Are we surprised? Reading scores for Colorado’s third-graders were released recently, showing a decline for the third year running.
“We are not afraid of accountability,” we said in the late 1990s. Colorado joined the chorus as state after state instituted high-stakes testing for its students – and rejoiced in the gains of the first several years. Did we improve what we do for our students for a few years and then slack off? Not likely.
Research has shown that test scores go up initially because once we know the “game,” our teachers are able to coach students on test format and on teach-to-the- test skills. Equate this to the youngster undertaking her first lawn-mowing experience: There are likely to be ragged edges and missed tufts of green until she learns the mowing strategy and excels. But as the excitement of the new task becomes a chore, mowing perfection eventually slacks off.
And so it seems that the testing honeymoon is over. We know the game, we have made our adjustments. But are we truly improving student achievement? Where is the substance of education reform?
In “School Reform from the Inside Out,” a collection of essays, Richard Elmore documents the problem with great alacrity. “Shifts in policy improve teaching and learning only if they are accompanied by systematic investments in the knowledge and skill of educators,” he concludes.
Colorado has a wealth of excellent teachers who are making tremendous strides with their students. Individual districts have taken leaps toward reform. Nonetheless, as Elmore and countless others argue, real improvement won’t be realized until we make a significant investment in the knowledge and skills of our teachers. If teachers already knew how to make all students proficient readers, they’d be doing it. Reporting test results alone will not help teachers improve scores – or more importantly, improve teachers’ ability to increase what students know and are able to do.
Teachers must learn how to use test scores along with other student achievement benchmarks as guides to improving teaching methods, advancing higher-level strategies and boosting students’ passion for learning. We must provide high-quality training for our teachers based on research, focused on content and aligned with the specific needs of the students.
If we are serious about closing the achievement gap and ensuring that each student is successful, then we must focus on the teacher. Quality teaching has been unequivocally linked to improving student achievement. Each child deserves to be taught by a quality teacher, which requires resources for education.
Colorado spends approximately $6,067 per pupil in our K-12 public schools. In 2005, however, the state spent on average $27,840 per prisoner. Have we made a wise choice in our investment strategy? Researchers point to education as a major factor in keeping our children out of prison. So why wouldn’t we choose education as a key allocation in our investment portfolio?
Perhaps some of the resources allocated each year toward writing, scoring and administering the CSAP could be spent on improving teacher skills.
We must invest in teacher quality, track the results of our investment and then focus on the practices that improve every child’s chance of success.
Jacqueline Paone is executive director of the Alliance for Quality Teaching.
