Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 14, 1993 TAG: 9309110295
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SCHONS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As a public-school teacher who has taught secondary education for 13 years in Virginia, I share his concern and agree with many of his criticisms of the educational system today. True, the quality of education does need improving. One fact that supports this need is the number of students entering college who are unable to do college-level work and need remedial course work. In a recent study, one-fourth of the students in 15 Southern states needed remedial work. Virginia's results - an average of 14 percent for 1991 graduates - are better, but still no cause for celebration. In Roanoke, about 20 percent of the students needed remediation, and at one high school the percentage was 30 percent.
The easy conclusion is that students today are graduating without mastering the basic skills traditionally required to earn a high-school diploma and to prepare them to do college-level work. The problem is not that simple. Nor is the picture of education today as grim as LeDoux and others would paint it. These critics of education would have us go back to the ``Golden Age of Education'' - the age of the '40s, '50s and '60s when students were smarter, SAT scores were higher, and the United States spent less money on education than it does today. LeDoux and others who criticize education today need some remediation concerning basic facts about education today vs. yesterday.
One myth is that students today are not as smart as they used to be.
Fact 1: Today's students average about 14 IQ points higher than their grandparents did.
Fact 2: Today's students average about seven points higher than their parents did on standard IQ tests.
Fact 3: The number of students expected to have IQs of 130 or more is now about seven times greater than it was for the generation now retiring.
Fact 4: The number of students above 145 IQ points is now about 18 times greater than it was two generations ago.
Fact 5: In 1978, 90,000 high-school students took advanced-placement tests for college credit; in 1990, that number increased 255 percent, to 324,000 students.
Fact 6: The increase in IQ is most pronounced in the abstract, problem-solving areas, which are better measures of general intelligence than mere rote-learning.
Usually, it is back-to-basics, mere ``memorization'' that LeDoux and other critics of education advocate.
Another criticism of education is that the Scholastic Aptitude Test mean scores have dropped dramatically in the past 25 years, another ``myth.'' The reality is that more students are taking the SAT today than they did 20 or 30 years ago.
Fact 1: More students in the bottom 60 percent of their class have been taking the test since 1960. Even so, the raw score total has declined only 3.3 percent, which translates to about five fewer questions answered correctly. And most of that drop occurred from 1965-1975.
Fact 2: When today's test-takers with the same demographics of the test-takers of 15 years ago are compared with their 15-years-ago counterparts, today's students show an increase of about one-third of the standard deviation in SAT performance.
Fact 3: Every one of the subgroups for whom there are data (white, black, Asian, American Indian, Mexican American and Puerto Rican) has increased its average score on the SAT in the past 15 years.
A third popular myth, which criticizes education today, is that we are spending more money per capita on education than any nation in the world. What's misleading is the inclusion of higher-education expenditures with K-12, which is unfair because higher education is more widely available in the United States than in many countries. In fact, higher education in the United States is an educational mecca for all countries, including those often cited as being ``better'' than the United States educationally.
Fact: The United States is 12th among 16 industrialized nations in spending for K-12 education, spending less than all but three countries for K-12 education.
I don't deny that there are problems. Society has changed. However, the solutions to problems 30 years ago are not necessarily the solutions for today's problems.
LeDoux's simplistic equation, of outcome-based education with "feelings" education as opposed to fact-based education, is reductionists' nonsense. The memorization of information alone without the ability to apply this information is training, not education. Lab rats can be trained to ``remember,`` but is this education? As cited earlier, the increase in IQ throughout the industrialized world is greatest in the abstract, problem-solving areas that are truer measures by anyone's standards of general intelligence. It is just such learning that outcome-based education or world-class education advocates.
Do these critics of outcome-based education even understand what it is? I have yet to read a correct definition articulated by one of the many opponents. Outcome-based education advocates performance instruction and objective evaluation. Testing is criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced. That means more objective and less subjective evaluation. Furthermore, students not only must learn facts; they must be able to demonstrate mastery through performance. In other words, accountability is required, and curriculum assessments are on-going. Outcome-based education is not a magic show with smoke and mirrors. It is an objective, verifiable and accountable educational reform program.
Another interesting point is that both critics of educational reform and proponents of outcome-based education agree that ``business-as-usual'' is f+inoto working. But these same critics of reform attack any attempt to address the problems with solutions. What would these critics do? Would they have educators apply the solutions of 30 years ago to the problems of today? And why are these critics so vehemently opposed to someone trying to ameliorate the problems - to try to make education even better than it is?
As an educator and a parent, I agree with the conclusion that LeDoux proposes: to produce quality education should be the utmost priority of the educational system. However, LeDoux's argument is syllogistic. He inaccurately attributes the self-esteem movement and grade inflation to outcome-based education. Overemphasis on self-esteem to the exclusion of quality performance, and the rampant grade inflation of public education and higher education today, are f+inoto products of outcome-based education. The failures of today's education that he cites are problems that outcome-based education proposes to address, not problems it has created.
\ Elizabeth Schons of Hardy has been an adjunct faculty member at Virginia Western Community College and is a Virginia Tech doctoral student in higher-education administration.
by CNB