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Demanding a Well-Rounded Education for K-5 Students in Springfield School District #19

Elementary School Students Deserve a Well-Rounded Education 

The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) sets requirements for public schools in Oregon.  Each local school district must abide by the requirements specified in the Division 22 Standards for Public Elementary and Secondary Schools.  

According to these standards, public school districts must provide "a planned instructional program for grades K-12" in the following ten important subject areas:

• Language arts (reading, writing, speaking and listening)

• Mathematics

• Science

• Social science (including history, geography, economics and civics)

• The arts

• World languages

• Health education

• Physical education

• Social-emotional learning

• Technology

In other words, a parent or guardian would assume that if their child attends a public school in Oregon, their child will be taught reading, writing, speaking and listening, mathematics, science, social science, art, etc. 

Unfortunately, if their child attends an elementary school in the Springfield Public Schools, it is likely that they spend most of their instructional day learning reading and mathematics with almost no time devoted to making art or conducting scientific investigations or learning about how government works or discussing what it means to treat others with respect or how to deal with the challenges and the opportunities of the digital world.  

How are elementary school students in Springfield really spending their time at school?

Below is a chart showing how Ruby (not her real name) spent her time last year in Mrs. Henry’s class (not her real name) at a real elementary school in Springfield, Oregon.  While the names have been changed to protect the people involved, the numbers used to generate the chart were provided to us by Mrs. Henry and accurately reflect what Ruby would have experienced in a “regular” week at school (no assemblies, field trips or special events.)

*Mrs. Henry tells us that school/class business encompasses an array of events in her classroom that are necessary to keeping her students informed and prepared, including taking attendance, listening to the morning announcements, participating in class meetings, teaching and reviewing school and classroom expectations, rules and procedures, cleaning up the classroom, and getting students packed up and out the door at the end of the day.

What do you notice when you look at this chart?  

• Reading, math, and PE instruction dominated Ruby’s time at school.  

• Ruby received very, very little instruction in the social sciences (history, geography, economics and civics), science, health and social-emotional learning.

• Art instruction does not appear on the chart at all, because Ruby received NO formal instruction in art.  Mrs. Henry lamented that this was a real shame, since Ruby’s favorite uses of her spare time were drawing and coloring.

• Technology instruction does not appear on the chart, because Ruby received NO formal instruction in the important issues related to the use of technology in a digital world even though she was required to use a computer every day.

When we asked Mrs. Henry why Ruby was mainly received reading, math and physical education instruction, but no art and hardly any science, history, geography, civics, health or social-emotional learning, Mrs. Henry responded by telling us:

• The education that Ruby received was mostly determined by a school schedule created by the principal based on strict requirements enforced by the district administration.  As much as the principal would like to see the students at their school learning art, science, social sciences, health, etc., this was not permitted.

• Physical education (PE) is the only subject that has its minutes mandated by the state of Oregon.  Elementary school students are required by law to spend 150 minutes per week in PE, and this is good for kids.  How students spend the rest of their school day is decided by each school district.  

• For more than a decade, the Springfield Public Schools have had NO elementary science curriculum that meets ODE requirements for science curriculum and addresses the state science standards. 

• As long as she has taught at her elementary school, Mrs. Henry has had NO access to up-to-date, ODE-approved social sciences curriculum that addresses the state social sciences standards for teaching history, geography, economics, or civics.  

• While the district did provide curriculum for teaching health, Mrs. Henry was only allowed to spend about 20 minutes a week teaching it, so she could not actually teach the lessons found in her teacher’s guide.  This was also the case for the social-emotional learning curriculum Mrs. Henry had been provided. 

• There were a few times when Ruby did participate in an art lesson, but these lessons were only taught when the principal was out of the building.

Mrs. Henry also told us that even though the focus at school was on reading, reading, reading, math and math, she was unable to spend time fostering a love of reading in her students.  For example, while reading was a major part of every day, Mrs. Henry was forbidden from providing any time for Ruby to dive into a library book and read something for fun of her own choosing.  Any reading that Ruby did at school was from something chosen for her by a teacher.  

Mrs. Henry said that she sat through countless meetings focused exclusively on how her students were performing on reading and math tests. She could not recall the last time she was part of a meeting to discuss how students were doing when it came to art or science or history or geography or civics or creative writing or the savvy use of technology.  Mrs. Henry said sadly that she was mostly powerless to provide Ruby with the well-rounded education she deserves.  

