Spettel and other school officials had considerable leeway in discussing what to do because the 180 public schools in Fairfax County are allowed substantial independence in devising curriculum.
“We were alarmed that our reading scores last year were so low,” English Department chairman Ebba Jo Spettel said. “The black child is at risk no matter what the socioeconomic group,” said Eretha Williams, a Sandburg teacher.Īt Sandburg, a drop in scores on standardized tests led administrators and teachers to some hard thinking about the problems of underachieving students. Fairfax officials came to the uncomfortable realization that the definition of a child at risk in the suburbs included more than the children of poor or unstable families. The county’s research, first compiled four years ago, showed that minority students generally get lower grades, are enrolled in fewer honors classes, are less likely to graduate from high school and are more likely to be disciplined by school officials than their white counterparts.Īlthough minority children are disproportionately likely to be poor, the findings applied to all income levels. Meier and associates, based on county figures, indicates that black students in Fairfax were only one-third as likely as white students to be assigned to a class for the gifted in 1984 and 140% more likely to be suspended than other students. Research by University of Wisconsin political science Prof. The implications are clear: Schools must reduce their failure rate to produce a competent work force for the next century. These and other factors point to more school failure at the same time the number of school-age children is declining. Nationally, the percentage of children in poverty is increasing immigration is bringing in more students who do not speak English, and teen-age pregnancy rates mean more children entering school who have been raised in less-than-ideal circumstances. In Fairfax, as in communities across the country, the job of educator is being altered dramatically by social and economic trends. Disproportionately, those minorities are likely to be poor even in this comfortable county there are trailer parks and dingy apartments. A decade ago, one in 11 county students was a minority now, one in five is. “You’re talking about kids identified in elementary school as blue, orange and yellow birds, and they fall into that mold and they want to break out of it,” said Carol Robinson, an assistant principal at Sandburg.Ĭhanging demographics give new urgency to the issue of reaching underachievers in Fairfax County. And Fairfax is a particularly appropriate laboratory to illustrate why. But this approach, known as tracking, is increasingly under attack. Until last year, students in English classes at Sandburg were grouped by ability, a standard practice in public education in this country. The staggered spelling test is designed to offer something for everyone. And students in the class decide in advance how many words they want to be tested on: 10, 20 or 30. Reading levels vary from third grade to high school. Vernon area of Fairfax County, Va., is not filled with students of similar academic ability. Unlike many American classrooms, this one at Carl Sandburg Intermediate School in the Mt. Sontag slowly recited the final 10 words, ending in “unison.”
“Ten-word people?” The final few started up. “Twenty-word people?” Most of the other students went to work as Sontag read out the next 10 words. “Thirty-word people, are you ready?” teacher Alice Sontag asked.Ī third of her students bent over their desks and began to write as Sontag called out the first word on the examination-"monastery"-followed by nine more. Pencils and hopes in hand, the two dozen Fairfax County eighth-graders nervously awaited their spelling test.