Robert E. Slavin
Director, Center for Research and Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University
This book by Kalman “Buzzy” Hettleman is a true crime detective story. The victims are millions of children who are denied effective education. For reasons not of their own making, they live in a wasteland between general and special education. They are called struggling readers, or struggling learners, or students at risk, or students who are disabled. Behind their backs they are called “dummies” or much worse things. But we put far too much effort into deciding what to call these students, far too little into teaching them.
Struggling readers start off in life like anyone else. They are beautiful, as all children are. They love to learn, and grow rapidly in language and understanding of the world around them, as all children do. They are natural scientists, full of curiosity and excitement about learning, as all children are. A very small number of children suffer serious disabilities, such as visual or hearing impairment or severe cognitive problems that are apparent to anyone. But the problems of struggling learners are only apparent from 9:00 to 3:00 on school days. During school hours, they comprise the clear majority of students who are found eligible for some form of special education. Other struggling learners may not receive special education, but are in the lowest reading groups, the lowest-performing classes, and/or the lowest-achieving schools. It is not inconsequential that struggling learners are far more likely than other students to be from disadvantaged or minority families, but these demographic facts do not explain how they become struggling learners, as much as they explain why their problems are rarely solved.
The damage done to children who have preventable or treatable learning problems, and to our school systems and society, need hardly be enumerated. Students who fail in school lose the enthusiasm they came with, and begin to act out (wouldn’t you?). They see success in school as out of their reach, so they seek success in other avenues, including anti-social behaviors. Our neglect breeds a self-perpetuating class of under-achieving and often alienated citizens, composed largely of once-promising, once-motivated young people failed by our schools.
Now that we have established who the victims are, what is the crime? In any human population, there is bound to be variation. Some kids are faster runners than others, some have great musical or artistic skills, and some do not. Aren’t learning skills just the same? Where is the crime here?
To understand the situation, consider the state of medicine in ages past. Millions of children used to die in childbirth, or of measles, tuberculosis, typhoid, polio, malaria, infections, smallpox, and so on. Childhood mortality was just seen as God’s will.
Now imagine that we decided today, despite all the medical advances made mostly in the 20th century, to stop trying to prevent or cure childhood illnesses. Parents who could afford medical care could buy it, but those who could not—well, too bad. Millions of disadvantaged children would needlessly die, but is that murder? Would it be a crime?
I think most people would agree that withholding proven treatments and causing millions of unnecessary illnesses or even deaths would be a moral outrage. A crime by any definition, if not on the law books.
Returning to education, we are in exactly the same position. We have proven programs and practices that are known to be able to prevent school failure or to successfully solve problems that arise despite vigorous attempts at prevention. There are many programs, especially for elementary schools, known to improve reading and math learning, learning for students in general, and for struggling learners in specific. Then there are one-to-small group and one-to-one tutoring approaches able to ensure that virtually every student who has a reading or math problem can get off to a good start and keep up in these crucial subjects. Proven approaches have been known for at least a decade, and more of them are validated in high-quality, rigorous research every year. These programs can be expensive, but their costs are trivial compared to what we spend on education in general, and even more so when you consider the costs of special education and retentions in grade.
Allowing so many students to fail, when their failure could have been effectively prevented or quickly remediated, is a crime, by any definition. At best, it is a shortsighted misallocation of public funds. When you consider the effects on individual children, what word fits better than “crime”?
Now that we’ve established the crime and the victims, let’s consider the perpetrators. The problem here is that there are so many. But let me start with who they are not.
The crimes against struggling learners are not perpetrated by evil people. Quite the contrary, they are people who truly care about making things better. But they are people who do not know, or choose not to know, that outcomes could be far better for struggling learners. They are people who imagine that simple solutions, such as more money, or new federal or state regulations, or higher standards for teachers, or charter schools, or copying Finland or Singapore, are all we need to do. More money and other structural and regulatory changes will certainly be needed to solve the problem of struggling learners, but these structural changes are not enough in themselves if we neglect proven instructional programs and practices.
The most important “perpetrator” is not anyone in particular. It is complacency. Everyone says they wish schools were better, and they are concerned about struggling learners and disadvantaged students in an abstract way, but their own kids’ schools are pretty good, and their own kids are doing ok, so they do not put their passion into other peoples’ schools.
So we’ve identified the victims, the crime, and the perpetrator. Here’s how this story should end:
“Complacency! Come out with your hands up! We’ve got you surrounded. You know your rights, so we’re going to read you your responsibilities:
In this extraordinary and deeply disturbing book, Buzzy Hettleman, a long-time warrior for struggling learners in our schools, tells us about the children trapped in the flawed systems we provide for them. He lays out in painstaking and shocking detail the enormity of this crime, and what needs to be done to remedy this broken system.
Everyone who cares about the education of all of our children should read this book and then take action to solve these problems. We must urgently do this before another generation of children eager to learn is victimized by a system willing to do everything for them except to give them proven instruction, and make certain it works.
Baltimore, Maryland
September 30, 2018