20% of Grade 4 Students In BC are Failing

Are Students or Teachers Failing?

“Right now in British Columbia one in five students who complete Grade 4 do not read, write or have math skills at a Grade 4 level. It’s important for us to find ways to help that 20 per cent of students do better. We know the answer is to invest in early childhood learning,” said Premier Campbell. “It’s important that we make sure that every one of our children is lifted up to take full advantage of the opportunities that lie before them.” Quote from Premier Gordon Campbell Oct. 27, 2010.

 

A portion of the Premiers address to the province the other night which seems to have been pretty much ignored or glossed over by mainstream media declares our mulit-million (or billion) dollar education system still can not adequately teach the basics at a grade four learning level.

How many more decades of experimenting with teaching the basics will it take before we can expect grade 4 students who are 'completing' grade 4 will actually be able to function at the grade 4 level?

20% Failure Rate Seems Acceptable!!

This is obviously not some great revelation that just fell on the Premier the other night before he tried convincing us to give him another chance. Clearly our education system has been failing 20% of our students for years and years. Yet, why has it never been an issue, and better still, why is everyone not up in arms demanding to know just what is going on in the ministry of education.

Try applying a 20% failure rate to just about any human endeavour and see how long you would be holding your job. Would you hire an electrician that failed 20% of the time? A plumber? A dentist? A doctor? (that could be a bad example). But I am sure you get my drift. Since when did a 20% failure rate at anything become acceptable? 

I am presuming that under the current system those 20% who have basically failed to learn at a grade 4 level for the 3 R's are promoted to the grade 5 level and so on. Which begs the question, if they haven't grasped the grade 4 level stuff, how in blazes are they going to get the grade 5 level stuff? Another thing to consider, if these kids are being pushed along through the system without holding them back (because that ain't what we do anymore) what kind of ongoing frustration are they being set up for? 

Now, back to the title; who is it that is really failing here, the students or the teachers?