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Better schools? Let's get ready to rumble
By Paul Beare
(Updated Sunday, February 5, 2006, 11:39 AM)
On standardized tests, the possible answers
to a problem are limited and generally
enumerated as a small multiple-choice list.
For real problems, the list of possible
approaches is usually long and discovery of
these possibilities is essential to any
meaningful analysis because in many cases
the unanticipated or unintended consequences
of an action are the ones that matter most.
For example, in the case of high-stakes,
standardized tests for school-age children,
the creation of a system theoretically
intended to improve educational quality may
result in a population unable to think
beyond the superficial. The list of choices
also may not include the "best" answer.
We have taken a multiple-choice approach to
education reform and school improvement. A
new report on Michigan schools by the Center
for Educational Policy reveals a very
limited number of options chosen by schools
that failed to meet targets for five years.
The most popular choice was to change the
principal (59%) followed by employing a
coach (17%), using external reform models
(15%) employing a specialist (14%) or
restructuring the school board (12%). In the
Valley, a lot of principals have been
replaced and districts are widely using
coaches, specialists and an external model
under the leadership of the Central Valley
Educational Leadership Institute and
California State University, Fresno, and
Springboard Schools.
There are other options that will increase
learning for only a little cost, but they
will require policy makers and schools to
show fortitude and backbone. My list of
changes to improve schools follows:
Create a longer school year and longer
school day.
The most important variable in learning is
time spent on instruction. We are no longer
an agrarian society, where students are
needed in the fields.
Longer days allow for increased focus on
reading and math while leaving time for
currently excluded activities including
recess, study hall, music, art or physical
education.
Eliminate middle schools and junior highs.
Make schools K-8 and 9-12. This will reduce
school behavior challenges, drug and alcohol
use and gang problems. Children behave
better when they are around younger children
and it will slow exposure to the social
problems listed above.
Teach science in the elementary schools.
We do not teach science at this level, yet
we are facing a national crisis in a
shortage of math and science professionals.
Students who don't experience science until
secondary schools are less likely to pursue
it as a career.
Eliminate statewide-mandated textbooks.
These dumb down the curriculum, take away
local control, aim at the lowest common
denominator and are prone to political
manipulation. In some areas, they are
atrociously bad. They teach at a level far
below the California curriculum standards.
Make all-day kindergarten and expand
preschool.
All-day kindergarten and expanded preschool
services should be provided for children who
are English learners or who come from
impoverished backgrounds.
Differentiate instruction.
Felix Frankfurter wrote, "There is no
greater inequality than the equal treatment
of unequals."
We need to differentiate instruction for
students with different goals and needs.
Three hours of scripted reading a day is
intolerable to teachers or students and
counterproductive for children who are high
achievers. College-bound students currently
have a watered-down curriculum, often
leaving them bereft when they reach the
university. We need technical education,
applied skills and career education for
students who are not college bound.
Promote bilingual education.
Research shows strong support of bilingual
education's effect on achievement but
California law prevents schools from
providing it without parental request and
prevents schools from promoting it. We need
bilingual education experts as coaches in
every school with an identifiable population
of English learners.
Eliminate standardized tests (except for
diagnostic purposes).
Standardized tests can't measure creativity,
initiative, imagination, conceptual
thinking, inductive thinking, effort, ethics
or reflection. They measure the recall of
isolated facts, the least important part of
learning.
We need more of the former and less of the
latter. Read Alfie Kohn's book, "The Case
Against Standardized Testing."
Educate parents to take responsibility for
children's learning.
Student achievement would skyrocket if
parents would take time daily to read to
their children and turn off the television,
or better yet, throw it away. Parents must
learn about the educational system to help
their child navigate, and they must value
higher education.
Teach to the standards.
Schools must aim instruction at the
appropriate grade-level standards.
Teachers know best.
Teachers are professionals; they are
trained, motivated and prepared to help
children learn. The policy makers who try to
tell them what to do are not.
Let teachers use their creativity, training,
experience and wisdom to teach as they think
best for individual students.
Paul Beare, Ph.D., is dean of the Kremen
School of Education and Human Development at
California State University, Fresno.
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