It's Not That Simple

So Arne Duncan and I are at odds. I only wish he knew it because I would love to give him an ear full! With ACT releasing their reports that only about 25% of graduating seniors are prepared for college, Mr. Duncan decides that means it's time to "raise academic standards." I have heard this same desire and watched standards change and become more unattainable over the past 6 years. Why in the world does this seem to be the only answer to the problem? Furthermore, how is this anyone's idea in the first place? So when kids are clearly not graduating and failing and scoring terribly low on college entrance exams, then we make it tougher on them? Are we assuming that we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of academic savants who simply aren't being challenged? Come on people.

If Mr. Duncan and many of the other folks who are making the big decisions for education really looked at their client base, they would understand that tweaking the standards and making them tougher is not the answer. It is much more difficult than that. This country was founded on the principal that "all men are created equal." This does not mean that all men are the same but that all men (women and children) should have equal rights and opportunities in our country. We have developed into a country that is considered a melting pot of cultures, languages, skin colors, religions, etc. We have intelligent people researching and telling us that everyone's brain works differently and we each learn based on one or more of the Multiple Intelligences. We have children and adults who are gifted, learning disabled, genius, mentally and physically challenged, poor, rich, middle class, those with parents who would do anything for them, and those who could care less. Each of these differences within our melting pot chalk up to the fact that we cannot be so robotic when it comes to academic standards. While the Common Core seems like a good idea as it is just a "recommendation" of what students should know, at the end of the day, those 45 states that have adopted it will eventually hold schools accountable to these standards and expect all children, or at least 93% or so, to meet those standards in a very robotic way and all will be judged by the state standardized test.

If our federal, state, and local governments along with individual school boards would just let teachers do what they know how to do, perhaps that would be the saving grace for our children and the future of this country. Teachers and administrators need to be held accountable, but not micromanaged to the point where they no longer have any autonomy to just teach. So how do we put this all together? How do we give schools the freedom to teach in a creative way and utilize teacher talents as they should be used without smothering them with expectations that are far from attainable? Well, that my friends is the hard part. Once again, I am working to take on this task. It is one I believe is vitally important. When the day comes that I can spend the majority of my time working on this very issue, which I hope is very soon, then I believe I can develop an answer. I only wish those people who are making our big decisions would do the same. Our children are different. We are all different. We can't expect all children to understand and learn the same information in the same way or be able to answer standardized questions and expect standardized answers and call that being ready for college or the real world. Children must be challenged and prepared, but there is not just one way to go about this. Let's all open our eyes to what's going on and start asking the right questions and answering the tough ones. It's not that simple, but it can be done!