ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 20, 1996 TAG: 9601220011
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES P. JONES
RETIRED Social Studies Professor Dan Fleming made some strong criticisms in his Jan. 4 letter to the editor (``Lawmakers must come to grips with school reform'') of the new Virginia public-school academic standards. While I respect his experience as an education professor of many years' standing, his objections are off base.
Fleming professes to worry that introducing the new standards will expand the state bureaucracy needed to enforce them. In fact, the result of the standards will be just the opposite. As he knows, the state already has too much control over local schools. There are presently more than 50 separate sets of state regulations governing the details of how local schools operate. These often are arcane rules, covering hundreds of pages, regulating almost every aspect of school operations, even the sizes of elementary-school bathrooms. To keep their state accreditation, local schools must always comply with these rules.
The problem is that these rules presently do not require any minimum level of student achievement, which, after all, ought to be the basic reason our schools exist. No Virginia school has ever lost its accreditation, although there are some (thankfully, not too many) where children are performing poorly.
Up to now, we've tried to improve school performance solely by imposing more regulation. Education reformers now realize, however, that instead of more regulation, we should hold schools accountable for the ultimate result - how well they educate young people - and allow local teachers and parents to accomplish that goal without undue interference from central authority.
Of course, as Fleming rightfully points out, it's important to decide the most equitable means to impose accountability. Obviously, it does no good to simply ``punish'' poor-performing schools. But it's just as clear that we cannot continue the present system in which our public schools face little, if any, consequnces for unacceptable results.
Some states, like Kentucky, have tried positive consequences, such as money bonuses for schools that improve their performance each year. Local teachers and parents decide how the bonus money is to be spent, whether for more training for teachers, more computers or whatever else they decide will best continue their school's progress.
The point is we need to adopt a system that focuses the attention of all concerned on academic performance. Then we can remove the present, and largely irrelevant, state regulation that Fleming says he dislikes.
Of course, all say they are for higher academic standards. How could they not be? The test of their conviction, however, is whether they are willing to make these higher standards required for all schools, or whether they want them merely to be ``suggestions'' to be ignored when they become too burdensome or difficult to apply.
Fleming also takes issue with the content of the new standards, calling them unclear and sometimes ``student-level inappropriate.'' He's entitled to his opinion, but other impartial observers disagree. For example, the Virginia standards as a whole recently won the plaudits of the American Federation of Teachers, which ranked them among the best in the United States for clarity.
I urge all parents and teachers to read the new standards, and make their own judgments. Do the standards clearly set forth what our children should know and be able to do? Are they rigorous and measurable? Do they contain the basic skills and knowledge that we want our children to acquire in school? I'm convinced they do, but I hope interested citizens will obtain a copy of the standards from their local library or school and judge for themselves.
Unfortunately, there are some in the education establishment who do not want to change the present system. They deny that our schools need to improve at all, and prefer the present absence of accountability.
But the public at large doesn't agree. While most citizens still respect their local schools, public-opinion polls show that such support is tenuous. Most people want our public schools to focus more on the basics, and to be more accountable for results. The new Virginia Standards of Learning are important steps forward in that direction.
James P. Jones of Abingdon is president of the State Board of Education.
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