One of the most frustrating aspects of public policy debate in this country is the tendency to boil every argument and issue down to an absolute, black and white, simplistic version of itself. It seems as if we have, for the most part, lost the ability to have an honest, thoughtful debate about a topic. The recent debates about Education “Reform” are a prime example. Our public figures treat teaching and learning as if they were simple human behaviors that can be measured simply and that require simple solutions when deemed insufficient. The truth is that teaching and learning in the U.S. system of public education is far from simple and requires a multi-faceted approach if we are to engage in its improvement

For example, one of the most widely quoted pieces of research is that which states that the teacher is the most important factor in determining a student’s success. What the research actually shows is that teaching is the most important element of successful learning, in the classroom. This is an important distinction because this quote has been used to justify some very sweeping “reforms.” Firstly, the research does not state that the teacher is the ONLY important element to successful learning in the classroom, just the most important. Reformers have used this quote to justify cutting spending on lowering class size, buying updated resources, and improving technological infrastructure, software and hardware. The logic is that, if teachers are the most important element, then all of the other elements are unimportant, which is far from the truth.

 The misrepresentation of this research has led to using teacher scapegoating, and, more recently, mass firings, to fix a school or system which is underperforming. But the research does not say that the teacher is the most important element to a school, or school system. It is the classroom learning that is most affected by teacher performance. If reformers want to use this research in order to create a comprehensive teacher evaluation tool that measures a teacher’s performance in the classroom, and how his or her actions are affecting the growth of the students within that classroom, then this approach would make sense. The problem is that reformers are using this research to blame the performance of a school or a district (or in some cases the public education systems in general) on teachers, and this is simply not fair. 

In Rhode Island, for example, we use the NECAP tests to measure student performance – on the NECAP. The test can be used to gather some evidence of student growth, but to use only one measure to determine whether a student has shown sufficient growth over the course of the school year is kind of like taking a patient’s temperature, finding he has a fever, and pronouncing that he is gravely ill. As a tool, the NECAP is not good at measuring student growth. (Measuring student growth would require a much more in-depth and thorough approach at the classroom level – the kind of work teachers do every day, but for which our larger educational bureaucracies do not have the capacity. So they rely on simple, black and white, standardized tests.) So, if you are measuring student growth in order to determine teacher effectiveness, the NECAP is not the tool you would want to use. What the NECAP is good at  is measuring a school or district’s performance on the NECAP itself. Which is to say that the NECAP is not really very good at measuring anything useful.

One thing about the NECAP, and tests like it, that the research is clear about, is that it is a very accurate measure of the socio-economic status of the homes from which the students who are taking it come. Indeed, the strongest predictor of student performance this year on the NECAP is how well the student did last year on the NECAP, and the strongest predictor of that is the neighborhood from which said student comes. As researcher, Alfie Kohn has said,” Don’t let anyone tell you that standardized tests are not accurate measures.  The truth of the matter is they offer a remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered.”

Does this mean teachers aren’t important or that they can do nothing to affect student learning. Of course not. As stated previously, teachers are the most important element in the classroom. We should be focusing on improving teaching and finding accurate and comprehensive ways of measuring good teaching. But to give a standardized test like the NECAP and determine from that, which teachers are performing and which aren’t is ridiculous.

Which brings us to another educational myth – the failing American educational system. This is such a gross oversimplification, if not an outright fabrication, that it would be an insult to every person in the country if it weren’t so widely accepted. However, once again, the research does not support this claim. By every measure, as a whole, American public schools have been improving for decades. There are schools in the American public education system that outperform any school, in any country in the world. Then there are schools that are in crisis, but it’s not truly the schools that are in crisis. It’s the students in the schools, and their families that are struggling in poverty stricken neighborhoods that are in crisis.

Long ago, our politicians decided that addressing poverty was a losing strategy. No one gets reelected revitalizing poor neighborhoods. If a high school in an impoverished community has a high drop out rate, policy makers know what to do to address this, but there’s no political will to do so. Dropout rate is different than graduation rate, by the way. Graduation rate measures how many students take four years to graduate, while drop out rate measures how many students never graduate. Central Falls High School, for example, has a graduation rate of around 50% but a drop out rate of about 30%, which means about 20% of the students take longer than four years to graduate, but still graduate. (Why the four year timeline makes graduation rate more important than drop-out rate is beyond me). So what should policy makers do for the 30% of students dropping out in these communities? 

First of all, a stronger Head Start program, child-outreach screenings and free, mandatory pre-school would go a long way toward helping. Also, many of these students have to work in order to help their families. We should create community programs that allow students alterative paths to graduation that fit with the students’ work schedules. There should be no penalty for taking longer than four years to graduate high school. Beyond that, the creation of alternative schools, trade schools, technical schools, schools of the arts, and the like, would go along way to addressing the diverse needs of the students in these communities. (Truth be told, these kinds of programs are needed for all students in every high school, but especially for students in our most at-risk communities who are at a particular disadvantage because of the economic situation which surrounds them.)

Can you imagine if the students at Central Falls had options for their high school careers that actually met their needs? How many students do you think would graduate then? Why aren’t we doing this? Because it’s expensive, and no politician would ever dare touch the third rail of asking for more money for public education. “Reformers” have long ago convinced the American people that “throwing more money at education” won’t work (because the greedy teachers unions will take it all anyway). Of course, in our “underperforming” urban public schools, more money, more schools, more teachers, more programs, and more ways to reach the goal of high school graduation are exactly what we need. No public policy maker would ever have the courage to say so, though. Instead, we scapegoat the teachers, talk about “accountability” (for the teachers – not anyone else), vilify the teachers’ unions and turn every school in America into a test prep factory, which is much cheaper than addressing the real problems that exist in our society and its schools.

I want to be clear. I am not absolving teachers or saying what they do in the classroom in not important to student growth. I am also not saying teachers should not be held accountable for student growth. Let’s create a comprehensive system that measures such growth and the teachers’ role in facilitating that growth. And then let’s hold teachers accountable for it. The 90% of the teachers who are effective will grow and become better. The 10% of teachers who are not, will be offered support, and if they still cannot improve, should move on from teaching. We can, and should, hold teachers accountable for what goes on in their classrooms. What we can’t hold teachers accountable for are the ills of the schools that exist in our impoverished neighborhoods. If we really want to fix those “failing” schools, it’s going to take a lot more than blaming teachers.

The next time you hear someone saying things like, “accountability,” “raising the bar,” “not accepting failure,” “rigorous,” “measurable,” “accountable,” “competitive,” “world-class,” or  “high expectations,” in reference to our public schools, whether it’s President Obama, or a newspaper columnist, or a school administrator, ask them to explain themselves. Ask them to tell you specifically what these buzzwords mean to the classrooms in which the students learn. Ask them which programs and strategies will be implemented. Ask them how they will work to improve the lives of the students and families that are in crisis outside of school, so that they can perform better in school.

If they don’t have answers for you, then they are not educators. They are politicians of the most cynical variety, ignoring the needs of the most at-risk citizens of this country, and using the vilification of public school teachers as a cover for doing nothing. It is this group of "reformers" that need to be held accountable for their failure.