Pam Stewart, State Education Commissioner of Florida, is trying to simplify the state’s new evaluation system for schools. The system began as a way to compare students’ performance in math and reading in public schools, but evolved into a convoluted system which could result in the closure of a school. The article claims that Florida policy makers, as well as parents are working together in lodging a complaint about the complexity of this system, which has become virtually meaningless. It’s encouraging to see policy makers, educators and parents all working together in order to fight the ridiculous measures that are increasingly punishing schools without achieving the results they claim to strive for. Commissioner Stewart’s proposal is to suspend the punishment and closure of schools until the assessments are on par with where policy makers and parents believe it should be.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: the solution to our public schools’ improvement issue is not to punish schools for being at a disadvantage over other schools. We should close schools because they don’t have the resources or manpower that is required for effective education. Earlier I wrote a blog which compared the Finnish school system with the American schools system. Two major differences are student to teacher ratios, and freedom of teachers to do their jobs. In Finland, the average class size is roughly ⅔ of the average size of a class in the U.S., and often times even less. This provides the teacher with the freedom to teach according to the student, rather than the curriculum. Teachers are known for providing extra help and one on one time with students in Finland, which isn’t possible in a larger classroom setting. Perhaps if the U.S. focused more on funding schools rather than the military, we would also have the resources to invest in our nation’s future generations. Punishing schools for our poor allocation of resources isn’t going to fix that.
However, this article focuses on fixing a system of assessment, not fixing the root of our problems. People continue to place their faith in competition, and making public education more and more of a capitalist institution. Policy makers and parents want to pit teacher against student, teacher against teacher, principal against teacher, principal against Board of Education and school against school. If this is the real objective in creating such assessments, then we will continue to see good teachers avoiding poor schools. There will always be schools that underperform compared to other schools.
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