Judging Teaching By Its Results

Judging Teaching By Its Results

What children should learn, defined in the new world of school reform

Even before the blistering report A Nation at Risk detailed the decline of America's public schools in 1983, educators, politicians, and parents had found many to blame for wrecking the nation's schools. A whole generation of school children have come come and gone since then with little evidence that the finger pointing had much effect. Now, educators and policy makers seem committed to honing an approach called outcomes-based education, based on the idea that education should be judged by results, or outcomes, rather than inputs such as money or « seat-time, » which is how teachers sometimes refer to the time their students spend in the classroom.

Federally sponsored efforts to identify what every student should know by grades 4,8, and 12 have been a cornerstone of various educational programs, for example Goals 2000, which was approved by Congress in 1994. In the legislation, Congress set up a National Educational Standards ans Improvement Council to “certify” the standards being developed by leading professional associations in each field with funding from the Department of Education. But the administration's effort comes under attack by those who fear too much federal meddling in the classroom. And the details, particularly of the history standards, have been enmeshed in politicking.

Most action today is in the states: Over 40 are in the process of adopting curricular content standards, drawing on a wide variety of sources, including the federally developed benchmarks. As states and school districts consider what standards to adopt, several related trends that could affect your child have emerged. They include:

New forms of assessment : Essay writing replaces multiple-choice exams. Teachers keep examples of the students' progress throughout the year. The new techniques are designed to better measure a student's critical skills and performance.

Few families understand how the college financial aid process works. Most people are just gambling. (Kalman Chany, author of the Princeton Review Student Access Guide to Paying for College). Toronto University Campus. Photo by Elena

Privatization: In an effort to break bureaucracy, private firms are now running schools in California, Connecticut, Maryland, and Missouri. These companies are claiming success in cutting waste in maintenance services and administration, but their impact on academic achievement has received mixed reviews. In a variation on this theme, several well-known educators have formulated school improvement plans that have been adopted across school districts. The work is under the auspices of the New American Schools Development Corp., a nonprofit corporation founded in 1993.

Teachers as coaches: Teachers lead students to solve problems on their own rather than serving as dispensers of information. Teachers' colleges are revamping courses and adopting alternative certification to attract talented individuals who don't necessarily have an education degree.

Writing across the curriculum: A growing group of teachers, working through the National Writing Project, are promoting writing as the key to understanding all subjects. School administrators also stress writing skills since such skills figure prominently in the kinds of open-ended assessment that are being used in lieu of traditional testing.

Will any of these new approaches really make a difference? For some perspective on the question, consider this call to arms: “The obvious fact is that our social life has undergone a thorough and radical change. If our education is to have any meaning for life, it must pass through an equally complete transformation.” The speaker was educational philosopher John Dewey. The year: 1899.