Educational Malpractice: For the purposes of this blog, we will define this term rather broadly, although a legal (tort) definition might be much more limited:
Any wrongful or negligent action that affects students negatively. For example, in my opinion, it would include counseling a student (or allowing them to counsel themselves) out of a rigorous program. For example, I was told by our top student (who was accepted Early Decision to Harvard) this month that when she was in 9th grade her counselor ("who might be a nice person," as the student said) told her, in response to a request to take AP Bio the following year; "that is really hard...it is for the students who are going to go to Harvard! You should really think about taking something less challenging." Amazing...
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In my position as college counselor I am also aware of many times when students (well, maybe it is really parents) would sue over recommendations written to colleges, or information that turns out to have a negative effect on the student's application to a college or university. Often, damages are rewarded to the student. What should happen? Counselors should be held accountable; they should be knowledgeable; they should keep themselves up-to-date and not over-promise things over which they have no real control or knowledge...
Educational malpractice cases might be in the works as we speak. Current budget crisis are forcing school administrators to become a little too creative with providing adequate instruction. Teachers are having to teach too many preps, teachers might be asked to teach out of their comfort zone, etc... Not sure about the situation with those three middle schools last year (Leighthy, Gompers, and some other one), but I think it was related to this topic. The students had had two years of classroom instability. Classrooms were being staffed with substitute after substitute throughout the year and we all know what a 'disaster' that is. How can you possibly argue that those conditions. Throughout my 17 years of teaching I have seen classroom situations that had I been a parent, I would have sued for educational malpractice. A teacher showing movies EVERY SINGLE DAY, a teacher just sitting in the back of the room reading the newspaper and letting students do as they pleased, a teacher not having any classroom management skills which are necessary to carrying out your professional duties (teaching). If parents could have spy cams in classrooms, they would be lining up to sue for educational malpractice.
First of all Carlos, Wow you have just described educational malpractice occurring daily at I would say all if not most schools around the nation. Yet I don't know whether the situations you describe are more harmful to students than the situation Stephen describes where counselors or other adults more directly effect the future of our students by writing negative recommendations or discourage students from aiming higher because of their perceived abilities. As a senior teacher I have heard both stories and in my opinion I believe Stephen's example to be far more damaging, not that I believe showing movies/reading the paper everyday is acceptable by any stretch of the imagination but some learning can still occur in this situation, not the ideal or most engaging learning, but a student could still succeed. While in the other example they are overtly being limiting/ruining the future of students.
My question is, how easy is it to prove educational malpractice? What percentage of these types of suits are being won? Who does the burden of proof rest with?
I agree with Diana. I have an example at my school where we were looking at students for the honors classes and the magnet school. One student scored really high on the math portion but do high basic on the English portion. The new title one coordinator did not believe me when I told him that this young man was very intelligent and that he knew more than he was letting on. He was a total slacker in the classroom. I had to literally get the scores for this student and hand them to our coordinator in order for him to believe me. So, then he decided to recommend this student for gifted and talented. I had at least 8 other students he had overlooked just because they did not seem to have what it takes to be in the gifted and talented program. One student scored so high in Math and English I cannot believe he was not put in the Magnet program when he came to the school. This student was not performing up to his potential this year. I knew there was something wrong because he was so gong ho about school in the beginning of the year. Well, I found out from his Dad that he has anemia. This has resulted him being tired and not working to his potential. Now that he is on the right medication his grades have totally improved.
This shows that educational malpractice is being committed everyday in schools.
My question is where do the parents take some of the responsibility in preventing some of this atrocities being committed in the name of education? Would it be different if they gave more of their time to be a part of the school community that serves their child?
To respond to Karen's final question, I believe that it would be very different if parents were able to contribute more to the school community. We know that parents lack of contribution at many schools is not due to them not caring about their child's education, but it is more related to the personal and professional responsibilities they themselves have to deal with. Another question might be, how can schools, teachers, and administrators do a better job of creating opportunities for parents with varied schedules to have more of a say at what goes on in their schools and to be more knowledgeable about practices and instruction that is occurring.
I also believe that both Stephen and Carlos are correct in their interpretations and perspectives of educational malpractice. It is disgustingly pervasive!!! Another point... we as teachers see our colleagues committing malpractice all the time. Do we speak up against it? Do we challenge or push back on it? We, as colleagues, may have the most powerful voices in setting the tone and values at own schools. The last time I heard another teacher at my site laugh off not giving their students enough time to work on a major research paper, I asked them, in front of other teachers in the lounge, if they believed that practice was equitable and would allow their students to be successful. Everyone just looked at me. I followed this up by saying that I wasn't surprised many of the students didn't turn it in and they did not receive the type of scaffolding and support they needed.
Maybe we just need to speak up and challenge each other more when we see or hear something like this. It's like the posters all over NYC subways after 9/11: "If you see something, say something."
