‘Education theater’ is more prized than actual education. Stop dumbing down schools.

In both Kentucky and in the rest of the United States, we are dumbing down education in a way that may be irreparable for generations to come. I grew up in an era where grades held merit. In that time, when a student had a straight A report card, it was accepted that those grades correlated with the positive aptitude, attitude, and discipline of an individual.

We are now in an era where “education theater” is prized more than actual education. For example, kids who missed most of the school year and didn’t complete virtual work are still able to show up in person on the last week of school. In this situation, what are we pretending is being learned?

We have some districts in Kentucky and in other states where teachers aren’t allowed to give students less than a 50% grade, even if they have never turned in an assignment. Back in the days, I heard of these things happening every now and then for a member of an athletic team, but not for the general student body. What message does that send to students to say that doing absolutely nothing is worth half?

We have 16-year-old kids who are barely literate who have an adult assistant there to scribe (write assignments for them) and to read to them. What I don’t understand about this situation is when that child graduates, they will graduate functionally illiterate. At the same time, society will cheer as if a significant milestone has been reached. The only significance I see is over time is how we are dumbing down our society at the expense of feelings.

I come from an era where kids who didn’t meet academic standards “failed.” There was no such thing as being, “held back.” Kids need to understand failure, so they can experience success. It almost seems as if schools are teaching kids to be afraid of failure. There are even schools that have the actual motto of: “Failure is not an option.” One of the problems with this motto is that the system then designs itself to “juke stats” instead of being focused on kids actually learning. A “Juking” system prioritizes numbers looking good rather than actual results.

Some schools have cultures of failing students and low academic success, but instead of fixing the problem, they creatively make it appear as if students are improving. For example, a school like this might create a special program for high achieving students imported from other schools. When school numbers improve because of this measure, the higher ups rarely ask how, but continue to expect more of the same.

There was a story out of Baltimore where a 17-year-old student passed only 3 classes in 4 years and was considered at the top half of his class. Keep in mind that Baltimore is the 3rd largest funded school district in the nation, but at the same time in 2017, they had 13 high schools where zero students were proficient in math. Another 6 only had 1% of students proficient in math. It has also been reported that 90% of black boys in Baltimore don’t read on grade level.

We have to stand up as a society and stop accepting excuses for lack of achievement. We have to stop lowering the bar for kids. There shouldn’t be a reason for parents to ask teachers how their kids can pass with less than a week of school and 80 missing assignments. We aren’t teaching positive life lessons by capitulating to mediocrity.

I have proposed the following scenario for my students, “Imagine you owned a business and you needed to hire someone. Two people apply for the position; one with straight A grades and another with D and F grades. Who do you hire?” Why would people put themselves in positions where they wouldn’t even hire themselves, but expect someone else to do so?

Delvin Azofeifa teaches Government, Civics, and Financial Literacy in the Fayette County Public Schools. He can be contacted at mrdelvin@hotmail.com.