Whether you are an early childhood educator, a secondary teacher, or a corporate trainer, you will probably agree that it is much easier to teach to the top of the class.  Educators of all types find that students who demonstrate aptitude, ability, and desire are much easier to teach.  An Alexandria, VA area school is an example of this.  According to the Washington Post, T.C. Williams is on notice from the federal government that they had better close the obvious achievement gap, and soon!  This school, like many around the country, have just fallen into a pretty easy trap of teaching to the top and being so pleased with their success that the bottom gets overlooked.

So what about the bottom?  I have a theory about education and why some folks seem so satisfied with mediocre or less-than-mediocre achievement.  It's call the level of indifference.  In America, the land of opportunity, the mentality of parents has always been that 'as long as my children are better off than me, then I've done all I can do'.  For example, the illiterate parent may say that as long as my child learns to read, he or she has arrived at success.  That parent, and essentially that child, have reached the level of indifference where they no longer strive or desire to achieve any other educational goals.  Of course, there are plenty of exceptions to this.  Many children, out of pure determination and sometimes desperation, pull themselves up out of educational poverty and surpass even the highest of expectations.

My theory, however, may explain why and how a school like T.C. Williams has been allowed to facilitate such an enormous gap between the top of the class and the bottom.  Perhaps, those students who fall into the bottom have reached their level of indifference and they, and their parents, no longer desire to achieve any more educational goals.  I'm not saying it's right.  A school, a classroom should be a place where all students are challenged to increase their intelligence on a daily basis.  But this may just help explain the situation in Alexandria and elsewhere.