A modest proposal...

I've hit upon an idea that I think, if implemented, would have a gargantuan effect on public education.

No, really. I mean it.

This idea would restore sanity to the classroom, make teachers' lives less-complicated, and radically reinvent the way universities train future educators.

In other words, it's doomed.

But I shall intrepidly pursue this idea.

More to come later.

Wake can't see the Forest for the trees...

It is a ritual that most anyone under the age of 60 or so, who aspires to go to college, can appreciate - the spring rite of SAT and ACT college entrance exams.

These tests are usually the source of some angst. After all, your ability to get into a good university or college depends in part on how well you do on these exams.

And why is that?

It's pretty simple: the managers of ACT and SAT spend a lot of time and money to set up tests that they believe will adequately measure a high schooler's knowledge base. Everything is designed to represent the type of education a student will get from Maine to Hawaii.

Except that some people think the tests are unfair and biased. Well... they are. EVERY test is in some way unfair and biased. No matter who you are and what you are, you will bring personal biases to very part of your daily existence. It's part of being human.

But critics of these tests (and by extension all standardized tests) harp about "cultural bias." Boo hoo. Get over it.

I'll over-simplify here, but since educrats love to over-complicate things, it will even out. Here's why cultural bias is a load of manure:

1. The root causes of the American Revolutionary War are the same no matter if the student who must write an essay about those causes is Anglo, Asian, Native American or whatever.

2. The value of "pi" is no respecter of a test-taker's religious convictions.

3. The implications of plutonium vs. uranium nuclear weapons are not changed if the student who's asked to explain them is from Rochester, MN; Rochester, NY, or is the great-grandson of "Rochester" from the old Jack Benny program.

In other words, facts are facts. Do you hear that, Wake Forest University?

Wake Forest is dropping the SAT and ACT admission requirements in favor of other performance measures when considering admission. That's their right, of course, but their reasoning is typical educrat fuzzy thinking.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1086264.html

Universities need to spend more time teaching their students and expecting high standards (there's that dreaded word: STANDARDS) rather than wasting tears on how the little darlings might have their feelings hurt by taking the SAT or ACT.

'Cause let me tell ya: When those darlings hit the job market, their employers are going to expect high standards of them. The real world has no pity. The academic world is just pitiful.

Tune in, turn on, drop out. Yeah, that was smart advice.

There's a lot of talk in the education world about what to do about high school dropouts.

This reminds me of the young man who sat across from me in art class in high school. I stunk at art, but I had to take an elective, so....

But I digress.

This guy seemed reasonably intelligent but it was obvious he and school were not on the best of terms. His attendance was pretty good, but he missed enough that it was noticeable.

He was a senior and I was a junior and I envied that about him because I had "junioritis" pretty bad.

We spent months in this class, and some time in late April I noticed that he had been gone several days in a row. I asked another guy nearby what happened to our acquaintance and he casually mentioned that he had dropped out.

He dropped out five weeks shy of graduation.

That guy made a short-term decision to enter society unprepared. Bad idea.

I never found out what became of him, but I bet he didn't get a job at Microsoft. He may be printing license plates, or worse, by now.

The point is, my school did nothing wrong. They provided a decent education and he threw it away.

So just what are schools supposed to do to keep kids from dropping out?

There are lots of technical strategies, and they may have some effect, but nothing, NOTHING can stop a motivated kid who has the legal right to abandon his or her education.

You can raise the age for dropping out, but then you have older kids who have no interest in school disrupting the students who want to be there.

How about sending them to vocational education? Those kids tend to face more difficult academic requirements. (Have you tried to repair a modern car today? It's not for Goober Pyle anymore.)

There are alternative high schools, schools within schools and so on, and so on. But if a kid really and truly wants to go, he will go.

All this to say there are some problems public schools and their tax dollars cannot truly solve. It's a societal and cultural problem. The stigma of being a dropout has eased somewhat and that's a shame.

I've seen an apparently homeless man on a corner near my office three days in a row now. He seems perfectly able-bodied; in fact, his schtick is to juggle and get some spare change for his talent. He could probably get a performing job with that skill, but he just won't for whatever reason.

If you know a kid who's just "juggling" school and wants to take to the streets as soon as possible, tell him about the guy by the freeway who squandered his talent.

Maybe I knew him in art class.

Let's hope there is no "D"nial...

All over the United States right now, school computers are whizzing away keeping tabs on students' grades.

The end of the school year is approaching and when it's over, there's no going back so these grades mean a lot.

Scary, huh?

Uh, for the kid, maybe.

Hopefully you're not scared. Well, maybe you're a bit nervous. After all, you don't want to see Junior do poorly. You poke and prod and hope that he (or she) does his or her best and gets good grades.

You do poke and prod don't you?

I admit I have never been good at this, personally. That's why I'm glad I "married up" to a fabulous woman who lovingly, but firmly, demands that our little scholars get good grades. Of course, I have learned to support her wholeheartedly in this. She has, uh, expectations of me, too...

There is no scuffling by in our house.

