Lowest Common Denominator

I have decided that the problem with many current policies is that we are trying to save what some people call the lowest common deonominator. This is a phrase that I've heard a lot recently to explain those people that need the most help. It's kind of a degrading term, don't you think? Degrading or not, I think that this may be the problem with our current government.


I'll give you and example using a subject I know best, education. According to studies, if I group my students heterogenously then I will get the best results out of my lowest students. Grouping students heterogenously means that I pair up my lowest student with my highest student. My highest student will "teach" my lowest student, and my lowest student will want to be as "good" as my highest student. I don't know where they are getting these results, but it has NEVER happened this way in my 10 years of teaching. It may work if the gap between my lowest and my highest student is not that far apart, but when you teach in an urban district, there are huge gaps in the ability between the highest and the lowest. Let me give you an example of the gap.

I have students in my 7th grade class that are at first, second, and third grade levels in reading and writing. I have some that are at fourth, fifth, and sixth. I have some that are seventh, eighth and high school. Here's what happens when you put a kid at a second grade level with another student at an eight grade level. The second grade level kid distrupts the learning process so that the student in the eighth grade level never finds out how low the second grade level student is. Or, the eighth grade level student comes to me and says that the other student "can't do it and I'm tired' gives up and gives the lower performing student the answers, or the eighth grade student fools around with second grade level student. However it plays out, the higher level student NEVER learns as much as he/she could if you put him in a group with equally leveled students. This is why higher level students that have parents that can afford it, leave the urban district schools and head to private or charter schools.

Now our comparison to the government. President Obama has the best of intentions. He wants those that can't (some would say there are those that won't in that group, but let's call them the CAN'T group) to be able to live up with those that can. If you put those that can with those that can't together and make them share their resources, those that can't will be able to get more and live a little bit better. But what actually happens is the same thing as what happens in the classroom, those that can either are brought down lower because they are helping those that can't, getting tired and giving to those that can't, or giving up and moving to a 'community' with equally leveled people. Any way you move it around, everyone is suffering.