Barak Obama used soaring rhetoric and his presidential bully pulpit, the State of the Union address, to fire a shot across the bow of educators everywhere. In front of an audience of tens of millions the president did what few elected politicians dare. He urged a renewed focus on subjects such as the arts and pleaded with educators to ‘stop teaching to the test.’
He was referring to a growing epidemic of reliance on standardized tests. There is precious little independent evidence to support the notion they actually improve the education of our children. Standardized tests do offer the education bureaucracy a buffer zone from accountability and sap precious financial resources from the classroom.
Obama could very well have been talking to Prince Edward Island. Only our problems run much deeper than a love affair with standardized tests.
Last week Colonel Gray High School made permanent a policy that allows students to avoid writing final exams if they meet specific requirements: all projects completed, absent six or fewer days and maintain a 65 per cent average.
It is an incredibly low bar to meet for an incredibly high reward ... a reward that should simply not be granted.
The policy was adopted under the admirable guise of attempting to keep high risk students interested in and attending school.
The policy, despite its good intentions, is horribly flawed because it diminishes the skills necessary to succeed at college or university. There is no free pass on exams at that level. And it ignores core issues responsible for why many students ultimately become at risk.
It is the type of policy that will only further drive Island students down the educational ladder. Already, first year UPEI students are required to complete a basic English course to offset the lack of knowledge retained from the public school system.
A huge reason for the dismal state of our education is a bureaucracy that believes only it knows what is in the best interest of our children. The education elite arrogantly defy all evidence that the system of teaching our children is failing.
Miserably.
An addiction to standardized tests is one issue because it forces teachers to teach to the test rather than teach to educate and learn. When we don’t like the results of standardized tests - which happens more often than not - we dumb down the curriculum. That happened recently with poor math results. When we obtain supposedly positive results education bureaucrats crow about the grandness of the system. That, by the way, is a rarity. Island students routinely are lumped at or near the bottom of national and international testing.
Twenty-five years ago the policy of the social pass was adopted in the belief that children are far better off remaining with children their own age rather than stopping, learning and then moving on to the next grade.
There is no other example in society where age is such a defining requisite. And the proof is in the pudding. Too many of our students, even those who attend university, have a significant literacy issue. That’s why UPEI must prop up the public system. They lack the ability to think critically. When they don’t perform academically they are rewarded.
It is a problem that will only grow because of the adoption of a new model of education that requires children to meet outcomes by the end of the school year. What this means in the real world of a PEI classroom is a student could technically walk into a teachers office on a Friday before report cards are to be delivered on Monday and plop a pile of reports on the desk that should have been completed weeks or months before. The teacher is required to correct and post those marks over the weekend.
The education elite contend this inane form of coddling is the only way to learn.
But what have we taught them?
It’s OK to miss deadlines.
It’s OK to disrespect institutions.
It’s OK to fly by the seat of you pants.
The system will never hold you accountable for your actions, or lack there of.
It’s even worse in Newfoundland where students caught cheating on exams are allowed to rewrite at no penalty.
These students are treated as an equal to the student who met deadlines, showed respect, studied hard through the whole school year and didn’t cheat.
What type of employee will the latter eventually become? One who doesn’t respect authority. One who doesn’t believe in teamwork. One who doesn’t meet deadlines. In short, an employee few firms would want to hire. To top it off our education system is not even delivering on the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.
And therein lies the problem. The education bureaucracy has no clue nor care to even examine the correlation between the coddling of students and the ultimate end product they send off into the big world.
It’s why Colonel Gray is forced to put a Band-Aid on a problem that should be dealt with long before high risk students get to high school.
The issue here is not the student or classroom teacher. They are victims. Where is the Department of Education? Where is the Eastern School Board? Where is the Minister of Education? Why are they allowing a high school to make a decision that will only make a poor system worse?
We can’t keep dumbing the education of our children down without significantly impacting the ability of our province to grow. It’s an economic issue as much as an educational issue.
The record of education’s elite is clear. Our children are victims. Victims of our collective failure to hold the education bureaucracy accountable and to demand they deliver a truly world class education.
Paul MacNeill is Publisher of Island Press Limited. He can be contacted at paul@peicanada.com