State's education reform is neither bold nor radical 

There is an old saying that goes “Everyone talks about the weather but no one ever does anything about it.” It kind of reminds me of the latest debate in the statehouse over school reform. Every year it seems we engage in this exercise and a whole lot of dust is kicked up but not a whole lot gets done.

It seems to me that’s the case this year. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has established school reform as one of his “top priorities” and urged lawmakers to be bold in their attempts to improve education.  Last week the House complied and passed a bill.

So what are these bold initiatives taken up by the House. Well the two most controversial call for tougher evaluations of teachers and administrators along with the radical idea of holding back third grades who are not reading at grade level.

Really. That’s what they came up with.

The changes to teacher and administrator evaluations would require annual evaluations rather than the three year schedule they are on now.  Teachers unions and others don’t like that, but in the real world people are evaluated in their jobs all the time and it’s not considered bold or radical.

The standards for the evaluation would be set by the state, although local districts could come up with their own method as long as the state approves.

Teachers that fail to meet the standard would be recommended for an “Intensive Assistance Program.”

Long gone are the days of teachers standing before a blackboard and teaching right out of a book. Today’s education methods, and in some cases subjects, are changing as fast as the technology they use. Blackboards have given way to interactive “white-boards” and Wikipedia has all but replaced the encyclopedia. There are ways now to reach out to students, ways to inspire students that educators never dreamed of just a few years ago.

That’s good and teachers need to stay on top of the current trends. But that doesn’t mean that there is no room for the one on one interaction with students. It can’t all be about computers and gadgets. In the end it comes down to how well a teacher can relate to students and how effectively they pass their knowledge on to them.

Helping teachers who are weak in those areas should be a priority and shouldn’t be considered an indictment of the teacher.  I don’t see it as “weeding out” bad teachers. I see it as making sure our teachers have the tools they need to be effective and they know how to use them. Improvement is good, it’s necessary and it should be done often.

The second part of the bill that has received a lot of criticism requires that students who are not reading at grade level by the third grade be held back a year. Honestly I didn’t know they couldn’t already do that. When I was in school being held back was real, so was summer school.

There are of course critics on both sides, all of whom wave the studies supporting their views. But it seems pretty simple to me. Education is like building a brick wall, the wall gets higher only as long as the rows below are strong. If they are not the wall will crumble.

If a child has not mastered the skill they need to move on, it’s doing a disservice to that child to pass them on and expect them to catch up. Some have argued that holding students back is a blow to their self-esteem that they will never truly recover from and will lead to higher drop out rates.

Baloney. No one is traumatized by anything that happened in the third grade. They get over it. On the other hand couldn’t you make a case that it is more damaging to pass a student along who doesn’t have the skills to advance? Each year the hill they have to climb gets steeper and steeper while their motivation to climb it wanes with each passing year.  Failure builds upon failure.  And is it fair to ask teachers several years down the road to try and fix that problem?

Not all students learn at the same rate but I think it’s important to give every student a fair shot, and if that means holding them back a year until they are ready to move on then that’s what we should do.

In the end I don’t necessarily think any of these proposals are all that bold. Cutting summer vacation down to four weeks, a move that studies have shown helps students retain and build on what they’ve learned over the previous 180 days, would be a bold, and maybe worthwhile discussion. I’m sure there are a lot more interesting, truly bold ideas out there.  But taking common sense issues and labeling them bold or radical, and then arguing about them as if they truly were, seems to be a waste of time to me - and a prime reason why things will never truly change.

This bill isn’t bold or radical, but it does make sense and it should be passed.