Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 29, 1993 TAG: 9306010202
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES P. JONES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This is the future Virginia students face. Will they be ready?
Today, we are challenged to prepare our children for a future we can barely comprehend. Meeting this challenge will require our public schools to change what we teach and how we teach it. Our expectations for students must also change. We must be willing, in our communities, to reshape our schools to meet our children's future needs. And we must make sure that schools are accountable, both academically and financially.
What is being done to improve Virginia's public-school system? With the help of teachers, school officials, parents and business leaders across the state and nation, the Virginia Board of Education is putting together a comprehensive, long-term program of school reform. Our program, called the World Class Education initiative, will tackle head-on some of the most difficult challenges facing our schools today. We are pinpointing what works best in our schools, and how we can use these proved ways of teaching and learning to improve education for all children. The whole program is geared toward helping schools, teachers and parents focus their energies on our most important goal: student achievement.
What is the World Class Education initiative? Simply put, the program outlines what students should know and be able to do by the time they graduate from high school, and it holds schools responsible for the results.
But isn't this what schools have always done? Not exactly. Along with most other states, Virginia's education system has concerned itself primarily with "inputs," such as number of pupils in each class, number of books in the library, number of hours of class time each day, and number of courses needed for graduation. The idea was, of course, that if a school had all these "inputs," then a quality education would naturally follow. While these things are important, they do not tell us all we need to know about what the students actually learned while in class. "Seat time" does not necessarily equal learning.
This is why so many parents and educators are turning their focus from "inputs" to "outcomes" - or the results of student learning. The essential issue is not how much time a student has spent in class, but whether the student can demonstrate that he or she has actually learned something.
You can probably think of several examples in your everyday life that illustrate the "outcomes" of learning. For example, to get a driver's license, students must not only know what is in the manual (stopping distances, speed limits, etc.), they must also demonstrate their driving skills. They must pass the road test. You can't learn to drive by simply sitting in your automobile. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts also focus on demonstrating what they have learned by earning merit badges.
This focus on results is the heart of the World Class Education program. A key part of the program is the "Common Core of Learning" document, now in draft form. When finished, this document will outline the academic knowledge, skills and attitudes that our high-school graduates will need to be successful in the 21st century.
Parents, teachers, school officials, community and business leaders across the state have told Virginia's education board that our high-school graduates, regardless of the types of jobs they will hold in the future, must be able to think clearly, solve complex problems, work with others and communicate well. These are skills that the Common Core concept emphasizes.
There is also emphasis on relating things students are learning and doing to "real world" situations. Basic skills, such as math, reading, writing, science and social studies, will be taught in different, more realistic and interesting ways. Because the "real world" doesn't divide knowledge into units of time, schools shouldn't either. When was the last time your boss said that from 10 to 10:55 a.m. you were going to do math? Not lately, if ever. Thus, in the new structure, students will learn subjects in a more integrated and meaningful way. Research and common sense tell us that students learn and understand better by doing.
How will this work? The Common Core of Learning concept will require students to go beyond memorizing isolated, unrelated facts. What better way is there, for example, for students to learn civics than for their classroom to become a mock General Assembly where students can propose legislation, track its progress and write letters of support?
Another example of the way this will work was seen recently in one of Virginia's elementary-school classes. The county's planning office teamed up with fourth-grade students to study how communities work. Instead of memorizing long lists of facts, students and county planners built a model city, including outlying suburbs and farms. They studied numerous topics: makeup of neighborhoods, building permit requirements, zoning laws and local government. The teacher also used this theme to teach history, geometry concepts, vocabulary and problem-solving. Many schools across Virginia have already implemented similar programs. They are excited about the results and the enthusiasm shown by the students. And the enthusiasm is spreading to parents and teachers.
Specific ways in which the World Class initiative is implemented will be determined by each local community. Parents, teachers, local school-board members, community officials and education leaders will work together to decide how their schools and their programs can be improved.
Working together we can - and we must - improve our schools. The success of the World Class Education program depends on teachers, parents, students and communities thinking and learning in new ways. The stakes are high, and our children are counting on us. The quality of their lives in the next century depends on the changes we make in this one.
James P. Jones of Abingdon is president of the Virginia Board of Education.
by CNB