Sometimes the answer to our most important questions can be found right in front of us. Often, we are so distracted by what we are asked to do and why, the simple truth is obscured. This is particularly true with respect to the American education process and the way we interpret and respond to the results of the high-stakes testing to which both students and teachers are subjected.
Let us apply some simple logic and utilize it to ask the question:
“What do the data from standardized tests tell us?”
As a point of clarification, let us confirm we are referring to data from the high-stakes testing we administer to our students, each Spring. Further, let us utilize one of our least favorite yet one of the most common forms of assessment, the multiple-choice question. Let us phrase the question:
Select the answer that best describes what we learn, each year, from the standardized tests administered in the schools of our state?
a) Some schools are failures and should be closed or replaced by charter schools and other alternatives;
b) Many classroom teachers are incompetent and overpaid and should be replaced by technology or by paraprofessionals;
c) Many students in the U.S. are incapable of learning, particularly poor and minority students;
d) The education process, with which teachers are expected to do their important work, is ineffective in meeting the needs of a diverse population of American students?
Understand, our answer to this question drives education policy decisions at the local, state, and federal level.
If we choose answers “a”, “b”, or “c”, policy makers will continue to pursue a combination of the policies of the past and their preferred education reform initiatives, the most popular of which is “school choice.”
If we choose, “d”, something different must happen. We will need to step back and challenge our assumptions about what we do and why.
What we will discover, despite the best efforts of our teachers, is the existing education process is neither organized, structured, tasked, nor resourced to give students the quality relationships they need to be successful; the amount of time they need to learn each lesson so they can apply that knowledge to future lessons and other real-life situations; and, the opportunity to experience and celebrate their success. Every student must learn success is a process that must be mastered, just like any other skill set.
The reader is invited to examine an education model that has been reimagined to make these essential functions the focus of everything teachers do for their students. What most people will be surprised to discover is the relative ease with which such changes can be incorporated. Please review The Hawkins Model© at my website, melhawkinsandassociates.com.