Tag Archives: accountability

Mr Rodgers Neighborhood

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“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say ’It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.” Fred Rogers

When we have under-performing schools anywhere in our country, do we see it as a systemic problem? Do we think it is our shared responsibility to support the educational and developmental needs of all children where and when they need us to do so?

The education reform war reached a new crescendo over “accountability.” We have come to talk and think in terms of “accountability” but the word is interchangeable with “responsibility.”

I have come to believe that we need an accountability system that respects the local responsibility, has true state accountability for equitable resources, and recognizes a federal duty to monitor progress for the purpose of providing guidance and support.

So if we want to continue to look at the issue of “improvement” in terms of “reform,” school reform is a local responsibility. States are charged with an accounting of inputs and outcomes to provide meaningful oversight. And the federal government should oversee the broader topic of “education reform” as it applies to the necessities of maintaining a strong republic based on equal opportunity and American excellence.

Everyone should know by now that top-down education mandates for accountability tied to higher “achievement” scores has only furthered our resistance to change, made a bad situation worse for many, and escalated the education wars. The scholars are fighting over issues the people can’t understand, while citizens are growing frustrated and walking away. This fighting must end.

Children need us to form partnerships. Partnerships aren’t a way to shift responsibility; they are a way to share it.

If we see educating children as a societal obligation, if the focus is children, our responsibility is to be responsive to them.

What now? Lives lost but not the innocence of our next generation.

What now?

They need us to negotiate a truce.

 

 

History Repeats

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Some have marched across this bridge before.

Many crossed this bridge before.

Standards-based education reform of public schools has been tried before.

Around 1913, the industrial “efficiency movement” focused public attention on outcomes but when educators attempted to “routinize teaching,” or standardize it, it didn’t work according to Robert J. Marzano and Jon S. Kendall in “The Fall and Rise of Standards-Based Education.”

And by the late 1930’s research completed by the Cooperative Study of Secondary Schools Standards concluded, among other things, that standardized test scores as the sole means of evaluating schools tended to make “instruction point definitely to success in examinations,” cultivated “a uniformity that was deadening to instruction,” “thwarted the initiative of instructors,” and can “destroy the flexibility and individuality of an institution.” In addition to bringing about a rigid curriculum, the study concluded, this type of testing had little validity for identifying superior and inferior schools and a better method was available. In 1939!

But the plans were set aside while the country addressed the needs of World War II. We moved on, it would seem, unaware of what had come before. And in the process, we changed from looking to improve education by providing the necessary “inputs” to a heavier focus on “outputs.” (Recall the Coleman Report) So that is how we ended up repeating our standards experiment with an even greater emphasis on test scores.

By 2001, the country had become convinced that we needed a federal accountability system and the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) Act was it! The law focused all of our attention (and dollars) on accountability for all schools totally based on student outcomes as judged by standardized test scores.

We replaced individual “performance” standards with state “curriculum” standards. Now we risk setting national curriculum standards instead of recognizing that children need us to identify their individual strengths and weaknesses and work with them to attain a level of mastery of the classroom curriculum. This isn’t a proposal that gets away from being held accountable to a standard; it’s one that is responsible for meeting the needs of the individual student along with educational standards. This is a philosophy that can take us from a classroom culture of test preparation to a culture of educating each child to the fullest extent of his or her talents — meeting the standards for American excellence and equality.

We made tremendous progress in the sixties and seventies because we followed an educational philosophy focused on providing the necessary “inputs” to the hardest to teach students. Desegregation of schools peaked in the 1980’s and a narrowing of the achievement gap occurred during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Now, the focus is the gap, is the test, is the score, and, the gap persists.

In the march towards equal opportunity in education, we got stuck in the ditch of standardization of children because we set test scores as our goal — in law and in the minds of Americans. The Modern Standards Movement politically overpowered, but did not destroy, the Modern Community Education Movement.

If we can only come to understand standards and their proper use, we have a shot at getting it right— in the minds of Americans and in law.

The big question is; does Congress know enough to get it right this time?

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The March Begins. was the first in this series On The Road to Educational Quality and Equality. Next Up: What Do YOU Mean “Standards”?

Exposing Educational Parasites

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Parasites multiply when the conditions are right; educational parasites are no different.

Look closer.

As a veterinarian, I’ve found that people don’t need convincing to rid their pets of parasites that they can see. If they can see them, they want the parasites gone. But the internal parasites — the ones they cannot or rarely see — are  harder to convince them to take action against.

I have seen animals in high parasite areas that didn’t get the attention they needed until the parasites had drained them of so much blood the signs of anemia became obvious. Damage was done.

And in certain areas of the country, spring means a rise in parasites because the conditions are right. But that warning on behalf of helping my furry friends isn’t why I’m writing this; I hope to make a memorable point.

When it comes to education reform laws and their intentions, more often than not, it is hard for the public to see the parasites feeding off the dysfunction of the system. Dysfunction — in a few schools or at the level of national law — is the condition that allows the education-industrial complex to multiply and suck public funds from our pockets — right in front of our eyes.

We see the education “programs” costing us but we rarely are able to see what is happening internally — at the heart of OUR government. So we have yet to rid ourselves of enough internal parasites to make the system healthy again. “They” are currently the same ones that put bad laws into place and have refused to make them right. They all know that No Child Left Behind had “unintended consequences” (update: that was not corrected by ESSA — the Every Student Succeeds Act). Certainly they must know it is wrong to sit by and let the “patients” suffer.

“They” are our congressional representatives, governors, and chief state school officers. And so many other groups have offered better treatment solutions.

It is hard to rid ourselves of things we can’t identify.

So my prescription is multifaceted. Expose the parasites. Call them out; ask for answers as to why they have not acted to correct the law and what their intentions are. Ask for documentation of their work. Rather than a FEDERAL “accountability” mechanism for local schools, where will the accountability of the government to the People going to happen?

Demand it! That is what congressional oversight hearings are supposed to do. The public deserves to know how their U.S. Department of Education sees its role in our public schools and what they are doing to better serve our nation.

Let’s get rid of some educational parasites.

Then, the very best medicine I can prescribe is prevention of the problem in the future.

We need involved, informed, forward-thinking leaders that will work with and for us — not against US! I can only hope all political parasites will be exposed and remembered in November —- consistently, every November, until the problem is eliminated.

Spring Cleaning: Letter Discovered

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You never know what gem you might find when spring cleaning. Here’s one to consider when looking at how we might truly improve public education.

My Message to Parents and Other Concerned Citizens About Cleaning Up the Mess Created by Outcome-Based Theory:

This current standards and testing movement that began 30 years ago is a bipartisan effort to make the “outcome-based” model for education “work.” The education industry has done quite well while our children have not.

The goal set by law, in No Child Left Behind, is unrealistic, unattainable, and frankly undesirable. Our American character embodies the ideals of freedom of thought, equality of opportunity, pragmatic resourcefulness, and individuality. This law standardizes the education “outcome.” Who defined this outcome for our children?

We should define the role of the federal government.

We must define the role of the state.

Locally, it’s time to take back our schools.

At all levels, it is our right to know the facts, to hear the truth, to be informed. It’s time to use politics to take politics out of the education equation. As a nation, we must press our candidates and those already in office to answer to us. Accountability starts with them, not our children’s test scores.

No Child Left Behind is the national education issue worthy of our undivided attention.

With Heartfelt Sincerity,
Victoria M. Young