Education Reform, My Ass

Yesterday's NWI Times reported that yes, indeed, former Indiana State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett did in fact alter the school accountability grades. This will require the grades to be re-figured for all the schools, however, a law requiring a new grading system  takes effect Nov. 15 which will complicate things further still. So the citizens of the Hoosier State have an educational accountability mess on their hands.

At the national level things don't seem to be much better. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday discussed the setbacks to minority education under the Obama administration.

During the Clinton-Bush era (1999-2008), white 9-year-olds gained 11 points in math, African-American student performance rose by 13 points and Hispanic student leaped by 21 points. In reading, the gains by white 9-year-olds went up seven points, black performance jumped by 18 points and Hispanic student achievement climbed 14 points.
Those remarkable gains came to an end after the Obama administration took charge. Between 2008-12, gains by African-Americans at age 9 were just two points in each subject, while Hispanics gained one point in reading and nothing in math. Whites gained one point in reading and two points in math.

So far the Obama administration has granted waivers to 40 states, allowing them to be free from the accountability of No Child Left Behind. This is the law that says all students regardless of their race or ethnicity will be proficient by 2014. So at the end of this school year - the one that starts next week for my former school district - everyone should be reading and computing at grade level. That's going to have to be one helluva sprint to the finish for that to happen.

I've never been a fan of No Child Left Behind but if the figures cited above are true, it has done some good along with all the havoc it wrought. But if 40 of the 50 states saw that they weren't going to be able to meet the standards by the end of the upcoming school year and opted out, will the remaining ten meet the goals? Will everyone in those ten states be proficient? According to the Wall Street Journal op-ed piece:  "There isn't anything positive to report about student achievement at the high-school level, since neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration placed much emphasis on student testing after eight grade. At age 17, whites or blacks didn't gain as much  as a single point per year either from 1999-2008 or during the past four years." Oops. Looks like maybe it didn't do that much after all.

From the political standpoint, here's my take. The right wing politicians say we need more accountability and testing, even if that means we have to cook the books a little to make the numbers come out right. The left wing politicians look at what the outcome is liable to be as the finish line approaches and give waivers to 80% of the contestants. They replace No Child Left Behind with Race to the Top, which I'm sure will be successful because they're willing to throw four billion dollars at the problem.

From an educational standpoint, here's my take on it. Come up with a list of reasonable outcomes that every student should be able to accomplish. Break everything down into small modules. If a kid hasn't mastered fourth grade math but has mastered everything else, why have him repeat all of fourth grade? Or, as is more likely to happen, pass him on even though he can't do fourth grade math. If you go to a trade school to be a mechanic, if you don't pass fuel injection class, they don't make you take transmission class over again. Seems simple enough.

Hire good teachers, pay them well and try to keep them. If half the teachers find a new line of work before five years goes by, there is something very wrong. Any other industry with that kind of turnover would be pulling their hair out looking for a solution. How about this as an example: Next week I have to attend a meeting at the college. It's scheduled for three hours in length but refreshments will be served and I'm going to get paid to attend. Paid to attend a meeting - how 'bout them apples?

Finally, while there needs to be oversight at the classroom level, that's going to require good leadership. That will probably be the hardest part of the equation. If you put knuckleheads in charge, why would you be surprised when someone who has invested a minimum of four years getting an education degree and is willing to start a job that pays only slightly above the poverty level, decides to drag up because they can't take the added stress of working for a bozo on top of attending meetings, wiping noses, staying late grading papers, and all the rest?

In summary, the issue is obviously more complicated than what my simple solutions will take care of. The point is, these are changing times. The school model needs to change with it. Recognize that today's students are not the same as those of fifty years ago and change the system to better serve the clientele. Encourage and support the creativity of the teachers, rather than stifling it. There's a lot that could be done but it won't happen with the interference of the self-serving politicians who come up with grand plans they think will work because they said it will. Educational excellence can't be legislated. It requires excellent teachers, treated fairly and compensated accordingly.