When Ohio’s new A-F school grading system is implemented in 2015, most schools will get a lower grade than what they get in the current system. Area educational leaders Kevin Kelly and Frank DePalma defend the new system, and in a DDN article give this explanation: “Ohio has raised its standards in bold and important ways for our children. … The lower grades are an inescapable part of the process of asking our schools, teachers and children to aim higher.”
The new system, according to Kelly and DePalma, will have a big pay-off. “Going forward,” they promise, “a high school diploma will mean a graduate can succeed in college without first taking remedial classes, or is ready to join the workforce with the necessary entry-level skills.”
The public has a right to be skeptical. Ohio’s new system is incorporates the principles of the No Child Left Behind federal law and the results of NCLB have been disappointing. In 2002, remember, promoters promised that, by 2014, NCLB would bring all children— regardless of ability or background — to “proficiency” in core knowledge and skills. As it is, 82% of schools have failed to meet their goal of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). The NCLB strategy of demanding more, giving low grades and rewarding and punishing didn’t work and Kelly and DePalma give no explanation why they are confident the NCLB strategy will work as part of Ohio’s new system.
The more important observation to be made, however, is that Ohio’s new A-F system fails to correct Ohio’s foundational deficiencies. Even if test scores go up, Ohio’s system of public education will still be woefully inadequate. We now have a system that at its foundation is thoroughly corrupted with the erroneous assumptions that guided NCLB: 1) The purpose of pubic education can be accomplished via the transmission of a standard curriculum, 2) The merit of schools and teachers can be determined by the results of objective tests of this curriculum, 3) To aim higher means to seek to improve test scores.
The important goals that traditionally inspired the creation of public schools have largely been forgotten. Public education has always sought to build a bridge to a better future when human progress and culture exceeds what we experience in the present. It is our youth who will live in that future and who must be equipped with the qualities of wisdom and leadership worthy of the challenge. Our present system of public education is inadequate to the task and tinkering, duct taping, won’t work — guided by NCLB principles, public education is headed in the wrong direction.
Public education must be rebuilt on foundational principles such as these: 1) The purpose of our system of public education is accomplished by nurturing and empowering the yearning for learning and the desire to live purposefully found in every individual 2) The merit of schools and teachers is demonstrated in preparedness of the citizens they develop to live freely and to contribute fully to the success of their representative democracy 3) To aim higher means to seek to help each citizen to more fully develop his or her potential to be a thoughtful, effective and productive citizen.
If a system of public education would forget about raising test scores and instead would allocate its energy and resources to align with such principles, it’s a fascinating question what an educational program might look like and what indicators of accountability might be used to monitor such a program. As the motivation of students and teachers would soar, test scores, I bet, would soar as well.
As it is, we are quickly approaching the time when the current system of public education will be indefensible. We need to rebuild public education from the ground up, using foundational principles very different than the principles that guide public education today. Rather than tinkering with and duct taping the current system, educational leaders should be putting resources into making the big break-throughs that will transform public education. We need to encourage each other to be inspired by the words of Robert Kennedy — “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
