© 2009 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
“The trouble with people is not that they don’t know, but that they know so much that ain’t so.” – Josh Billings
The above quote, written more than 100 years ago, fits education today. Billings reminds us that just because we think something is so, that belief does not change the reality.
Newspapers proclaim that the public schools are broken and have said this every year for the last century. The truth is that good students are still coming from our public schools, despite what is said. And, as has been for a century, some students are still not getting good educations.
Our task is to keep what is great about our schools and change what is not. We still want our good students to prosper while we address the students who are not thriving. More so, our task has always been to not make things worse, which, unfortunately, we are now doing.
The recent politically driven mania to focus on testing is very harmful to our students. The stated objective is to evaluate teachers. Even worse is the new plan to tie the teacher salary to testing results. This was created by politicians applying political solutions to educational problems. The Swickard Principle: Never use political solutions for non-political problems.
Having teachers compete with each other is a bad idea. Imagine if doctors in a hospital were paid in competition to each other on how many patients survived. No doctor would want really sick patients. Likewise, teachers will value good students and avoid students who are not thriving, which will do the opposite of “No Child Left Behind.”
If students do not care to apply themselves, what can teachers do? About the only thing would be to cheat, which has happened already in Chicago schools, where several hundred teachers were found to be cheating to get their student scores higher.
The core issue
The core issue is the entire school year is used for testing. Every day is focused on teaching students to take tests, preparing them to take tests and then having them take tests. Students get no intellectual fulfillment from testing. They may be interested in lots of things but preparing for and taking accountability tests is not one of them.
Consider that teachers are becoming less and less effective because they have to take so much teaching time preparing for testing and then testing. How sad.
I have three interlinked perceptions of public school. First, I remember my time as a student. Next, I remember my year as a public school teacher and my time in a college of education preparing teachers and furthering the education of returning teachers. Finally, I currently spend almost every workday in schools as a consultant. When I speak of public schools it is with those three aspects firmly in mind.
I said this to a legislator: “You have not been to a public school for 30 years, and then only as a student. Don’t do a photo-op; go spend a couple of weeks working as an educational assistant and then we can talk.”
Take the politics out of education
So what is the answer? Take the politics out of education. Use peer-reviewed research to address the students who are not thriving. That is what I do. I can point to eighth graders who were reading on the second grade level at the start of this year and now are reading on grade level. It can be done, but only with educational solutions.
Too bad politicians who have such bad ideas will not take Billings’ advice: “Don’t take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; then you can let go when you want to.”
They need to let go of the political bull and embrace real educational solutions. Go spend some time working in schools before saying all schools are failing. Could schools do better? Yes, but we have to use educational solutions for educational problems.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.