Education reform larger than 1 approach

By Mark Putnam

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In general, the opinions we express about schools are often informed by observations we made through our particular experience - teachers and classrooms we have known. Yet, the immense scale of education in the United States far exceeds our ability to describe it in simple terms.

Still, we tend to generalize from school to school, community to community and state to state. Sometimes I wonder if there is a standard recipe used by state and federal governments for this purpose. If so, it probably reads something like this:

1. Begin with a healthy portion of generalization sufficient to explain the entire problem.

2. Then carefully oversimplify the circumstances to avoid complexity, ambiguity and cognitive dissonance.

3. Reduce understanding to a small set of solutions for purposes of implementation.

4. Add a measure of false precision to be confident that a means-end reversal can be achieved.

5. Mix the above in a “blue ribbon” panel, commission or agency. Stir vigorously.

6. Present the one-size-fits-all results in the form of a written report, with charts and photographs.

We have been trying to bake the “one-size-fits-all” education reform solution for nearly 50 years. In our very large policy bowl, we have mixed various portions of innovative teaching methods, curricular standards, classroom technology, vouchers, charter schools, privatization, organizational redesign, high-stakes testing, financial incentives, institutional sanctions, and teacher quality and preparation.

What we pour out is confusion, conflict and very little in the way of results.

Diane Ravitch in her book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” (2010), chronicles a seemingly endless history of failed school reform initiatives. It's a breathtaking pattern of lowering standards and gaming the system to achieve phantom results in response to government demands.

The latest one-size-fits-all approach is all about the teachers and reflects policies that generalize, oversimplify, reduce and rely on false precision.

We have decided that since little else has worked on an aggregate scale across schools, it must be the teachers who are the problem. So, if we hold teachers accountable for student outcomes based on standardized test scores regardless of the context and circumstances, we can certainly achieve results.

In order to do this, we need to rate teachers on a scale each year based on current levels of student performance. We then take the ratings and rank the teachers so we know which ones are performing well. That way, we can identify the bad teachers and get rid of them.

Look at one example of the results. The New York Times recently reported on the release of teacher ratings for elementary and middle schools in New York.

The ratings are “based on how much [teachers] help their students perform on standardized tests ” and they note that “the ratings have high margins of error, are now nearly two years out of date and are based on tests that the state has now acknowledged became too predictable and easy to pass over time.”

Yet, the results are still reported in precise terms.

Elizabeth Phillips, the principal of P.S. 321, is quoted: “What people don't understand is that they are just not accurate. We are talking about minute differences in test scores that cause teachers to score in the lowest percentiles,” like a teacher whom she finds great but scored in the sixth percentile because her students went to a 3.92 average test score from a 3.97, out of a possible 4.

Seriously?

If we continue to generalize, oversimplify, reduce and rely on false precision, we will invariably expend precious resources in time, energy and money with little to show for it.

Mark Putnam is president of Central College in Pella. Comments:

president@central.edu.