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Did you ever follow up to see if any of the students you had failed – because they turned in nothing – were later allowed to get credit for the course via some credit recovery process?

What I hear from friends who have recently retired from NYCDOE high schools is that a significant proportion of their students do no work at all and are very frank about the fact that they know that doing no work, failing tests, etc., makes no difference at all because they’ll be allowed to do bogus credit recovery work to “earn” passing grades afterwards.

If I had only heard this from one or two recently retired teachers, I’d pay it little heed. But I’ve heard similar accounts from quite a few.

I think it would have been wise to start with a 3-5 day independent research project. My experience has been that students who are poorly prepared for school have trouble even conceptualizing of the research process. Like anything else, the art of framing a question, researching it, and presenting your learning has to be *taught.* Three months is much too long for a first go at something like this. Start small, build stamina. It can be done – but in cycles of trying out the process, reflecting on it, and then trying it again. Alternating, perhaps, with more traditional lessons/units.

Maybe the kids didn’t turn the projects in because they hate projects. As a parent of three honors level children who routinely are assigned large projects, I can tell you that it generates only hatred for school, the project and no real learning takes place from it. My kids start complaining that they are no good at art, that a student who doesn’t write well but whose project look fantastic gets a better grade than them because the teachers grade mostly on appearance and they have all lost points for not being creative enough in design. When you look at the rubrics, appearance and creativity are at the top of the list for grades, not information, not writing skill. By the time they are done with whatever has been assigned you can rest assured they have learned nothing but hatred for the topic. Yet, they will all ace the tests that cover the material. Creative exhibits and projects should be reserved for those who take art classes, it turns off every other student. Three months to find out who killed Biggie and Tupac. No wonder kids are failing the state tests. Doubt there were too many questions on that.

Smith – It’s not enough to say someone has “heard about” principals who pressure teachers … . You need to get letters or statements from these teachers. One can tell them that these will be only given to journalists who commit to maintaining confidentiality of sources or to govt. investigators/auditors who do maintain confidentiality. Collect some of these and then you’ve got something to show reporters (and/or auditors/investigators).

One might also ask the UFT outright what is its response to this kind of situation – what it has done, if it has done anything, to deal with it with some specifics (schools named without naming teachers who complained), etc., etc.

Dee

Dee, I’ve offered to put journalists in touch with teachers who will speak about this. This is very low-hanging fruit for an interested reporter.

I’ve reported grade-changing to SCI. It’s very hard to get principals in these situations.

I haven’t figured out why the union doesn’t do anything, but I’ve made suggestions that they’ve ignored.

I imagine that inquiry-based projects can be extremely rewarding. But I confess that I’ve done very few of them during five years of teaching–because they’re REALLY REALLY HARD to do well. Assuming a typical student load, you’ve got at least 100 different students potentially researching 100 different things. They all need to find sources for their research, so you either need to provide all the sources for them or you need to teach them how to find reliable sources and then follow up to make sure they’re doing that right. You need to make sure they’re drawing the information that’s germane from those sources. Then you need to teach them how to write an essay or (if you’re even more ambitious) how to produce a creative project of their choosing, while insuring that their work is accurate, comprehensible, and thoughtful. And you might have to do all this, as I’ve mentioned, for 100 or more different topics! Ms. V., it sounds like you’ve done some outstanding work with your students. I can’t imagine that I could do this sort of work with my middle school students until close to the end of the year, after teaching them all the necessary skills (i.e. finding sources, drawing information from sources, writing an essay, etc.) in earlier units. Even then, it would be really hard and would only be possible because I’m not preparing them for a high-stakes test in June.

I know inquiry-based projects can be done right, but you’ve really got to know your content, know how to teach research, and know how to manage a class full of students who are expected to be learning independently. I definitely don’t think it’s a good solution for first-year teachers who are struggling to motivate their students. Instead, I’d hunt through the content you have to teach (and you HAVE TO teach certain things because the kids HAVE TO pass the Regents) and draw out anything that will actually engage students: compelling personalities, interpersonal conflicts, racial tensions (if your students can discuss it maturely). Then prep lessons, tests, and projects based around that sort of material. That’s what’s been working for me lately…but then again, it took me five years to figure that much out and I still haven’t got it quite right.