Dr. Kathleen Loftus Columnist EdNews.org

Many Americans, desperate for a savior to rescue our nation's failing schools, expressed dismay this week over Oprah Winfrey's decision to open a $40 million school, not in America's most depraved inner cities, but in South Africa.Calling the school "the fulfillment of my work on earth" Ms. Winfrey stated that she does not think that "American students who, unlike Africans, go to school free of charge, appreciate what they have," adding, "I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. 

The sense that you need to learn just isn't there." Oprah has given yet another wakeup call to America's educational bureaucracy, demonstrating that despite her impassioned desire to improve the education of today's youth, that she, nevertheless, refuses to invest even one of her seemingly limitless dollars into America's failing schools.

In interviewing a number of educators from some of the lower-income urban schools in the Chicago area, most confirmed Oprah's observation of a lack of a "need to learn. "First, as most reported, students in the majority of poorer schools are held to only the most minimal achievement standards, with far greater emphasis being placed on timeliness and behavior than learning. Students in these schools are shuffled from class to class, not unlike prisoners, frequently prodded by hallway "bouncers," crude security guards often with questionable backgrounds.Classes typically consist of very sparse and unimaginative instruction and "open book" worksheets being doled out by teachers who have long since succumbed to merely surviving in their unsupportive work settings. In the absence of adequate resources, America's poorest schools have dispensed with most of the niceties being enjoyed by their more affluent counterparts, (despite the fact that all students in America are entitled to an equal education).

The reality is, teachers who are subjected, on a daily basis, to grossly inadequate classrooms with broken desks, cracked windows, unbearable heat, or no heat at all, dripping ceilings, insects and rodents, faulty or unavailable equipment, lack of access to copiers and supplies, not to mention a lack of administrative support for student misbehaviors, have resigned themselves to a path of least resistance. While most started their teaching careers with enthusiasm, those who found themselves in America's underfunded schools soon came to know that "crowd control," and not "imparting knowledge" is the primary goal of their school system employers.

Students in these facilities have learned to respond in kind.Their teachers' apathy and indifference has not escaped them. Many have lived down to their teachers' expectations by becoming uncaring, unmotivated, and uninvested in their futures. Adding to this, a number of America's underfunded schools have adopted practices intended both to limit costs, while also to "rescue" their students from failing to graduate, which have had a number of unintended consequences, as well.

While a higher than average number of students growing up in inner cities have acquired learning deficits requiring more remediation and specialized education, instead of adhering to applicable federal education laws designed to meet these students' learning needs, most of America's underfunded schools, where the majority of these students reside, are the very ones that seek to limit the number of students whom they "identify" for additional services, due to the added instructional costs.Further, in Chicago Public Schools, for example, Mayor Daley was instrumental in compelling the requirement that all students "earning" a CPS diploma complete and pass two consecutive years of the same foreign language, as well as chemistry, physics, and advanced algebra-trigonometry, along with four consecutive years of English, biology and other sciences, three social sciences and other requirements. This expectation fully discounts the alternative vocational track option allowed by the U.S. Department of Education and most states. Still, this rather ambitious expectation would be simply wonderful if the students were actually held to these high academic standards, by not allowing any student failing to meet minimal State learning benchmarks for each of these required courses to attain graduation status. Instead, as was revealed by me firsthand in my Illinois State monitoring of some of Chicago's underfunded high schools in 2000-2002, students failing to pass the more rigorous required math and science classes, for example, were placed into "undocumented" remedial courses, unofficially titled "Math 1, Math 2, etc."  in order to allow them to attain passing grades that were then recorded on their transcripts as having passed the required "official" classes. What a shock to many of their parents when these students were then subsequently unable to pass the entrance exams to their local community colleges, developed at minimal GED levels.

Realizing their schools' greater motivation toward moving them through the system than ensuring their genuine learning, many of America's poorer students, particularly those lacking sufficient long-term goals, will usually become complicit.Ironically, many students consistently scoring in the lowest quartile of their State's standardized tests still manage to earn high school diplomas, proving that their English teachers have surely resorted to awarding passing grades to essays fraught with misspellings, misuse of verb tenses, and grammar that would be unacceptable in any other setting. The following quote from an actual high school student's recent written statement is just one example:

"I wuz finna ta beeyup at my frendes lacher wen I seen tha my gurl was doggin her homies cuz thay wer meen muggin and frontin wid her by the liberry."

What adds to students' lack of motivation to learn in America's underfunded schools is, for some, a lack of need to do so for their own survival, while, for others, it is the result of a lack of hope for their futures. Many of the poorest African-American students, for example, are recruited by America's Historically Black Colleges, or HBC's, which, while providing much needed opportunities, do not require their applicants to adhere to as stringent minimal test scores or class ranks as their more traditional counterparts, alleviating much of the fear of "getting in" compelling other college-bound students. Sadly, however, what is even worse is the lack any specific instruction in America's schools related to overcoming one's dependence on Public Aid, particularly for the majority of the less-motivated poor students. Far too many students in America lack the "drive to survive," being all too familiar with subsidized housing, groceries, medical care, and other services that represent the primary means of sustenance for practically everyone they know. Meanwhile, for many of their Hispanic classmates who often share the same underfunded schools, there is little training in our schools related to how to overcome their seemingly bleak destinies, as well. While most have attended American schools their whole lives, many excelling academically, the overriding majority of Hispanic youth do not aspire to higher education due to questionable or undocumented citizenship status that they have come to believe will doom them to a lifetime of housekeeping and lawn maintenance, rather than being provided instruction in how to attain citizenship status legally.

In order to repair America's underfunded schools and reverse the growing byproduct of its apathetic, dependent, and unskilled future citizens, the basic principles of motivation must now be employed without further delay. First, the instructional environment must be improved, without exception, to enhance a positive learning climate. This means that it can no longer be acceptable in America for students from poorer backgrounds to be penalized with insufficient teaching or learning settings. Secondly, incentives must be reworked to compel the right goals. Greater emphasis must be placed on cause and effect, with students being provided clearer understanding between their dreams and the steps required to attain them.Authentic knowledge must be valued over timely, but meaningless, diplomas. Third, development of students' internal motivation to learn must become a schoolwide practice, requiring frequent opportunities for them to try, to fail, and to try again with ongoing encouragement and support from teachers who are not too stressed or too overburdened to care.

Fourth, schools must recognize, rather than simply condemn, students' current motivations and circumstances. This means training teachers to relate to students' current priorities, while skillfully guiding these priorities toward long-range usable goals and skills. Instruction must be organized to meet students at their current developmental levels. This means, instead of alienating students by criticizing their typical withdrawal into their iPods and cell phones, (which even the poorest students manage to acquire), that these and other relatable subject matter be utilized as openings, as starting points, to involve students in learning that feels meaningful to them.Meaningful and relatable instruction, in turn, reawakens interest and revitalizes one's hope for the future.

Truly good teachers already understand this concept and have somehow managed to sustain teaching that inspires and motivates, despite numerous obstacles. They should be identified and duly compensated.Unfortunately, there is practically no correlation made between the achievement of a school's students and the efforts of their individual teachers who are, instead, all compensated at the same rate each year regardless of the performance of their students. Talk about a lack of motivation!

Perhaps Oprah, or other generous benefactors, will reconsider saving America's schools and will recognize that upholding Dr. King's dream of an equal opportunity for all is the first step toward revitalizing educational opportunities for all of America's students.