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Kids now race off to part-time jobs after school (an increasing phenomenon in the '70s) or congregate around the McDonald's in Medford Square. It is hard to keep them in class. The daily absentee rate: 12%.
So many students have taken to alcohol and dope that Medford has set up a special office for drug and drink consultation.
Three years ago, when the extent of the drug problem became apparent, Headmaster William McCormack called in a 27-year-old undercover agent. Posing as a transfer senior, he ambushed 39 students.
Thirty-eight of them swore off drugs after conferences with McCormack and their parents. Many more eluded him.
Discipline problems haunt the school's five miles of corridors. Under an "open campus" scheme that permitted upperclassmen to roam throughout the school during certain periods, most respected the privilege. But some smoked joints or whooped it up in the halls. When a fight erupted briefly in September between some of Medford's 135 black students and several whites— reputedly members of a tough gang called "the River Rats" — officials abolished the program. The community, concerned about lax discipline, was delighted.
Medford's SAT scores have dropped about 10% in the past decade. Its accreditation by the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools — once al most automatic— is being reconsidered.
The students blame the teachers. "Most kids don't even know what a term paper is or how to use footnotes," complains Michele Phillips, a tall, sophisticated student who is president of the school's National Honor Society chapter. "Academically, this school isn't bad," says Phil Holmes, student manager of the radio station. "But the school's too lenient. People graduate and don't know how to read and write."
Top-level advanced-placement courses are available but soft options are far more enticing. Some of the 185 courses sound like question categories on some TV game show: Great Sleuths, Exploring the Occult, Contemporary Issues. Graduation requirements are "pathetic," says one administrator. Students must compile only 80 credits, including four years of English and one of American history. They must also take one year of civics and four of physical education, although passing grades are not required. Headmaster McCormack has repeatedly tried to boost the minimum number of credits to 104, but has been turned down for financial reasons.
Some classroom vignettes raise questions about the value of teachers' time. In a ninth-grade college-preparatory English class, for instance, a teacher instructs her students on how "to talk to one another." She pouts and gestures to illustrate tone and attitude changes, then reads a short story about being loving and capable. For homework, the students are told to make a tear in a sheet of paper each time someone is mean to them and a pencil mark when someone makes them feel good about themselves. The kids snicker as they file out.
In a business-English class, the students spend 40 minutes reading and parsing one paragraph from Call of the Wild. The teacher, a peppy, ruddy-faced man, punctuates the period with