Real Education

Having just completed Charles Murray's Real Education, I came away from the book with a renewed sense of urgency to insure that our students are appropriately educated without regard to the political whim of the day. In this case it might be the federal No Child Left Behind legislation. While the intent of NCLB for all students to be at grade-level by 2014 is admirable, it is only possible if you water down the definition of grade level.

In Idaho, we use the Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) in grades 3-10 to measure student progress against Idaho standards and grade level attainment. On these assessments, Genesee is doing better than any surrounding districts. If I had the time to go through the results from every school district in Idaho and put all the data on a spreadsheet, I would guess our test scores are the highest in Idaho or certainly within the top 2%. We use ISAT results to inform instruction so that we can meet the individual needs of students. We do not live and die by the results. We do not teach to the test. We do prepare students to take this assessment since we must demonstrate Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Otherwise we could end up in "AYP Jail."

The ISAT is a minimum competency assessment. The skills are basic (reading, language usage, mathematics and science) but do not measure deep understanding of advanced concepts or many other important elements of our curriculum such as social studies, fine arts, health, etc. You can see a comparison here of Genesee with surrounding districts of similar size and with Moscow. Our teachers make sure our students have basic skills but they do not stop there.

Murray points out the truth of Aristotle's insight "One of the deepest forms of human enjoyment is the exercise of one's realized capacities." Statistically, half of all students are below average. Genesee does not have a large enough population of students for this to be true here. Our students do not fall along a normal bell shaped curve. Technically their academic achievement is skewed to the right meaning they are more capable than average. That is due to local demographics; i.e., socio-economic status and the education level of parents. We should have high test scores, but we cannot be satisfied with just doing well on the ISAT.

Perhaps the Army says it best with their slogan "Be All That You Can Be." The problem as Murray points out is that the Army uses the word can. "It is not good enough just to wish children well. It is our obligation as adults to oversee their journey. Sometimes this means encouraging, reinforcing, and praising -- things that make us feel good. But dealing with can imposes less pleasant roles as well. ...sometimes (this) means pushing, criticizing and demanding -- things that make us feel like the bad guy. When a child's aspirations are unrealistic, making good on our obligation means guiding the child toward other goals." These are not always politically correct concepts in society today.

As Murray points out "the goal of education is to bring children into adulthood having discovered things they enjoy doing and doing them at the outermost limits of their potential." This applies to all students regardless of their range of ability. I hope we are a significant part of that journey for every student at Genesee School.