As we embark on another school year, with a new superintendent at the helm of Denver Public Schools and brimming with the hope and optimism that fall always brings, a stubborn reality remains.
Again this year, the CSAP will make saps out of all of us.
The mania for testing that has swept our public schools has energized the shrink-wrapped logic industry. Supporters of school testing claim it is the only way to ensure accountability and adherence to standards. In truth, testing has obscured the realities of substantive education reform while fooling us into thinking we’re making a difference.
Driving the sound bites is a cacophony of tiresome fictions: the fiction that devoting hour upon hour of valuable class time to mastering the mechanics of effective test-taking serves the real learning needs of students; the delusion that eliminating entire courses of study – languages and the arts, for example – somehow contributes to a child’s cognitive development; and the myth that educators and their unions resist testing mandates because they resist accountability.
The current flattening out of reading scores on the Colorado Student Assessment Program makes sense when juxtaposed against the sad state of our public school infrastructure, ever-increasing class sizes, and teachers demoralized by a society that demands more and more of them while cutting their resources.
In the name of the “any-tax-is- a-bad-tax” mantra, we nibble around the edges of serious education reform, deluding ourselves in the process that reform done on the comparative cheap – testing – has anything to do with substantive education reform.
We can break out of the CSAP-equals-reform box by taking a hard look at what real education reform looks like. Real reform is expensive. But just beneath the veneer of fiscal restraint lies a harsh reality: We’ve never viewed quality education as a priority in this country. Dig another layer down, and you’ll find a more sinister truth: We’ve never viewed children as a priority either. If we did, our schools and classrooms would be very different places and the educators who run them would be very different people.
So how will we know when we’ve finally gotten serious about the work of meaningful education reform? Here are three essential and, yes, costly indicators:
Class size: Cap all K-12 classes at 16 students. Virtually every major study conducted on the subject demonstrates that smaller class size maximizes learning. Students thrive when, from day one, a teacher actually knows their names and gives them the kind of one-on-one attention that cannot occur in classes of 30, 40 and even 50 students. Of course, smaller class sizes will necessitate the hiring of many more teachers. But not just any teachers. The finest teachers. Which means we’ll need to take a hard look at the next item.
Attracting the finest teaching professionals: In a concerted effort to attract and keep only top-rung educators, we must pay them accordingly and afford them the respect commensurate with the importance of their work. Is there any more important work than educating our children? Is teaching our children any less “life-saving” than performing heart bypass surgery or researching a cure for breast cancer? Yet when we fail to educate a child to the fullest extent, we risk reducing that child’s life to one of diminished possibilities.
Infrastructure: Reports on the state of Colorado public school structures are shameful. When we think of the vital work that goes on there, it stands to reason that all of our public schools, regardless of location or clientele, should be fabulous places. Safe. Spotless. Beautiful. Continuously and fully equipped with the latest technologies. Much smaller and much more accessible. What do we say about our priorities when we are apparently content to send a child into a crumbling building?
Spare me the bluster about lack of accountability, the “death star” teachers unions, and fiscal discipline. Until we summon the resolve to pay for and position the finest educators in classrooms with far fewer students and within pristine, fully equipped and safe facilities, we’ll know we’re only kidding ourselves.
And we’ll know something else, too: We’re still saps.
Chuck Reyman is co-owner of Reyman/Welch Communication Design, a public relations, marketing and ad agency.
