All right. Let's call this meeting to order. Are all of my cronies, politicians, bureaucrats, and various other non-educators present.? Good. Let's gather around this conference table and fix education.
First, let's itemize our problems.
1. Students, especially low income ones, are not achieving at acceptable standards in reading and math.
2. Many American schools are underperforming, widening our performance gap with China (and many other countries).
3. The cycle of substandard education is perpetuated and kids fall through the cracks because there is no teacher, school, or district accountability for failure to perform.
Okay, roll up your sleeves, people. I haven't seen the inside of a classroom since 1984, but I want to hammer this out by lunchtime. First of all, we need a way to measure student performance so that we can hold educators accountable. How about this? Let's mandate standardized testing for each grade level. Teachers will teach the skills and the test will measure the students' proficiency. Then we will know how well the teachers are teaching. We can withhold funding if they underperform.
That's perfect. I mean, kids are all the same, right? They learn the same way. They have the same strengths and weaknesses. They all have a "Leave it to Beaver" home life. There are never extenuating life circumstances like hunger, illiteracy, poverty, or violence that inhibit or slow learning. Teachers will teach one way and the students will learn it for the test. It all comes down to numbers. It's very simple.
Sure, teachers might have to spend extraordinary amounts of time and resources preparing the children for the tests. Okay, so maybe teachers may not be able to use their wealth of training and professional discretion to individualize instruction and teach the whole child. Teachers don't need that kind of power anyway. For Pete's sake, it's not like they are doctors who make life-changing decisions for their patients. Bottom line: we need someone to point the finger at when kids don't perform.
The kids? Well the special needs kids and kids who struggle may be underserved because the focus will shift away from their own challenges and onto test-taking strategies. The average and above-average children might be drilled and unchallenged, with little time for out-of-the box thinking. This high stakes testing could lead to student apathy and increased drop-out rates of struggling kids. But, hey. Survival of the fittest, right?
In order to pay for these mandates, states and school districts might need to make monetary cuts in untested subjects like foreign languages and technology. You know, the areas of dire importance for competing in a global economy. But whatever.
This will sufficiently drive away future quality educators - those who nobly enter the field to inspire, challenge, create, and make a difference in kids' lives. We will be left with supervisory adults who specialize in test compliance. Fantastic.
We can aim to have 100% proficiency by 2014. That is not unreasonable or unrealistic at all! We will set standards so unreachably high that even the academically successful schools will be deemed "failing". Then our bureaucracy can sweep in and save the day, instituting new red tape and handing out waivers like candy.
Sounds like a plan. Let's skill 'em, drill 'em, and kill 'em for sub-par scores. Meaningful curriculum, student collaboration and problem-solving, teacher autonomy and innovation - they're all overrated. Especially in the inner-city.
What should we call this new proposal? Hmm. What is a good, touchy-feely catch phrase that will demonstrate our good intentions and garner bipartisan support? I've got it! "No Child Left Behind". It is genius! Who wants to leave a child behind? No one! This will be a bipartisan blockbuster! Look, even Ted Kennedy likes it!
Well, that was easy. Good meeting, everybody. Now let's all put our hands in and on the count of three, say, "Mediocrity"! Very good, now let's grab lunch.
Not sure you want my comment on this one. Well written, got your point across but I don't see why having a minimum curriculum goal for each student and testing for it at the end of the school year hand cuffs educators to a minimal curriculum for all. High achieving students should be able to be pressed far beyond the minimum (however, I agree they are not currently pressed). As a matter of fact, my son is received a Math average of 99 on his last report card, but he can't be moved into a higher math class (with the kids he has always been with) because he wouldn't be challenged any more than he is now and "we" (the school) thinks there are too many BOYS in that class as it is....girls need to "feel" successful in math too. UGHHH! Jake does Hanna's 7th grade math homework with her frequently to get the challenge he's looking for but seriously....our schools care TOO much about each persons feelings! Ok that's a different rant. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteMy husband, who is not an educator, must meet professional goals yearly which include but are not limited to furthering his knowledge (additional education on his profession not paid for by the company), he must meet deadlines regardless of short coming in the market and constant changes in the infrastructure. He frequently works until 1:00- 2:00 a.m. on projects (including everyday this month), he travels if needed, if he does not meet his goals he does not receive a bonus. He is subject to random drug testing and he only gets 2 weeks vacation a year. He answers his own phone, returns his own e-mail, puts together his own presentations. No one is at the front desk stopping visitors from popping into his office.
This is how life is done now. There are standards to meet. There are late nights (when was the last time you met someone who worked 40 hours a week?), there are expectations for excellence. It seems the only areas that shies away from those expectations are education and the service industry. Stop the touchy, feely, sensitivity training. Stop the let's celebrate everyone's uniqueness through dance and doll building and bring on the research of other cultures. Let's learn some stuff and stop all this "school should be fun" rigamarole....school should be work for kids...fun should be had by all at an appropriate time.
Absolutely, Cynthia. There should be standards of excellence. Kids should work hard. I am certainly not among the moms that think that school should be a "Kumbaya" celebration. My kids are high achieving students and if you ask any of their teachers, they'll tell you that I don't play when it comes to school.
ReplyDeleteI was and still consider myself a teacher. I write this post as a teacher. It is not the same situation on the "other side of the tracks", which is where my teaching life (and my heart) used to be. These are the teachers that fight every day in the trenches against the elements of the neighborhood. I had kids come to school, still reeling from a domestic incident in the middle of the night. I had kids that shoved food in their pockets at lunch time because they were fairly certain they would not get dinner that evening. This was not sometimes; this was often.
When you are trying to teach kids who don't even have their basic needs met, you don't need the government looming over you telling you that you need to teach them "main idea" and story problem-solving, or else. You need to be trusted to meet the kids where they are and do everything in your power to bring them up to speed.
I will tell you that I would not let those challenges stop me as a teacher. I believed in those kids, in their intelligence, and in a better future for them. So I found ways to teach those standards through guided reading, shared reading, and math role playing. At the same time, I had those inner-city students running their own literature circles, conducting independent research, and writing original stories. If they were ever going to be held up to the same standards that our more fortunate kids are, then they need the same advantages. I had extremely high expectations of those children. I pushed them, I challenged them, and I nurtured them every day because they needed it.
My point is that achieving excellence in education doesn't look the same for all kids, all demographics, all schools. I faced very different, very real challenges in my teaching than my own children's teachers (who, by the way, have plenty of instructional battles to fight as well). So to set one standard of excellence for millions of different kids is unrealistic. It doesn't work. Just like we cannot use the exact same parenting tactics with each of our children. They are different.
So let's have high standards for all of our kids. I always aim high when it comes to kids. But just because we give a test does not mean we get excellence. More often, we get much less.