THE RIGGING OF
AMERICAN SCHOOLS* How Schools Are Rigged to Produce Losers (1) The graded school which assigns pupils to classes on the basis of their age. In the graded school, successful pupils are permitted to "pass" and unsuccessful pupils are retained or remediated. (2) Standardized testing programs which are designed to identify winners and losers. A loser is defined as one of a certain percentage of pupils destined to do poorly on the test. (3) Strong emphasis on competition in schools as a way of screening out the "least fit" pupils. This practice is often justified on the grounds that we must prepare pupils for our dog-eat-dog society by teaching them to handle failure in a dog-eat-dog school. (4) The use of artificial rewards including stars on a wall chart, tokens, letter grades, school letters, membership in honor societies, honor rolls, and pins given out in rewards assemblies -- all depriving pupils of the opportunity of learning for the right reasons. (5) The letter grading system which forces teachers to communicate messages of unworthiness and failure to pupils on a regular basis. (6) Grouping and ranking practices which continuously remind our least successful pupils that the school thinks some pupils are better than they are. (7) The social system among pupils, which is one of the least obvious forms of rigging. The system typically consists of a highly structured, rigid hierarchy of cliques. Pupils Identified as a member of one clique often feel "frozen in" - i.e., unable to transfer to or participate in the activities of other cliques. Being frozen into membership in a low prestige clique is, for many pupils, the ultimate put-down. (8) “Dumping groundism,” or devising special courses for "loss worthy" pupils, then creating pressures that cause them to enroll. (9) The school's schedule and its program of classes, which is a way of segregating the losers from the winners by limiting pupils' choice regarding what and with whom they will study. *Figure excerpted from There May Be No Fair Play in American Rigged Schools, Changing Schools, Vol. 17, No. 1, winter 1989. |