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Schools need to get back to basics of academics
By MICHAEL HOWIE
News-Gazette Staff Writer
Nicole Storch went to public schools and then went to
work in public schools. She remembers a teacher in grade school who helped
her learn to read by sitting with her over lunch hours for two years. Storch
believes in public schools.
"I think the public schools in America are the great leveler," she said. "They are the vehicle of upward social mobility and social change in America. In their most traditional mode, they were the most successful vehicle."
But Storch, who retired from the Champaign school system in 1993, doesn't like what she sees these days. Schools are trying to do too many things that schools were never meant to do, she says. And in the process, they're getting farther away from the one thing they're supposed to do.
"We do everything from early-morning preschool care through the day; conflict resolution, diversity training – all kinds of things that have little or no impact on the behavior of students, because obviously it's getting worse, and the academic performance of students continues to slide."
She believes that if schools don't change, fundamentally and soon, it will be too late.
"This will be the final nail in the coffin – the transfer of public funds to private schools, when legislators are forced to say, 'No matter what we do, you can't get the job done,' they say to parents, 'Here's the money, you educate your children, you make the choice, because clearly we can't do it.'
"Even without a substantial infusion of public money into private schools, turn around and look at the advancement made in private schools. I came here in 1968. There was no discussion of a Catholic high school. Judah Christian didn't exist. Holy Cross has put on two additions, St. Matt's one. And they're not all religious. Look at Countryside. If you refuse to see the handwriting on the wall, you're going to be powerless."
Since her retirement, Storch has been been helping her husband, a professional photographer, deliver the school pictures that make up part of his business. She is in most of the school buildings in town.
"I look at the general ambiance of a St. Matt's, a Holy Cross. I'm taken aback at the difference. I asked the sister who's in charge of St. Matt's, 'What portion of the school day do you spend on nonacademic subjects?' She said 'We have a religion class, lunch and P.E. But,' she said, 'mostly we do school all day.' Well, we don't do school all day in Unit 4."
Things got the way they are, she said, because of the social upheaval in the United States during the 1960s.
"Somewhere in the '60s, we made a corrupt bargain: 'You send us money and we will raise your child for you.' And in so doing, we began to abandon the historic and principal mission of the schools, which is an academic one," said Storch, who was a dean at Champaign Centennial High School and has been on the school board since 1993.
"The '60s were a time of great social change. People turned to public institutions to become involved in this move for social change," she said. "These are well-intentioned mistakes, but I think we're stuck, and we can't get out."
Storch said schools cannot do everything they're trying to do now.
"At the least, it ought to provide a basic grounding in reading, writing and mathematics, and it doesn't do that now. Unless we do that, and in addition provide an environment in which teaching and learning are taken seriously, the public schools are about to commit suicide."
So how do you fix that?
"First, return to the academic mission of the schools. Put resources and time into the academic aspects of education. Most of all, we must award and challenge the best and brightest students. But instead, we're dumbing down.
"Don't you have to ask yourself why it takes an act of the Legislature to stop social promotion? If I wasn't an educator, I would want to know, 'Why wasn't that our idea?' "
Change means discipline, she said. It means raising expectations. And it means not looking for social reasons – excuses – for poor test scores.
"Little kids like to learn," she said. "It's only when they start getting big that they start getting hostile. It's this constant application of a political solution to an academic problem that's going to kill the public schools. And people are going to vote with their feet and with their money.
"When I was a dean, I always thought that academic success and good behavior have to walk hand in hand. If deans have a job description that made them sound like bouncers in a bar, you weren't going to get the results you want.
"I think a youngster who has five credits by the time he's a junior, and you need 18 to graduate, the only reason to be there is social."
A student who makes progress, on the other hand, "has a stake in his education. A kid who's passing is more likely to behave in school than a kid who's not," she said.
"The school district must recapture its original academic mission. We should take a look at some of these other schools that did it. Take the resources of the district and redirect them to academic programs."
And that means expecting more, not less, of students, she said.
"Hold high behavioral and academic expectations, and if students, for whatever reason, fall short of the goal, help them. It would appear to me that so long as we find excuses for why kids fail rather than focus on how to help them succeed, then we're going to have a long list.
"Between 3 and 4 percent of students have a discipline problem. Kids who fight, who challenge authority at the most rudimentary level: 'Sit down and open your book.' 'No.'
"People don't fail to get a job because they didn't have diversity training. They fail to get a job because they can't read or write."
After-school programs should be staffed by teachers, and academically oriented, Storch said.
"Teachers get paid $25 an hour for after-hours work. Why don't we take these kids who didn't get it today – and here is a $25-an-hour answer. Why don't we just take 'em and say . . . 'Guess what. You're going to do this today.' And have someone (there) who does it for a living.
"The school system ought not to list the lengthy reasons sociologists have given for why poor kids can't succeed and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Which gets her to test scores.
"There has come a dissatisfaction and a kind of mistrust between the public and the school system." As evidence, she says, there is "the demand for more testing. All of a sudden, the public says, 'We don't believe you. When you say our children have certain skills, we see they don't.'
"How does the school react to this? What we do is go kicking and screaming. 'It's not fair, it pits one school against the other. It's socially, culturally and racially biased against some kids, and the results don't mean anything.' Can you think of any other profession that would say that?
"Schools have become so politicized, so that nobody looks bad. Everybody looks the same.
"I have likened that to my having a cold and giving the rest of the school board penicillin so I don't look bad."
Nicole Storch started working for the Champaign school district in 1968.
When she retired as dean at Centennial High School a quarter-century later,
she ran for the school board - and got more votes than any other candidate
in a hotly contested election.
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