NeffZone: The Tale of Harrietta High

This is a cautionary tale about the mythical Harrietta High School. Once upon a time Harrietta High was the pride of the community. Alas, those days are long gone because the Fighting Hawks, as they were known back then, failed to make the grade. Here’s how it happened.

Back in the day the students, parents, and community were all happy about what was going on at HHS. The vast majority of students went on to successful lives after graduation.

The only bone of contention was that locals had to vote every so often to keep or increase the operating millage. Even that was eventually taken care of when the state of Michigan offered a better deal. From now on the state would finance HHS by giving the school a stipend per student. “Even though we’re giving some districts elsewhere twice as much per student, don’t let that bother you,” they said. “Trust us; we know what’s best for HHS. Local control is overrated. Your financial worries are over.”

Things went along just fine for quite a while. Then one day someone in Washington, D.C. noticed that the U.S. was not doing so well in the Olympics when it came to the 100 yard dash. They concluded that the problem was that children in the United States were not working hard enough on their sprinting. So they passed a law that said that every high school student in the country had to become a proficient sprinter by a set date. Any school that did not make their students faster would be deemed a failure and that school would be subject to stiff penalties.

Well, HHS always had done well in track and field, so not many people in the community thought this new law would be any big deal. On the day designated for the times sprints, 94 of HHS’s 100 students reported to the track. Two students had asthma, so their doctors advised against running a sprint. One other student had a broken leg, two were in wheel chairs, and one was sight-impaired. All six kids had their own special abilities and talents; it was just that sprinting was not their strong suit. That said, the remaining 94 gave the sprint their best shot.

When the results were tallied federal officials gave HHS their verdict. Although HHS students ran hard a few ran too long in the same spot. HHS would be given another chance to make every single student the same fast speed. No excuses. And by the way, those slackers with weak lungs, broken bones, and other phony excuses would need to suck it up and sprint just like everyone else. No special consideration would be given. Having 94 students out of 100 participate was not good enough. From now on it would be all 100 or nothing.

The HHS community was aghast. “Not to worry,” said the state of Michigan. “We know exactly how to solve your problem and you will do exactly what we tell you. After all, we hold the purse strings so we get to call the shots. If we want your opinion we’ll give it to you.”

“Your problem is not the students,” said the state. “Your coaches are too old and slow.” So, HHS figured out a way to retire the old coaches and hired a bunch of new coaches. The new coaches soon realized that even though they tried every new coaching technique in the book the kids with asthma still had asthma and the kid with the broken leg could only heal a certain rate – there were some things coaching could not change.

“Oh,” said the state, “that’s not true. The problem is your need fewer coaches and the ones you keep need to be paid less. As soon as they start to earn less your kids will automatically get faster. As a bonus, if you privatize your custodians the kids with asthma will no longer have asthma.”

“By the way,” said the state, “we’ve just found two more kids roaming in the Manistee forest. They’ve never been coached and their parents think ‘schoolin’ is a waste of time. You have to coach them because it’s the law.”

The HHS community hunkered down and gave it the old Fighting Hawks try. However, the truth of the matter was that some kids just were not born to be sprinters. They were nice kids. Some were just better suited to be long distance runners or even something totally unrelated to running. Plus, the two “forest children” took so much extra coaching that the coaches had to coach the other kids less, which affected the sprint times of the entire student body.

In the end Harrietta High was branded as a “failed school” and a state-appointed manager was brought in to close down the operation. He transferred the students to other high schools, although those other schools complained that they already had plenty to do in trying to figure out how to make their own students faster and dumping an extra burden on them was just going to make them less efficient.

The moral of the story is this: When you read the Michigan state report card on schools that says 717 schools failed, do so with a skeptical eye. The federal “one test fits all” No Child Left Behind law is so badly flawed that federal officials are already talking about “granting waivers” for some schools. Indeed, the state of Michigan has applied for a 10-year waiver for the entire state. Deep down even the state knows the NCLB is just a political game.

If you liked the Harrietta High story then you’ll love it when the No-Child 100% proficiency law for schools happens in 2014. It will be interesting to see which schools remain standing.


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