Student Accountability: Education’s Forgotten Issue

In sports, it has always been said that the coach gets too much of the credit when his team wins, and far too much of the blame when his team loses.

The exact same thing can be said of school teachers.

While it’s true that there are bad teachers out there, that are only in the classroom for a paycheck and care little about the kids, I have seen plenty of good, dedicated educators get blamed and even fired when their students fall short – I’ve experienced that myself.

There’s an old saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it.”

In all of the various schools that I have taught and worked at, I don’t recall any teachers or staff who didn’t do their absolute best or didn’t work as hard as they could for the children. I also recall quite a few youngsters not “drinking the water” despite the teachers’ best efforts, and them shouldering the blame for it, which is completely unfair.

This not drinking the water particularly manifested itself in certain students’ behavior and attitude, which is just as important in their education as their reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic; as a matter of fact, I considered responsibility to be the fourth “R” in a child’s education, something that needed to be taught and that kids needed to master as much as the other three R’s.

Indeed, every time a student didn’t do their homework or misbehaved, that student failed in his or her responsibility at school. Unfortunately, teachers would often be blamed all the same; I’ve seen kids get away with virtual murder because “they are just kids” – a phrase that I absolutely hated.

I remember being told of one instance of this, when an elementary school student made an obscene gesture at his teacher and was subsequently sent to the principal’s office. The kicker was that this student apparently twisted the situation to make it seem that his teacher was at fault, and the teacher ended up getting reprimanded while the kid got off.

Since one can’t have success without discipline, it was the kid’s fault that he did not have such discipline necessary to perform in school, and he should have been suspended.

What is especially frustrating to me is how despite their best efforts, educators still suffer the principal’s wrath if their charges fall short, which sometimes meant that they were at the mercy of the youngsters. A teacher can stay after school until 5:00 or later every day giving the help and tutoring needed, as well as call and email parents, and even visit their homes to keep their students on track and stress how vital education is, until they are blue in the face.

However, despite all of that, the child could still choose to not do his homework or throw the test out of sheer defiance, thus making the teacher look bad. There were quite a few youngsters that I worked with over the years where I wouldn’t put it past them to do that sort of thing, their morals and sense of right and wrong were so warped.

The bottom line to all of this is that at the end of the day…

It is the student that has to do the class assignments.

It is the student that has to do the homework.

It is the student that has to behave in an appropriate manner and show good discipline.

And it is the student that has to take the tests, comprehensive and otherwise.

The teachers and instructors cannot do these things for the child – it is up to the kid to succeed, the youngster’s responsibility.

That is why, as schools across America open this month, I am fed up with this “blame the teacher” mentality that pervades the U.S., where dedicated and committed professionals with twenty or more years in the classroom are fired for one less-than-stellar review or because their students’ test scores are not in the 90th percentile, or because some kid outright lied in accusing a teacher or staff member of harassment; that has happened to me and other people I’ve known.

I suppose what I’m saying here is that the educational professionals and experts, the ones who make policies and decide what is best for the students, need to keep in mind that student accountability and responsibility is just as important in education as teacher accountability and parent involvement.

And being that it’s the children that are doing the schoolwork and taking the tests, I strongly feel that student accountability is a little bit more vital for success.