Guam DOE Must Get Back To Basics

Headline News

Opinion

Written by Jeff Marchesseault, Guam News Factor Staff Writer

Tuesday, 17 November 2009 14:53

GDOEbldg

By Jeff Marchesseault

GUAM – In the flurry of quality-of-learning issues surrounding Guam's public schools, it's easy to forget what's most important about the business of education. Literacy. The Department of Education needs to get back to basics: reading, writing and arithmetic. And while we're at it, how about picking up the trash, mowing the lawn and slapping on a fresh coat of paint?

These priorities start from the top. And if the condition of Guam DOE's administration building is any indication of the school system's priorities, then evidently presentation, pride and safety isn't high on the list.

Leading by example also means taking pride in the appearance and care of our facilities.

On Sunday, Guam News Factor paid a visit to the administration building in Hagatna and found a mound of trash piled up in a dirty DOE flatbed truck parked in the front yard, a grocery cart full of aluminum cans, an air-conditioner hose leaking water on a sidewalk covered with slippery slime, rusting fixtures, and a mold-covered, paint-chipped exterior with weeds growing out of it. The whole building and parts of the yard looked unkempt and uncared for. If DOE is to be taken seriously in its efforts to improve any aspect of underperforming schools, then it must send a message from its headquarters that this carelessness will not be tolerated.

During her 2009 State of Education Address last Friday, Superintendent Dr. Nerissa Underwood acknowledged, but downplayed, the seemingly intractable problems plaguing public schools and hailed individual success stories. She told us that the media overplays the problems and that what really counts is the learning that is taking place in the classroom.

While individual success stories are important to celebrate in context, they are often too isolated to measure performance trends.

By now the list of educational troubles is all too familiar: mismanagement of funds; lack of proper controls on the expenditure of federal funds; unmanageable maintenance issues at antiquated run-down school buildings; overcrowding; overstaffing; underperformance; distress among staff and administrators; life-threatening behavioral problems among students; political interference; and a tangle of contradictory laws that remove the governor himself from the chain of command.

As Underwood pointed out, some of these problems are being addressed and are worth embracing. The U.S. Department of Education is assigning a third party to manage federal dollars; maintenance is gradually being outsourced, as recommended by auditors; some new schools have been built to address the overcrowding; the superintendent has initiated corrective actions in response to some underperforming staffers; and a number of exemplary achievements by certain schools and individuals are worthy of praise and emulation.

But in the littany of these pockets of success, our kids still aren't getting the education that will make them competitive for life.

Great big obvious problems persist. Overall, student performance at Guam public schools is below the national average at a time when the national average is low among developed nations; most students still struggle with achieving on par with their grade level in the core skills of reading, writing and arithmetic; and hazardous structural conditions and behavioral situations continue to impinge on learning.

Furthermore, arguments continue over the numbers, qualifications and aptitudes of personnel necessary to complete given tasks.

But when you take all of that away, it all boils down to teachers in classrooms with students and books and the fact that kids still aren't learning what they need to learn in order to be employable and upwardly mobile with promising careers making progressive contributions to society. The focus should be on what's happening in the minds of students in general and how to optimize their learning. But right now students are ablur and we're focusing on distractions and exceptions, not core competencies. Not reading, writing, arithmatic and safe, comfortable learning environments.

Perhaps it's time for DOE to take a step back from the thick of things, take a deep breath and look at the perennial problems from an outside perspective. Maybe some fundamental questions are in order. If I was new to Guam, what would my impressions of public education be? Given Guam's place on the map, its tourism and military economy, its outdoor-friendly environment, rich culture and fascinating history, what are the student's best opportunities for achievement? Given limited resources, what can we do to improve safety? How can we make teaching and learning more meaningful, compelling and rewarding for teachers and students? What is our end game? Let's decide what that is and start taking phased steps toward arriving there.

It begins by deciding what's most important right now. Let's commit to getting all of our students up to their grade level in reading, writing and arithmetic. Mastery of these basic skills will strengthen their performance in other subjects. Let's tighten security and stiffen penalties at schools with chronic social and behavioral problems. And let's start taking more pride in the appearance and upkeep of our buildings. We can make excuses about why the grass isn't mowed, why the paint's chipping off school buildings, and why we can't help but let leaky air conditioners make for slippery, fungus-covered sidewalks. But there are too many resources on Guam for that to be a legitimate reason for allowing even the most aged buildings to fall into such a state of dangerous disrepair. And there are just too many resources at our disposal in general to allow ourselves to go on believing that reading, writing, arithmatic and safety are unattainable at Guam's public schools.

John Dela Rosa contributed to this report.

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