Tom Staly, retired Kennewick teacher, was a part of the recent Tri-City Herald Community Conversation on school reform. His comments were published in the November 21 issue of the Herald and are reprinted here with permission of the paper.
Educate the ‘whole child’
By Tom Staly, Community Conversation
The current round of reform of the public schools began more than a quarter century ago with the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk. This historical report claimed the public schools were failing, placing our economy at risk against global competition. Despite continued domination of the world economy and careful studies documenting the fallacies of Nation at Risk, the myth of poor public schools has persisted.
Reform efforts to increase student achievement during the 1980s and 1990s with an emphasis on thinking skills and enriched curriculum actually reduced the achievement gap between rich and poor students. Unfortunately, the movement was hijacked around 2000 with passage of No Child Left Behind and the resulting standards/testing initiative. This intrusion into local public schools by the Federal Government has resulted in a narrowed curriculum emphasizing fill-in-the-bubble tests. The achievement gap remains stuck at pre-2000 levels, graduation rates have dropped, and schools have become test-prep factories.
Corporate interests have now entered the fray touting privately run, but publicly funded, charter schools as the panacea to our mythical problem. Testing has become a multibillion dollar business, further depleting the resources of the public schools.
These reforms have impacted Tri-City schools. I was a participant in the TCH community conversation about education as a representative of KSD Citizens. A litany of issues related to educational reform dominated the conversation.
Some Tri-City schools have not made Adequate Yearly Progress and face consequences, including replacing most or all of the relevant staff.
Decisions about schools are based on standardized test results despite the arguments of assessment experts, the very people who designed the tests, stating they are not appropriate for this purpose. Kennewick Superintendent Dave Bond has reported “unusual volatility” in state test scores rendering them unreliable for decision making about student, staff or school performance.
While media attention is fixed on scapegoating teachers and their unions, there is disagreement about how to correct problems facing schools and setting priorities for limited school resources.
KSD Citizens favors a return to enriched curriculum which educates the whole child. Curriculum like that in Kennewick schools shortchanges the arts, music, science, PE, social studies, vocational and career classes. Current practice is a disservice to our children and places the entire culture at risk. Because students come to school with differing aptitudes, interests and learning styles, we believe all students can flourish with a broad, rich curriculum including hands-on activity based classes.
Teaching math, reading, writing and other classes using canned instructional methods is not effective for all teachers or students. We trust our professionally trained and dedicated teachers who should be empowered to teach students using methods and strategies they know are best.
Kennewick schools are challenged by changing demographics, poverty and national and state mandates.
With nearly half of Kennewick students qualifying for free/reduced meals, effective reforms require addressing issues of poverty, nutrition and health care for all children.
Schools are now sustaining teacher quality with continued professional development in evidence-based best practices. Other essential practices are improving school leadership, improving facilities and learning resources, improving curriculum and mentoring new and struggling teachers.
Reform should include reducing class size, limiting the number of state tests and conducting comprehensive school quality reviews.
We are speaking up and believe it is time for all Kennewick parents to speak up as well. KSD Citizens invites you to review articles on our website.
Your comments on KSD Citizens are an important contribution to an ongoing conversation.
To learn more about us, our educational values and the views of local and national educators reporting on teaching and learning check our site at ksdcitizens.org.
Read more: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/11/21/1271536/educate-the-whole-child.html#ixzz16uKjxRy9
Thank you for speaking up. The focus on standardized testing as the end all be all measure of a child’s academic success is destroying the motivation to learn.
Silence and apathy are not acceptable.
Thank you for speaking up,
Jesse
Tom,
Thank you for your call for parents to join their children’s teachers in opposing increasing loads of bubble tests as the means to measure student learning and their teachers’ success as teachers. No Child Left has falsely identified far too many schools and districts as failing and is itself a failure in guiding national efforts at educational reform.
This is too important a campaign not to include parents — those who are funding our schools — and their wisdom in developing new ways to teach and learn. Thanks ago for making this entreaty. Allbest, Steve Neary, Albuquerque.
Hello. Nicely done. Congratulations. I just found this site. I’ve been on craiglist education site and it is really nice to find one with serious comments and concern. Pat
Hey Pat! Sorry about the late response. I just read your comments. It’s good to hear from you and to know you are interested in changing some things. The arts have been taking a real beating, especially in our elementary and middle schools.