By John Bebow - March 13, 2008
It's been a stressful week in Michigan high schools.
High school juniors this week endured the ritual of passage known as the Michigan Merit Exam, a battery of tests designed to assess student readiness for both college and the work world.
This year's exam comes less than a month after state schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan pleaded with a panel of lawmakers to resist the knee-jerk urge to water down Michigan's relatively new — and nationally recognized — education standards.
Mark Murray, the president of Meijer and board member of the Center for Michigan, predicted this kind of pressure for mediocrity two years ago. At the time, he was still president of Grand Valley State University. He urged lawmakers to hold the line. To think of the long-term future. To know that high school students in Michigan today compete not so much against each other, but against their colleagues in Bangalore and Beijing.
It's all about how those global students spend their two million minutes in high school.
2 Comments
High expectations are good things for Michigan and its children, if they are applied in a manner that supports long term thinking and avoidance of mediocrity. As freeway signs guide all on their journey these standards can guide administrators, teachers, students and parents along the road of life long learning.
Process matters as much or more than just standards. Unfortunately, the way these standards are being applied produces mediocrity and short term thinking, especially when the MME is touted as a measure of progress to excellence. The million minutes are spent in test preparation, especially the reinforcement of short term memory skills.
There is a segment of the school population that thrives in an environment of linear thinking, and their skills and talents are absolutely necessary if Michigan’s future is to be secured. But academic excellence represents a 19th century pattern of thinking and it is not a path that leads to innovation, creativity and imagination.
These standards, combined with integration of curriculum, teachers working across classrooms, freedom from age grading and Carnegie units, assessment via performances and a de-emphasis on standardized testing – combined with academic rigor – will lead to a true excellence in education that produces long term thinkers focused on meaningful purpose and never ending improvement of process and product.
Rigor, relevance and relationships, it’s a three legged stool. Don’t expect it to remain upright on only one leg.
As a retired educator, both teacher and administrator, I support challenging standards. A couple of caveats. We just know humans do not learn the same way or at the same rate. It might take some four years to understand Alegebra 1 and Geomentry. Do they get four credits? Complicating things, we learn different things at different rates. A lockstep curriculum can force some to move ahead without understanding all the basics.
Comparing our schools to foreign schools is not an apple to apple comparison. Many countries do not educate all their students to high standars. They are sorted. Many do not have special education. Of course, most have not added other "stuff" to schools. Visiting educators are amazed at interscholastic athletics, that is not part of their world at all. That's just one example,there are more. Now, think of the resources that are spent on the other "stuff."
And finally, do you want to lead the charge to eliminate football or basketball? Do you want to be on the committee that sorts kids? This one can't go to school any more. That one can only go to a vocational program. This one may go on to our academic program? See a problem here?
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