The Legislature earlier this year effectively emasculated proficiency-based education by making it optional as a graduation requirement. Had legislators asked older teachers who worked through a nearly identical initiative called the “learning results” in the late 1990s, which failed under the stress of its own weight, they might have saved themselves the time.
Certainly, the Department of Education will trudge on and insist proficiency-based education is not dead, but how lively can any law be when the Legislature votes to make it optional?
Having spent 25 years owning, running or working in private businesses and 25 more years as a public school teacher, I have insight to offer.
The fundamental problem that killed both efforts to hold students accountable for what they know and teachers for what they teach was the fact that thousands of students were not working at their grade level. Consider that only 35 percent of Maine high school students met math standards, while about 60 percent met literacy benchmarks, according to the most recent Maine Educational Assessment. Getting them to the required proficiency, in the short term, would require a vast increase in funding for remedial instruction and more than four years at the secondary level. No community will pay that price.
Public schools are one of the few workplaces with no quality control between workers and administrators. At one time, principals would observe two or three of a teacher’s classes every couple of years, but most administrators are eyeball deep just meeting and documenting the legal and social demands we have placed upon them. Many schools have department chairs or team leaders, but these people are just teachers who have no supervisory power and are not usually granted time to observe and evaluate their peers.
This is not to say teachers are trying to avoid work or default on their responsibilities. None of us do our best work without some sort of critical review. How many of us in our jobs would strive to stay on the cutting edge, produce quality work or embrace innovation if our product and work quality was never seen or evaluated? Imagine how the incentive structure would change if every 20 teachers had one experienced evaluator who sat in on their class and provided critical feedback and guidance on a weekly basis. A few would lose their jobs, but the majority would likely become better teachers.
Public schools have a monopoly on K-12 education. The simplicity and efficiency of a monopoly often serves a social good. The monopolies, however, always come at a cost — less product offered at a higher price. Competition incentivizes people and businesses to maintain quality, lower costs (thus prices) and maximize output. This incentive is lacking in public education today.
This has nothing to do with trying to make education a business or educators work harder. Enough of them put in more than 50 hours per week as is. It does, however, have everything to do with incentives. Why would any school district engage in serious change when whatever they do or offer has no significant effect on the resources available or the number of new students. The state can pass laws and taxpayers can make demands, but passive resistance will soon bog them down.
If you want to truly affect change, you have to alter how people think about their work. It does no good to pass laws and develop initiatives unless everyone realizes the success of their school is dependent upon the organization, ability and talent of its staff.
A Department of Education list of schools shows some with as few as 20 percent to 30 percent of students who met or exceeded state standards.They have had similar returns over the last decade and will likely have similar returns over the next.
How long would that situation exist if parents had any other option for their kids education? We may find out the greatest benefit of the charter school movement is the competitive challenge and incentive it issues to public schools.
We have been trying to buy educational reform for decades with little to show for it. I doubt anyone could convincingly argue students today are better prepared for the world than students 50 years ago were. We might be better off trying to re-shape educational incentives rather then educational content.
Alan Haley writes about Maine life from his home in Skowhegan. He can be contacted at ahaleywshs@gmail.com.
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