people, but that’s a separate conversation.) Whether it’s by choice or ability (or both), not everyone gets to graduate. However, schools (I argue) increasingly aim to graduate students rather than address deficits exhibited by students. And thus we have increases in the population who are “educated” but illiterate (or otherwise incapable).

An actual thing said by a university professor.

I made a few assertions earlier I’d like to expand on: students avoid and are enabled to avoid consequences. Take, for instance, late or missing schoolwork. It stuns me the extent to which students are given extra time for missing schoolwork. To be honest, I don’t think “deadline” is a concept that exists in schools. Being accommodating, flexible, and compassionate are nice qualities to have, but there is a line teachers cross and start to enable bad behaviors. (There are cases where this is a business decision rather than a humane approach, but that’s a separate conversation.) Beyond schools providing extensions for schoolwork, they provide makeup opportunities for poor schoolwork, extra credit work, and, if all else fails, an opportunity to retake the class the following semester or take credit recovery courses (which can amount to an online, independent “class” the student may complete within a single week (seriously)). Some schools even offer “flex credits” which can count credits earned from elective classes (e.g., drama, art) as credits for core classes (e.g., math, English, science). No Child Left Behind sounds like a good ideal… and so does Every Student Succeeds… but both acts are aimed at equitable outcomes rather than student achievement. They also place the responsibility of student success on schools, and thus only schools face consequences if students aren’t meeting the legal requirements for measured outcomes. There are other legal and academic measures that unsuccessfully aimed at equitable outcomes, such as San Francisco removing algebra courses from public middle schools back in 2014 (this notably led to significant decline in students’ math proficiency and has led to reversing the measures and returning algebra courses to middle schools over the next couple years—however, other similar measures removing honors courses or “detracking” are ongoing).

A lot of this is complicated with legalese and administrative mumbo jumbo, and I myself am merely a little cog in the grand machine of educational institutions (at least at the current moment); there is still so much else that contributes to deficits in student knowledge and ability such as phones, computers, push-in support, open book and open note tests, AI, assistive grammar tools, open internet, etc. Much of it is arguably necessary for students with disabilities, but much of it is arguably not necessary (and, again, enabling). It just doesn’t sit right with me when teachers, schools, or anyone and anything else but students do what students are expected to do. My main takeaway from much of this is that students avoid consequences. I suppose the rhetorical question driving my thesis is this: should students be able to avoid consequences?