Why are the teachers failing the students?

Question

Our teacher's are allowing students to pass their classes when they can't even spell the basic words of our language.

Have you no pride in the product you are presenting to our society?

Spelling is just a simple example. Your students don't even know the difference between lose and loose!

Math, another example. You give your students homework, it gets corrected, usually by peers in class, then there is no follow up. The only students actually learning math are the one's with parents who correct the homework and identify failures to understand, then teach the material one-on-one.

What the hell have you done to the education of our children with all your politically correct touchy-feely BS about multicultural sensitivity to the students needs?

Why won't you teach our children well?

Well, Veronica, I may need a second career in the very near future, but I'm not sure I would get into a credential program since it would gall me to say what they want to hear in the interview instead of telling them my only concern is academics and I don't give a rat's *** about political correctness and sensitivity to multicultural needs.

Answer 1

Speaking as a college professor, I can honestly say that I don't lower my standards and simply allow my students to pass when they don't deserve to. Why not? Because it does them a diservice and hurts them in the end.

Regardless of what subject I'm teaching, my students need to earn their grades and all learn very quickly that I will not simply let them slide. And I don't simply give them "busywork." Every assignment has a purpose behind it and tests critical skills they need to master. And my exams aren't all multiple choice so they can just guess at the right answers. They have to actually KNOW their stuff or they won't pass.

However, what I've noticed over the years is a decline in the quality of students being admitted and graduating our public schools. A large part of this problem is the emphasis on testing. We test to death in my opinion! And public school teachers spend so much time teaching to the test that their students don't learn what they really need to. And so when they come to me on the college level, I have to make up for what they should have learned in public school.

But it's NOT just the teacher's fault by a longshot! Some of the blame goes to the parents who are too busy to help them, or are so quick to simply blame the teachers. And let's not forget about the students themselves. They realize that they can sometimes get away with murder and often take advantage of it. They'll complain about the littlest thing or demand that we do things their way, rather than their doing things our way.

So the bottom-line is that there's plenty of blame to go around.

I say let's go back to the way things used to be when teachers were in charge! And teachers determined whether or not their students were ready to move on, NOT simply a test. And schools weren't operated as businesses with a "profit and loss" attitude, but rather as houses of education, where "profit and loss" weren't important. Let's put the focus back into educating our kids in what they really need to know, and put teachers in the drivers seat.

Answer 2

I have 110 students a day ( I teach High School in an urban setting ) I have a failure rate of about twenty percent. TWenty five percent of my students are considered special education and I am not the person who determines if they pass. THey have special IEPS that are very lenient and accomodating, when they graduate no one knows that they were special education students, they get a diploma like every other student. So if I fail 22 students and another 26 are out of my juristiction to fail , that is about 45 pecent of my students. This cuts across all cultures and trying to make it a race issue is simply ignorant. I am not allowed to discipline students, I can not yell, I can not hold them for detention (bussing) and if I send them to the administration they get suspended , which means they are OUT of my class and still can not learn. In my past I have had to even talk to lawyers who represented parents wanting to sue because I did not pass their child (The parent lost). I have had parents who thought that if a child only did two assignments that I should pass them because it was two more than they did the year before and I might discourage them ( I didnt) I have had parent teacher conferences where only four parents showed up. The administration encourages us to find ways to pass students because the success of the school is based on the graduation rate. The school board leans on the administration and the parents drive the school board through votes. I have classes of 35 , teaching one on one each day is impossible. We can not track students due to federal law. We can not put them into special classes because the law says that they have to be included in the regular classroom Do not blame the teachers, blame the politicians for that , who are run by the voters, the parents. What we have is a system that YOU the individual have allowed through political ignorance and innaction. Teachers do the job the best way we can given the restrictions, YOU the voter have put on us via your politicians, your school board and administration. Would you vote to increase school taxes to lower class size so the classes would be smaller? NO. Have you contacted your political representative for measures that would put responsibility on parents for chronic truancy and class disruption? NO. Have you looked at the NCLB act and understood the financial and educational toll it will take on the average students as the finances are going to be taken away from them to finance the "at need" students? NO. I do teach my students who are there. It is an insult to be thought of otherwise. The real question is why don't you take action to change this situation. Teachers can not, voters can.