I completely agree with you Akua, In schools we are all accountable for each other and we should be more proactive and push back, however, many are not. When conducting my student teaching, I observed how many teachers locked themselves in their rooms and wanted absolutely nothing to do with other teachers. Of course, they always commented about the poor decision making of some teachers and the lack of good judgment from others, however, they never did anything or say anything that would change their current practices. Also, I believe the principal is a key element, he/she must also ensure that the communication is constant amongst teachers and that that communication is that of how to improve teaching practices to better support students growth.
I agree with Akua that teachers should take responsibility and ownership of our community and call out teachers that are committing educational malpractice. I also agree with Ana that principals are key to helping this problem as they are truly the ones that can make the most impact due to their evaluations. The problem is that many teachers become so frustrated when they see educational malpractice occurring, report it, address and see nothing come of it. Jumping ahead to the HR course, all of the perceived educational malpractice on the part of the administrators who teachers don't believe are addressing it with the guilty teachers is I believe really an HR issue and often times is getting addressed but no one really sees it because administrators can't comment about reprimanding another teacher for legal reasons. This then causes teachers to believe nothing is getting down, potentially become disillusioned with the system and become distant as Ana mentioned. ]
Being in this quasi-administrative role I have seen how some of my prior frustrations and complaints about teachers who in my opinion were not fulfilling their contractual obligations have actually been talked to by the administrators but it has been really hard for them to make significant changes due to the teacher union and contract.
The student survey I conducted was really interesting because students too became disillusioned with the system when they reported educational malpractice and civil rights violations (a teacher calling them dumb, discriminated against because of their race/social class, etc.) to the administration and in their opinion nothing coming out of it. Or in their opinions the actions taken by the administration made things worse. To the administrations defense actions had been taken and in the works but the bureaucratic system as you know works slow and the major changes wouldn't really be seen until next year due to HR issues.
So where do we go from here? Who really can put a stop to this? I see future Leadership presentations on these topics.
Good points all around.
ACCOUNTABILITY AND ADVOCACY
Akua – Very true, that slogan… “If you see something, say something.” That often does take tremendous moral courage. I remember a time I addressed reports of shoddy instruction in a classroom, and (not where I am now, but at a large, comprehensive school) was told by administration, “What can I do about it?” That certainly sounds unacceptable, but given some union contract guidelines, that administrator may have had his hands tied. I later learned that students and parents had addressed this issue with the administration PRIOR to my discussion with the principal and had gotten no resolution.
I think our role all comes down to accountability and advocacy. Yes, often students are all too eager to give up their accountability and do not advocate for themselves, and yes, their parents may be complicit in this failure, too. The system fails in this regard as well. Business as usual and the paths of least resistance rarely get challenged, and that’s part of the trouble with public education right now.
As teachers it’s our duty to be accountable and advocate for student success. And I believe it’s our duty as teachers and administrators to create collaborative SYSTEMS in our schools that support accountability.
Estela Lopez- I agree with Ana and Akua teachers and principals are key elements to ensure the communication is constant.Karen also made a great point, parents need to also take part of the responsiblity and make sure their child is receiving the education possible. Yes, there's many factors that prevent parents from taking action but holding them accountable is necessary.
Accountability is a funny thing. As many of my cohort members have already shared, all stakeholders at a school site (or even at the district level) have an obligation to draw attention to practices that negatively affect students and hold their colleagues accountable. But many people are not comfortable with the "whistle-blower" label and therefore, say nothing and do nothing. I think whistle-blower is an accurate descriptor here because as Akua pointed out, the lack of accountability and perpetuation of negligent practices is so pervasive in American schools that anyone who dared criticize would be labeled as such!
Right now, an example of educational malpractice is being played out at my school in an area where it would be the easiest to prove: special education.
Scenario: Two students, two different IEP's, same recommendation - move the students from the general ed. population to an SDC environment. All parties, including admin and parents, signed off on the recommendations however, the students, months later, have yet to be moved. Why? Because the SDC teacher doesn't want the students in her classroom and begged her best friend, the counselor, to not make the scheduling switch.
Result: According to the counselor (and since she has dragged her feet on this for so long), with only seven weeks left in the school year, it is too disruptive to the students' academic progress to make the switch now. Is it educational malpractice to ignore the IEP? Absolutely. But I'll bet decisions like this are being made every day across the nation.
Carlos and Stephen were right on with the examples of education malpractice. I think both could be detremental. I had a student that took a teachers negative comments and used it as fuel for his own success. The teacher told him that there is no way he would get accepted to a 4-year university. Of course, the student was accepted to every school he applied to. He made a copy of the acceptance letters and placed them on the teachers desk. To piggy back off of what Akua said about parent participation or advocacy. I truly believe that there are a significant amount of parents that just don't know. I speak up to the administration at my childrens schools when things are wrong. However, there are a ton of other parents that stay with a closed mouth. I think they would rather not ruffle any feathers. So if their parents don't advocate for them, the teachers don't advocate for them, who should? If they don't have a voice what do you think will happen?
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