Fortunately, Ed Reformer Junior and Juniorette get very good grades. They're pretty good self-starters. But I'm sure they would have slopped off and gotten a few lower marks without the prodding of the lovely Mrs. Reformer.

I never was much of a discipline problem at home because I knew Ma and Pa would not have been happy if I played the fool. It's that way in my own house now, but especially when it comes to grades.

If you don't expect your kids to perform at their highest capability, they probably won't. Heck, they're children and they need to have their hineys kicked (metaphorically) once in a while; sometimes more than that.

Low expectations = low return and low self-esteem. High expectations = valuable return and better self-esteem.

We expect our schools to push the students, but reform starts at home.

It's not a "beach" novel, but...

Summertime is approaching, which means it's time to think about that reading list.

You probably want your kids to make just such a list, but let me suggest one for you. There is a brilliant man named E.D. Hirsch, and he's written many books that will convince you that public education has plenty of areas that need attention. But more than just kvetching about it (ahem), he has some very bright ideas.

The brightest of these ideas is found in The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n3_v29/ai_19189460

Check it out. Literally. You won't be sorry.

By all means, test what ISN'T taught

It's very odd to me that some people are critical of the idea of teaching to the test. Yes, I understand that a well-rounded education must incorporate a vast array of subjects and you certainly can't test the students on every detail. If you did, you'd do nothing but teach one day and test the material the day after, or some such nonsense.

But I have to say that there are some teachers - some - who use what a former colleague of mine once called the "cardiac assessment" on her students. What's that? Simple: "I know in my heart what each of my students is capable of doing."

Bull puckey.

You must test students, and there must be some standardization otherwise it wouldn't be fair, measurable or accurate.

Would you go to a doctor whom you knew did not pass any test to become a doctor? How about an accountant, lawyer or mechanic? We all want the professionals who have critical skills to be accountable for knowing the fundamentals (and more) about those skills. Why would we expect anything less from students?

The "cardiac assessment" teachers have a problem because they want to affirm the intrinsic value of each student, which is nice, but it fails as a measure of what the kids know. And that's what school's all about, folks.

So they complain about "teaching to the test." Since I hope I've laid out a case for testing in the first place, let's agree on that and ask what's so bad about teaching to the test?

Suppose I ask 1st graders to do basic addition. I spend time on task drilling the concepts into the kids, send home homework and have the entire class do learning games to fully grasp the concept of addition. Then, at the end of the week, I tell the kids there will be a test. Only I decide to test them on subtraction instead.

Preposterous, you say? Of course. No teacher would do that. She or he would test what has been taught.

Now, wasn't that simple?

You can be TOO true to your school

I'm all for school spirit; the rah-rah attitude, the pride in great accomplishments and so forth. It's a good thing, and unfortunately it's probably a bit too out-of-fashion these days.

But like anything good, it can have its drawbacks. For example, when a neighborhood fights tooth and nail for a school that may be a bit long in the tooth and in need of more than a few nails.

Yes, folks, sometimes schools must close. But whenever a school board decides the time has come for your kid's school to face the wrecking ball, or the school just doesn't have enough students, you would have thought the board voted to tear down the Sistine Chapel. There are stories in the paper with photos of little kids with signs pleading to keep their classrooms open. (These are probably the same kids who are the first to bolt from campus when the last bell rings in the summer and dread the onset of autumn.) There are contentious board meetings filled with angy parents who threaten petition drives, recall elections and everything else short of pistols at dawn.

In short, it's chaos.

Normally I want parents to raise heck with a school board. But not in these cases. And it's not because the boards are the source of all wisdom in these matters.

No, it's simple market forces at work.

In what other business, would a CEO demand to keep a location open when it clearly has outlived its usefulness and / or not enough people go there?

This is one instance in which government can actually get it right; if the board has the guts.

And they'll need plenty of guts because no elected official wants a bunch of little kids and mommies outside his or her office door.

But that's what school closings bring.

Yet the benefits outweigh the negatives.

Think about it. A school gets closed because fewer students are going there? Well, put those students elsewhere. Does it make sense to have a half-full school open for business when there may be room to put the students on other campuses? Is it logical to spend more money than the buildings are worth to bring them up to code? Is it sensible to keep the campus available for kids when the neighborhood is getting older and the only people who can walk to school are the retirees who observe the all-but-empty crosswalks?

No, no, and no to all three.

School closures stir up emotions, but you wouldn't balance your bank account based on emotion. You need to know how much money you have. You wouldn't put paint on a car with no engine or tires. You need a different car. So you shouldn't expect school districts to turn a blind eye to cold, hard reality and keep a dying or obsolete school open for purely emotional (if commendable) reasons.

The truth is, within a few weeks the students who left a closed school dry their eyes and get on with their lives in a new and hopefully improved location. No, it's not perfect. But have you noticed a lot of people aren't voting for school budget overrides anymore? They're asking the tough questions and making the districts make tough choices as a result. School closures are a part of that. And the fact is that most districts could stand to get a little leaner at all levels. Closing a school that is draining resources means some of those resources can be plowed into other schools. There is a net gain.

So be true to your school, but if the truth demands you let that school go... then let it go.