ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTOPHER WALTER
GOV. GEORGE Allen is at it again. While serving a very narrow constituency and, perhaps, eyeing higher political office, he is changing how Virginia educates its children. His administration is butchering our elementary, middle and high school curricula. Here is how it will hurt us:
According to Robert C. Small, dean of Radford University's College of Education and Human Development ("The Teaching Should Precede the Testing," Roanoke Times, March 24, 1996), (1) standards of learning proposed by the Allen administration are a major departure from the current curriculum; (2) there is no money to develop or purchase textbooks specific to this new curriculum; (3) poor school districts (including many in Southwest Virginia) don't have resources to obtain new materials; (4) new statewide tests will probably focus so narrowly on the SOLs that teachers will be forced to teach to the test rather than educate, and (5) kids will be taught things they're not ready to learn. (For example, are third-graders ready to learn about ancient civilizations? To use an athletic analogy, would we require an 8-year-old track star to high-jump 6 feet?)
Simply put, Gov. Allen demands that teachers and kids meet questionable requirements without training, textbooks, materials, money or anything else - just do it.
The changes began sensibly. Several school districts were lead districts in developing new SOLs, the benchmarks for what should be taught in each grade. Allen had a good idea - involve Virginia's educational professionals (gasp!) in revitalizing our education system.
Many fine scholar-educators toiled endlessly to develop SOLs better than those we had before and that also had the advantage of being supported by the teachers. What a novel idea - a budding form of participatory democracy!
Then something weird happened on the way to Richmond. Someone changed the SOLs and it was not the educators who worked very hard, and for free, to develop them. The SOLs were changed from what we know works into something we know will not.
Some changes were idiotic. For example, many suggested reading books that weren't even in print. Sounds like someone substituted a personal agenda; it also sounds like someone didn't even know how to look up the books in a library's card or computer catalog. Even most elementary students know that!
Also, SOLs that built on other standards were moved around until students would learn what they needed to prepare for one year's work after they needed it. That's like teaching sky-divers to pull parachute rip cords after they hit the ground.
The problems with Allen's changes go even deeper, however. Districts, principals and teachers may be required to cover the curriculum under the threat of punitive sanctions if kids do not perform to a certain standard. Affluent districts, whose kids live with both parents and who are continually enriched at home, will have few problems. Other districts will have to scramble to survive, even though they may be doing relatively better than affluent districts, considering the advantages their kids do not enjoy. In other words, the best way for a teacher, principal or district to look good is to have the best kids as an input. Then you also have the best kids as an output.
What happens with the districts, principals and teachers that fear, rightly so, the devil-take-the-hindmost management scheme Richmond is considering? They'll be pressured to teach to the test and cover the curriculum. They'll be pressured to "succeed" at the expense of truly educating the kids.
Actually, I believe we should cover the new SOLs - with 6 feet of dirt.
Besides the obvious problems with the governor's "fix," let's talk about issues that have been hot topics in management for only the last 2,000 years or so.
I recently attended a workshop in which the leader polled the attendees on their training and education. Everyone was skilled in teaching, counseling, special education and the like, but only one was trained in management. The leader opined that it was ludicrous to be running a multibillion-dollar industry when no one was trained to manage it.
How true.
Here's a simple analogy, a sort of watch-my-lips-carefully one because, after all, Richmond may read this. Let's say I want to get my car inspected, buy groceries, drop off library books and go to the doctor. I have 10 minutes for all of these things. Can I do them in 10 minutes? Of course not.
Now, let's say I want to teach fourth-graders every one of the required fourth-grade SOLs in one year. Can I do it?
Has anyone ever analyzed the proposed SOLs to see if they can be learned by the kids (versus taught "at" the kids) in a year? And not learned just by the "perfect" kids but by all kids?
What happens to a teacher, with a class filled with essentially nonreaders, who decides to focus on reading at the expense of other SOLs? A good manager would applaud anyone who did what was needed most instead of rigidly adhering to a standard made in a smoke-filled room by people oblivious to children's needs. Allen would have that teacher sanctioned and possibly fired.
Has anyone analyzed how much teaching time is available in a school year? Try this elementary school math problem: Take 990 hours of school time during a year. Subtract time for field trips. Subtract time for art. Subtract time for music, library, computer lab, physical education, recess and guidance. Subtract the average time lost to absences, fire drills and assemblies. Divide the remaining time by the number of SOLs. Factor in kids who, through no fault of their own, need a lot of time to learn even when they receive extraordinary instruction. Pop quiz: How much time is available, and needed, to teach each SOL?
Has anyone done a basic time/task analysis to see if these SOLs can be taught in the available time? If not, why not? If not now, when?
What about organizational renewal? Has Richmond considered that you can't change a system with hundreds of school districts, thousands of teachers and a multitude of kids overnight; that organizational change takes years of concerted effort, training and support to be effective? In other words, you want it done when?
These basic concerns are solvable with low-level management skills. You can find people who can easily guide us toward success by looking to our universities and the private-sector enterprises of which Gov. Allen is so fond.
A multibillion-dollar industry - whether it be education, the military, the government or a private-sector business - being run by people with little or no training in management is analogous to a giant machine operated by pygmies.
It's time to get past the pygmy stage and properly manage our vital educational industry. It's time to stop prescribing ill-considered mandates. It's time to stop threatening school districts, principals, teachers, parents and kids.
It's time to give the kids and their teachers the time, leadership, materials, supplies and training they need.
It is time to put our children's education first.
Christopher Walterof Pembroke is a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer who now teaches elementary school in Montgomery County.
LENGTH: Long : 124 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Kevin Kreneck/Fort Worth Star-Telegram.by CNB