No easy "fix" . . .

I found this Washington Post article on Wesley Fryer's Moving at the Speed of Creativity. The writer asks the question; why won’t congress admit NCLB has failed? The premise of the article is that the growing focus on high stakes testing is a cheap fix to the nation’s educational needs.


Testing is a cheap “fix.” Genuinely improving schools and teaching, and overcoming the poverty and segregation that are still the most significant factors in student outcomes, are expensive, complex and politically difficult. Too many members of Congress – and their state counterparts - are willing to accept the cheap way out, even if it is no solution at all.

Like Fryer, I agree with this point. To create change that improves achievement for all students and that sustains over time will not be accomplished with a major focus on national core standards and common assessments of those standards. Yet, that is where hundreds of millions of dollars have recently been allocated. The move to national standards and the accompanying assessments is progressing rapidly, unlike most education change efforts in this country. The next logical step will be a national curriculum focused on these standards. Is that far off?

Certainly, having quality assessments “of” learning is necessary to measure progress and to support change initiatives. Of more importance, are assessments “for” learning that teachers can use to make decisions on a daily basis in support of individual student learning. One positive outcome of the two national test consortia is a focus on performance assessments throughout the year that will support this need and not just a summative assessment given once a year.

Those at the state and national level in policy positions must understand that our schools and school districts require more than just new standards, assessments, and teacher and principal evaluation models. Our systems are simply too complex for easy solutions. We are asking most of those delivering instruction to fundamentally change the way that they learned how to plan for and deliver lessons. This requires more than just the materials to accomplish this. It must begin with establishing common beliefs about what young people need to know and be able to do, creating expectations and holding ourselves accountable to these beliefs, and challenging ourselves to not settle for 90% achievement on state, district, or federal measurements.

Communities of practice like the charters that many “reformers” keep pushing on us have not realized their success because of these standards or assessments. I agree that the lack of “bureaucracy” has influenced the pace of change in successful charters, but there is more involved in this success. They create cultures that demand of themselves success for all students. In these cultures, traditional barriers are overcome and the adults continually focus on the needs of their students. These cultures can and are being created in public schools such as ours.

Where is the support to create these communities of practice in our public schools? Some of the money being allocated to these assessment initiatives would be well spent supporting the development of these schools and school systems. I for one would welcome this support.