Can't Read, Can't Count

Can't Read, Can't Count, Can't Depend on the System to Help

The Washington Post
Sunday, January 14, 2001; Page B08

In the District, kids don't count -- because they can't.

I tutor a 17-year-old who has trouble with fractions and doesn't understand the difference between negative and positive numbers. Her algebra book last year was so old that it was written by the chairman of the math department at my old high school -- from which I graduated in 1967. When last year's teacher gave her assignments about the difference between variables and constants, the concepts were wrong. And she gets little homework.

I'm not generalizing from one case. I also find tutors for other kids who need help. Like the 14-year-old who couldn't do simple multiplication. Or another 14-year-old who asked me how many bagels were in my bag when we stopped for some on our way home one day. When I told him "two dozen," he didn't know how many were in a dozen. And when I told him "12," he still couldn't calculate the total.

In the District, kids don't read either -- because they can't. The girl I tutor does not know how to sound out words. And she doesn't always have textbooks, even when she wants to read. For example, she took anatomy last year without a textbook. How can you learn the different systems of the body and how they interact if you have no pictures to examine? She had only her notes from what her teacher drew on the blackboard.

Similarly, when she took music, there were no books (as well as no assigned music to listen to at home). At other times, she must leave her books at school, because she is not allowed to bring them home. And she has never had to do a book report or write a substantial story or poem.

One of my tutors works with a 10th-grader at what is supposedly one of the best high schools in the city. His student reads at a fifth-grade level. That doesn't mean that he just reads and writes slowly. It means that he doesn't understand the words in his assignments, so he doesn't even know where to begin, even if he desperately wants to improve. And he does -- to meet with his tutor, he gives up team practices and after-school events.

The Children's Defense Fund urges us to "leave no child behind," but the D.C. Public Schools have misread this important goal. They promote kids who should stay behind because they have not yet mastered the material. How else would a teenager arrive in high school with primary school skills?

Many teachers and teaching assistants don't get to know the kids in order to address their special needs. I visited a high school with one of the kids I tutor and met with all of her teachers, the assistant principal, the school counselor, the special-education folks and the social worker. Not one knew that several significant adults in this kid's life had died recently. Not one saw that she needed counseling and kind words, not just discipline.

I am a product of the public schools. I know that they can do better. I too was a teen who needed guidance and the caring attention of the adults around me. But the public schools provided them to me, even though my high school had 6,000 students and four sessions in terribly overcrowded conditions.

Helping the District's kids is not just a matter of fixing the infrastructure and hiring better teachers, although that will help. Our new school board has its work cut out for it, but the first step should be to talk to the kids. See how much they really want to learn, and how much they are handicapped by the system itself. Find out whether they can do simple math or read simple text. And then teach them what they need, based on their real level of understanding, not on the grade level they happen to be in.

Remember these kids the next time you grumble about the clerks in the supermarket or department store. If they can't make change or read the week's list of sales, perhaps it is because we did not give them the chance to learn. If your business can't hire young people with appropriate skills, perhaps it is because we haven't paid enough attention to the quality of education in the District. We cannot afford to leave another child behind.

-- Shari Lawrence Pfleeger