Read the articles “Hidden dropouts: How Schools Make Low Achievers Disappear” by Heather
Vogell and Hannah Fresques, “So That Nobody Has to Go to School If They Don't Want To' by
Roger Sipher and “What Our Education System Needs is More F's” by Carl Singleton. Vogell
and Fresques’ article is a recent investigative piece that shows how a high performing public
high school in Florida is using a low performing alternative charter high school nearby to make
its performance numbers look better on paper. Sipher and Singleton are addressing similar
problems in their opinion articles, but are proposing vastly different solutions. Your job will be to
make the connections between these three articles that are necessary for a ‘meta conversation’
to exist. This process is called synthesis.
Read each article at least twice. Read them the first time just to get the gist of what the authors
are saying about our nation's education system and what needs to be done to fix it. Make sure
you fully understand each essay. Look up any words you do not understand. Read them a
second—and maybe even a third—time with an eye toward understanding the broader
implications of their arguments, their strengths and their weaknesses. Use the highlighting and
annotating techniques we have discussed in class to find keywords and phrases that support
the authors' positions. Draw generalizations about the readings to identify common ground
between them and ways in which they differ.
Once you have read the articles at least twice (more is even better) and are sure you fully
understand them, compare them to each other as you consider and address the following
questions:
• Where is there common ground between the articles?
• Sipher and Singleton offer some pretty drastic yet simplistic solutions. To what degree
do are their suggestions reflected in what has been put into place as policy at Olympia
High School? How would Sipher and Singleton react to the situation at Olympia?
• How are the authors' positions, especially those of Sipher and Singleton, similar? How
are they different?
• How valid are the arguments made in these articles? Do they address the root cause(s)
of the problem or are they just treating the symptoms? Are they ignoring things that
would potentially impact their arguments?
• Based on the content of their respective articles, would Singleton agree with Sipher's
position that mandatory school attendance should be abolished?
• What would Sipher think of Singleton's call for an end to the practice of giving passing
grades to marginal students?
• What would Sipher and Singleton think about Vogell and Fresques’ findings in their
“Hidden Dropouts” article? Would they feel it undermined or reinforced their own
positions?
• In what ways are the authors' positions compatible with each other? How are they
incompatible?
• Would the authors see each other as allies or adversaries?
• Sipher’s article was published in 1967 and Singleton’s in 1984. In what ways are the
authors’ comments still relevant today, especially when read alongside information
presented in the “Hidden Dropouts” article?
Your essay should be a minimum of 750 words and should be in proper MLA format with in-text
citations and a works cited page. You can write more than 750 words, but you should not submit
significantly less than that. You should have a well-formed introduction, body, and conclusion
with an identifiable thesis statement. You should quote, paraphrase, and/or summarize the
articles to support your points and make sure you include a parenthetical citation each time you
do so.
NOTE: Your essay should contain no more than 30 percent quoted, paraphrased, or
summarized material. It should be substantially your own words and your own thoughts about
what you are reading. You are only required to use the three provided articles as source
material for your essay but you are welcome to find and reference additional sources if you
wish; however, you MUST document them properly.
This essay will be worth 140 points to be awarded according to the following formula:
• Content:
55 points
• Format:
15 points
• Citations:
40 points
Mechanics: 30 points (assessed on a declining scale: 0-2 errors =30 of 30 points; 3-5 errors
= 20 of 30 points; 6-9 errors = 10 of 30 points; 10 or more errors = ZERO of 30 points.)
ARTICLE
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/02/21/hidden-dropouts-how-schools-game-systemdumping-underachievers-into-alternative-programs/97708866/
WHAT OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM NEEDS IS MORE F'S
By Carl Singleton
I suggest that instituting merit raises, getting back to basics, marrying the university to
industry, and…other recommendations will not achieve measurable success [in restoring quality
to American education] until something even more basic is returned to practice. The immediate
need for our educational system from pre-kindergarten through post-Ph.D. is not more money or
better teaching but simply a widespread giving of F's.
Before hastily dismissing the idea as banal and simplistic, think for a moment about the
implications of a massive dispensing of failing grades. It would dramatically, emphatically, and
immediately force into the open every major issue related to the inadequacies of American
education.
Let me make it clear that I recommend giving those F's—by the dozens, hundreds,
thousands, even millions—only to students who haven't learned the required material. The basic
problem of our educational system is the common practice of giving credit where none has been
earned, a practice that has resulted in the sundry faults delineated by all the reports and studies
over recent years. Illiteracy among high-school graduates is growing because those students have
been passed rather than flunked; we have low-quality teaching because of low-quality teachers
who never should have been certified in the first place; college students have to take basic
reading, writing, and mathematics courses because they never learned those skills in classrooms
from which they never should have been granted egress.
School systems have contributed to massive ignorance by issuing unearned passing
grades over a period of some 20 years. At first there was a tolerance of students who did not fully
measure up (giving D's to students who should have received firm F's); then our grading system
continued to deteriorate (D's became C's, and B became the average grade); finally we arrived at
total accommodation (come to class and get your C's, laugh at my jokes and take home B's).
Higher salaries, more stringent certification procedures, getting back to basics will have
little or no effect on the problem of quality education unless and until we insist, as a profession,
on giving F's whenever students fail to master the material.