The education that Ruby received in third grade in Springfield was not designed to meet Ruby’s needs and wants, nor was it designed to meet the instructional requirements from the Oregon Department of Education.  It is clear that the way Ruby spent her days at school in third grade was primarily determined by administrators working in the district office who were chiefly concerned with student performance on standardized tests in reading and math.  

Why can’t Ruby get the education she deserves?

In a letter to a local school board, one member of CAPE clearly and compellingly describes the situation that prevented Mrs. Henry from providing Ruby with the education she deserves.

"The Problem That Has No Name"

In 1963, Betty Friedan’s book, “The Feminine Mystique”, was published. Friedan’s research revealed a deep undercurrent of silent dissatisfaction among the women she interviewed.  They indicated they were unhappy with living a life defined and controlled by others.  

They had lost their sense of self in a system that gave them no voice.  

She called it “The Problem That Has No Name”.  

By that she meant that most women had no real outlet for their questions about the rightness of the patriarchal system that was held in place by the overwhelming consensus of the voices that were considered legitimate:  elected officials, business leaders, religious leaders, family members, other women, civic leaders, the news media, and the mass media.

Overwhelming consensus.  

Understandably, women thought what they were feeling must be wrong, so most chose to keep their doubts to themselves.  To do otherwise entailed a whole host of risks.  

So, to a large extent, silence prevailed.  The price paid was loss of identity and potential. 

I would submit to you that “The Problem That Has No Name” applies to teachers today, especially K-5 teachers. 

The system in place, that is the top-down, authoritarian-lite, data-and-testing based system controls teachers in much the same way that Friedan revealed.  The current system by-and-large tells teachers what to teach, when to teach it, how to teach it, when to assess it, and how to assess it.  In many schools, it dictates to teachers exactly how to spend the minutes of their day.

As with Friedan’s description of patriarchy, the current system is backed by overwhelming consensus. 

Witness the governor’s new education bill.  In order to address low test scores -- which persist in spite of spending untold millions of dollars on testing and data-collecting, in spite of increasingly controlling teachers in their classrooms, in spite of an ever-expanding educational bureaucracy -- the governor’s new bill’s proposed solution to low tests scores is to institute yet another new regimen of state-mandated testing, this time standardized interim tests.

The bill was supported by overwhelming consensus:  The OSBA, COSA, the OEA, the ODE, Stand for Children, the Oregonian, and leading Democratic and Republican legislators.  Therefore, it must be right.  Right?

As with “The Problem That Has No Name”, the silence of classroom teachers is taken to indicate that they are content with additional dictates, with additional loss of professional autonomy, and with additional degrading of identity and potential.

Along with others with power, this Board is deaf to the deafening silence.

Will Ruby's Fourth Grade Experience Be Any Better?

There needs to be a new overwhelming consensus: one that values a well-rounded education for kids like Ruby over one that is preoccupied with improving reading and math standardized test scores at all costs.

This year in fourth grade, Ruby ought to be discovering things like how her eyes work or what we can learn from where fossils are found or what happens when objects collide.  She should be gaining experience in designing solutions to engineering problems.  She should be learning about all of the different peoples who have settled and lived in Oregon.  She ought to be receiving instruction on the government and constitution of the state of Oregon as well as the government and constitutions of some of Oregon’s tribes of Native Americans.  Ruby should be finding out about what foods are grown in different parts of Oregon and why too much added sugar in the foods she eats is not healthy.  She ought to be exploring art-creating techniques and assembling a portfolio of her own art.  Ruby should be learning how online activity is tracked and how to make informed decisions about what personal information she shares online.

However, unless there are some drastic changes made, a small number of people who do not know Ruby (and will probably never meet her) will decide that these and many other topics described in Oregon’s educational standards should not be a part of her school day.  For another year, the school board for the Springfield Public Schools will fail to exert its authority, allowing this to happen, in spite of hearing from parents, guardians, and teachers about what has been going on.  As a result, Ruby will be denied the opportunity to learn these things at school this year, if she attends a public elementary school in Springfield, Oregon.  

Questions?

Phone or email Larry

541-543-3577

larry@larrylewin.com