While compiling research for my dissertation, I recently
came across the phrase “educationally bankrupt.” It was used in the late 1980’s
by a state governor to describe schools that for three consecutive years did
not meet state testing expectations. These schools were then considered “educationally
bankrupt” and “candidates for state takeover.”
It is the age-old testing story. The state had implemented a new, more rigorous testing system in
order to acknowledge that “minimum skills” were no longer adequate. The field
testing in urban districts,
indicated that “as few as 16% of the students might pass the state
tests.” But no matter, let the implementation continue.
The study showed one urban district (in-danger of being labelled "educationally bankrupt") which created a summer
program for students they had labeled as at-risk. The program was successful in
increasing test scores. Once again teachers find a way to help their students
when legislation fails both parties. However, what bothered me most was the
ignorant labeling of schools as “educationally bankrupt.”
First of all, love the corporate terminology, because as we
all know turning schools into corporations is going to fix everything, right
Bill Gates? But more importantly I, as a former high school teacher of at-risk students
and a continuing educator, am appalled that this term was and is still used in
many forms to describe schools and the resilient people that inhabit them.
First, to address the teachers. Teachers have never been and
never will be “educationally bankrupt.” We know our students, we know our
content along with the mandated standards, and we know how to mesh all of these things seamlessly to create
meaningful learning spaces for all students.
Secondly, to address the students. In my many years of
teaching I never met a student who came to school to fail. Every student,
at-risk or not, walks in those doors in the morning hoping that today will be
the day everything goes right. No matter how many tests we throw at them and
they fail, no matter how many bad days they have, they keep coming back. As do
the teachers and the administrators. This is what it means to be educationally
rich.
To call any school “educationally bankrupt” is an atrocity,
and until the people using these asinine terms allow teachers and students the
time and energy to restore the wealth (wealth which has been confiscated) to our own banks of education, our schools, they are
the ones who are educationally exhausting the system and it is putting all of us at-risk. Corporate blame terms and shiny, new, more rigorous tests are never going to fix that.