Sending students home with final grades of F would force most parents to deal with the
realities of their children's failure while it is happening and when it is yet possible to do
something about it (less time on TV, and more time on homework, perhaps!). As long as it is the
practice of teachers to pass students who should not be passed, the responsibility will not go
home to the parents, where, I hope, it belongs. (I am tempted to make an analogy to then Gov.
Lester Maddox's statement some years ago about prison conditions in Georgia-"We'll get a better
grade of prisons when we get a better grade of prisoners"—but I shall refrain.)
Giving an F where it is deserved would force concerned parents to get themselves away
from the TV set, too, and take an active part in their children's education. I realize, of course, that
some parents would not help; some cannot help. However, Johnny does not deserve to pass just
because Daddy doesn't care or is ignorant. Johnny should pass only when and if he knows the
required material.
Giving an F whenever and wherever it is the only appropriate grade would force
principals, school boards, and voters to come to terms with cost as a factor in improving our
educational system. As the numbers of students at various levels were increased by those not
being passed, more money would have to be spent to accommodate them. We could not be
accommodating them in the old sense of passing them on, but by keeping them at one level until
they did in time, one way or another, learn the material.
Insisting on respecting the line between passing and failing would also require us to
demand as much of ourselves as of our students. As every teacher knows, a failed student can be
the product of a failed teacher.
Teaching methods, classroom presentations, and testing procedures would have to be of a
very high standard-we could not, after all, conscionably give F's if we have to go home at night
thinking it might somehow be our own fault.
The results of giving an F where it is deserved would be immediately evident. There
would be no illiterate college graduates next spring-none. The same would be true of high-school
graduates, and consequently next year's college freshmen—all of them—would be able to read.
I don't claim that giving F's will solve all of the problems, but I do argue that unless and
until we start failing those students who should be failed, other suggested solutions will make
little progress toward improving education. Students in our schools and colleges should be
permitted to pass only after they have fully met established standards; borderline cases should be
retained.
The single most important requirement for solving the problems of education in America
today is the big fat F, written decisively in red ink millions of times in schools and colleges
across the country
______
Carl Singleton is a professor of 20th-Century American Literature at Fort Hays State University
in Hays, Kansas. This article was originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Education,
February 1, 1984, pp 33-34.
So That Nobody Has To Go To School If They Don't Want To
By Roger Sipher
A decline in standardized test scores is but the most recent indicator that American
education is in trouble.
One reason for the crisis is that present mandatory-attendance laws force many to attend
school who have no wish to be there. Such children have little desire to learn and are so
antagonistic to school that neither they nor more highly motivated students receive the quality
education that is the birthright of every American.
The solution to this problem is simple: Abolish compulsory-attendance laws and allow
only those who are committed to getting an education to attend.
This will not end public education. Contrary to conventional belief, legislators enacted
compulsory-attendance laws to legalize what already existed. William Landes and Lewis
Solomon, economists, found little evidence that mandatory-attendance laws increased the
number of children in school. They found, too, that school systems have never effectively
enforced such laws, usually because of the expense involved.
There is no contradiction between the assertion that compulsory attendance has had little
effect on the number of children attending school and the argument that repeal would be a
positive step toward improving education. Most parents want a high school education for their
children. Unfortunately, compulsory attendance hampers the ability of public school officials to
enforce legitimate educational and disciplinary policies and thereby make the education a good
one.
Private schools have no such problem. They can fail or dismiss students, knowing such
students can attend public school. Without compulsory attendance, public schools would be freer
to oust students whose academic or personal behavior undermines the educational mission of the
institution.
Has not the noble experiment of a formal education for everyone failed? While we pay
homage to the homily, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink," we have
pretended it is not true in education.
Ask high school teachers if recalcitrant students learn anything of value. Ask teachers if
these students do any homework. Quite the contrary, these students know they will be passed
from grade to grade until they are old enough to quit or until, as is more likely, they receive a
high school diploma. At the point when students could legally quit, most choose to remain since
they know they are likely to be allowed to graduate whether they do acceptable work or not.
Abolition of archaic attendance laws would produce enormous dividends.
First, it would alert everyone that school is a serious place where one goes to learn.
Schools are neither day-care centers nor indoor street corners. Young people who resist learning
should stay away; indeed, an end to compulsory schooling would require them to stay away.
Second, students opposed to learning would not be able to pollute the educational
atmosphere for those who want to learn. Teachers could stop policing recalcitrant students and
start educating.
Third, grades would show what they are supposed to: how well a student is learning.
Parents could again read report cards and know if their children were making progress.
Fourth, public esteem for schools would increase. People would stop regarding them as
way stations for adolescents and start thinking of them as institutions for educating America's
youth.
Fifth, elementary schools would change because students would find out early they had
better learn something or risk flunking out later. Elementary teachers would no longer have to
pass their failures on to junior high and high school.
Sixth, the cost of enforcing compulsory education would be eliminated. Despite
enforcement efforts, nearly 15 percent of the school-age children in our largest cities are almost
permanently absent from school.
Communities could use these savings to support institutions to deal with young people
not in school. If, in the long run, these institutions prove more costly, at least we would not
confuse their mission with that of schools.
Schools should be for education. At present, they are only tangentially so. They have
attempted to serve an all-encompassing social function, trying to be all things to all people. In the
process they have failed miserably at what they were originally formed to accomplish.
______
Roger Sipher (1931-2012) was a professor emeritus at SUNY Cortland in Cortland, N.Y. This
article was originally published in the New York Times, September 21, 1967.
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