Answer 3

In general, teachers are not failing students. In the last fifty years, approximately 70-75% of all students that began first grade, graduated from high school on time. Some people do misspell, Even in adult life. I used to make a sort of game out of correcting the notices that my children brought home from school. Spelling errors are quite common, for example, you used an apostrophe which indicates the possessive case where you meant to write a plural (first sentence, teacher's should be teachers). "Spell check" would not have caught that. You also wrote "Math, another example." This is a phrase, not a sentence. There is a subject, but no verb. Political correctness and cultural sensitivity are mandates from the government, not teacher initiated concepts and neither stands in the way of responsible teaching. If you feel strongly that your school or your children's' school is not doing a good job, take it up with the school, the district and even with the state department of education. If you do this be prepared with real and verifiable incidences. There are good, bad and mediocre teachers in most schools.

Answer 4

In my kids school the teachers and admin. do not want the parents to be part of the school experience. when I was in school we were required to reading AT HOME. Each subject had homework at least 3 times a week.
My kids (highschoolers by the way)are not allowed to take the books home. They must read during class time. When I asked the teacher for a reading list? She replied with I can't give you one because I never know what we are going to read next. When I complained about the content being to old for my child I was told that was the way it happened get over it.*(yup slavery was a horrible institution filled with abuse, but so is the porn industry will you be reading about that next)
When I volunteered for helping (first one on the list btw) I was told oh we have all the volunteers we need thanks we will call you if we need you later..
I went over some papers for my kids for english. I would have given them a C and that was overly generous I thought. They chose to ignore my suggestions and got A's. The one time my child did take my advice (you know got rid of those repeat sentances, that just say the same thing in different words) he got an A but a question as to whether he had written the paper.
A friend is now having trouble with a teacher I had trouble with last yr. She acts like she knows it all and refuses to learn something new.
Basically what I am saying is I feel ya. If you got some suggestions (I am planning on homeschooling my other kid(s)) I am open to it.........
Oh and to answer your question its cause they took the job thinking it was going to be easy and that they would have the summer off and were very shocked to find out they were wrong........

But don't wait educate your kids yourself. Anything can be used to teach its called unschooling---recipes can teach math/fractions and reading plus basic homemaking skills, etc etc....do a websearch for unschooling and you will find loads of ideas

Answer 5

it relatively is an extremely hard question to respond to, because of the fact it relies upon on many diverse aspects. i could even with the undeniable fact that answer it this way: frequently fake: maximum of a failing student falls upon the student. I easily have taken many training that had a bad instructor, yet a reliable student will upward thrust above and study the books and have a reliable grade no rely what. however there are some very undesirable instructors, a bad student will fail no rely how certainly dazzling the instructor is so various the blame could lie on the student.

Answer 6

Ok...

Well those other explinations would work, if everyone was homeschooled... I agree that parents need to help with homework and everything, but they get paid to teach, and that is what they should do...

Anyway, if a student is having problems, they should be held back, I don't think that they should call it failing... But they should be held back until they get it right. There are way too many kids sliding by, and even getting into colleges when they can't spell or do basic math.

I know plenty of young adults in the college that I attend that cannot grasp the concept of basic grammar, it is very frustrating when we do group projects.

Answer 7

Here's an idea...the teachers may not care because the students don't care. Each teacher can have as many as 250 students per day to keep up with and he/she can't take the time to hold the hand of every slow learner. The student and parent have to take some responsibility for not learning and applying themselves. Any student struggling with learning has numerous options to learn from tutors, mentors and asking the teacher for a few minutes of time. The tools for learning are there but if the student would rather do something else (i.e. playstation, skateboarding, mall-ratting) then it isn't the teachers responsibility to drag the student to the lessons and make them learn. That is what parents are supposed to be doing for their children. So the next time you want to blame a teacher for the shortcomings of the students, maybe you should be looking at the lack of effort from the student and parent instead.

Answer 8

I do not care what the situation is, but if you are a good student who makes good grades, then the teachers should not fail you. This is why I hate bad teachers and love good teachers. Get a good professor that will not fail you, especially you are doing the work successfully.

Answer 9

In fairness to the teachers:-

Children that couldn't care less about their performance
Parents who couldn't care less if the children do their homework
Parents who freak out if a teacher tries to force them to pay attention / do work
Parents who threaten to sue if the school cannot turn their objectionable little gobshite into a perfect human being.

If your child cannot spell - ask YOURSELF why that might be. Does he/she attend school? Do they do their homework? Do they pay attention in class?

Teachers can only do SO much with children that couldn't care less and parents that just want to blame everyone else.

And no, I am not a teacher, but I DO live in the real world.

Answer 10

This answer can be given with one word
POLITICS.

The legal system, financial issues, and a huge immigration factor have clogged, politicized, and paralyzed a system that was failing already. We pay our teachers less than most secretary's. All social programs are in ruins, or beyond design capacity, including hospitals.