"Accountable" Schools or Student Automatons

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

"ACCOUNTABLE" SCHOOLS OR STUDENT AUTOMATONS?

Daytona Beach (FL) News Journal "Community Voices" Column
October 9, 2006
by Bill Archer

Public education will need many years to repair the damage it has 
suffered under the recent onslaught of state and federal high stakes 
testing programs that are attempting to force all students to reach what 
amounts to a "homogenized" level of achievement at the same time.

But any goal that is contrary to the one achieved by an undistorted 
educational process that results in the discovery of new ideas and 
concepts is a wrong goal.

The present state and federal administrations' assembly line strategy 
that is supposed to result in the production of so many identical units 
doesn't apply to education unless what is wanted is a robotic sameness. 
Sameness in beliefs, values, philosophical and political perspectives 
that culminates in a product that believes it is unacceptable and 
perhaps even criminally wrong to think differently is an automaton of 
the state.

Under the banner word of "accountability," the state and federal 
governments have conspired to create an education system that will mold 
citizens into the feckless, fearful and forgetfully mindless peons that 
will do as they are directed, believe what they are told and forget 
about what true intellectual freedom without boundaries ever felt like. 
But the "accountability" they refer to has nothing to do with what most 
of us still remember as accountability.

In the not too distant past in public schools, we were tested 
periodically to see how much progress we had made in the subjects we 
were being taught by teachers like those today who are given a 
curriculum to follow. If we were having difficulty in achievement, we 
were given remedial opportunities. That was the accountability process 
and it focused on each of us as individuals.

Each of us had separate learning styles that determined our learning 
speeds. All of us were different, yet all of us managed to get where we 
were going sometime in our futures.

But today's state- and federally nuanced accountability processes 
measure entire groups of students at once with the inflexible 
expectation that all will be at the same level, at the same time, or 
else. The results of these measurements are then used to determine a 
letter grade for the entire school. That grade will then determine the 
consequences the entire school and individuals therein will suffer 
whether or not all have been tested.

This is the new accountability. It is so rife with inequities and absurd 
expectations that it is a wonder that those in positions of educational 
leadership aren't rebelling with dramatically strong actions and words 
to overthrow such an insulting and debilitating process.

Instead of a rebellion there is a new emphasis on changing the attitudes 
of teachers from that of trained instructors and presenters of 
information to that of persons responsible for encour-aging all students 
to meet the expectations of this new accountability. And each staff 
member is being encouraged to reinforce the prescribed goals with the 
same consistent message: Nonconformity is unacceptable. So those state 
and federal authorities that have prescribed what's to be learned, how 
it will be evaluated and the consequence for not meeting expectations 
are now setting teachers up to be the implementers of a draconian 
process that will inevitably subject them to consequences if unsuccessful.

At this time I can only imagine that educational leadership falls into 
one of two categories -- those who believe that what is being done is 
right and therefore encourage it or those who acquiesce for fear that 
there will be a reprisal if they speak against it. And in this political 
environment, where the present government administrations vilify those 
who resist their processes, I can understand their reluctance to resist. 
It is obvious by now the current administration wants to eliminate the 
individual and abandon true education.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Remember always that you not only have the 
right to be an individual, you have the obligation to be one." Courage 
is the element of character in a person who stands up against wrong 
doing no matter the consequence. And lastly, Martin Luther King Jr. 
said, "Intelligence plus character -- that is the goal of true education."

Archer, a school counselor, lives in Daytona Beach.

   
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN10100906.htm