Schools aren’t meant to serve as assembly lines

By Maggie Willems

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As a proud member of the teaching profession, I am outraged at the recent statement made by Linda Fandel, who serves as Gov. Terry Branstad's Special Assistant to Education. When discussing the reform measures that Branstad has put forth, she stated: “I think we've become complacent because our schools were so good.”

Were so good? How insulting.

While I can only speak from my professional experience and opportunity to teach in the Social Studies Department, I can say that at Mount Vernon High School, along with my colleagues, I am constantly endeavoring to move my practice forward in order to meet the needs of all learners in my classroom and to create learners who are equipped to be successful in the 21st Century.

By no means does a standardized test measure the outcomes that we achieve each day with our students. Nor is it valid for our test scores to be compared to test scores of other nations who choose only to test a portion of their student population when we, in the United States (and the state of Iowa) are mandated to test all students in our system. This is comparing apples to oranges and the data is used only to misinform and to inflame, not to genuinely examine how to move forward with reform that is meaningful and transparent.

How does one measure higher-order thinking skills such as the ability of a student to engage in effective research, analyze and interpret those sources and to output this information in an effective and precise manner? How do you measure the efforts I engage in every day to create curious, respectful, informed and engaged citizens?

The purpose of schooling should not be synonymous with an assembly line. Each child requires a unique pathway through our system in the pursuit of a diploma. A standardized test assumes we should spit out the same product as each graduate succeeds in completing our standards for graduation. Instead, in our student-centered, content-rich and relevant classrooms in our great state, we're working to contribute to the well-rounded education of each student so we have learners ready to lead us through the 21st century, not learners who can fill in bubbles on an exam.

Fandel and the governor should actually bring teachers to the table and listen if they're serious about meaningful reform. Policy makers who have not spent time as a professional in an Iowa classroom in the past decade are ill informed. Teachers don't resist meaningful and progressive changes that will have a positive impact on our students; we embrace these changes.

I'm happy to be held accountable to meeting student needs and delivering quality instruction. Painting my profession as unwilling to grow and adapt is wrong. We do it daily and do so in the best interest of our students and we're pretty dang good at it.

Maggie Willems of Lisbon has a decade of teaching experience and is currently a social studies teacher at Mount Vernon High School. Comments: maggiewillems@gmail.com