On fixing the APS

The release of AYP and graduation rate statistics has prompted a number of newspaper articles and blog posts on what is wrong and how to fix it. Brace yourself for one more.

• The fundamental paradigm is flawed.

It is based on the assumption that cats can be herded. It is based on the assumption that you can take thirty kids, arrange them in five rows of six, or if you want to explore new ground; six rows of five, and move them in exactly the same direction, at exactly the same speed for 12 years.

The solution;
teach children to be independent learners, and allow them to move at their own pace, and to the maximum practical extent, in their own direction.

• There is social promotion.

The solution;
end social promotion, require nearly mastery level proficiency before moving students into situations where in the lack of proficiency eliminates the possibility of success. Social promotion is a scheme to avoid having to deal with the truth which is; some groups of students are not succeeding at the same rate as other students; minority students, for example, do not succeed at the same rate as rich white students succeed.

• Success in public schools is dependent upon success in one learning style, a style that requires the ability to read well.

The solution;
allow students to learn by whatever method suits their interests and skill sets. Consider a typical history class; students will read about an event in a history book, perhaps listen to a lecture about that event, and then take a standardized test to measure their proficiency. The same event has been the subject of a 45 minute long, very professionally done video presentation that in all likelihood is available from the History Channel archives. We need to get past the idea that all knowledge comes from textbooks and teachers mouths.

• Success in public schools is dependent upon daily attendance. A child who misses a day, a week, a month or a year, is behind and will remain behind.

The solution;
students who are learning independently come back where they left off, no lost ground, no missed skill set development, no lack of foundation for further learning.

• Student discipline, or more accurately the lack of student discipline, is a major deterrent to learning, not only for the student who is misbehaving, but for students whose learning is disrupted by the commotion, and who will not have the attention of an otherwise engaged teacher.

The solution;
stop tolerating and enabling chronically disruptive behavior. Teachers have a responsibility to end disruptive behavior. They have a responsibility to ask a student who is misbehaving to stop. If the student's response means, no, then the problem is no longer the teachers'. The problem belongs to the administration, for more reasons even than the fact that the negotiated agreement between teachers and the APS, specifically and explicitly places the responsibility for enforcing school and district discipline policies upon the administration.

• Teachers have no seat at the table where decisions are made.

The solution;
empower teachers, at the very least give teachers a seat at the table where decisions are made. APS has a division called Research, Development and Accountability. APS spends a million dollars a year doing surveys, gathering data, and producing reports. (A million dollars is an estimate, the director of the Division, Tom Genne, when asked about the actual budget, did not respond.)

That division has never, not once, surveyed teachers, who between them share well over 70,000 years of teaching experience, to ask them what is keeping them from succeeding in their endeavors. They have not gathered hard data, because teachers would invariably report that chronically disruptive students are standing in the way of their success, and, the administration is not doing enough to end it.

• The system is lead by people who are not necessarily qualified to lead. They are promoted according to an evaluation system that is "subjective and unrelated to promotion or step placement" (according to a recent Council of the Great City Schools audit). Is is a good ol' boy oligarchy.

The solution is two fold;
first, give those with the education, training, experience and expertise, a seat at the table where decisions are made. Second, establish meaningful standards of conduct and competence for administrators, and then provide for honest accountability to those standards.

The main reason that the APS, and likely other districts, is so unsuccessful is that they keep trying to make the same failed model work. This model does not work. It has never worked. It never will work.

It has been observed that doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result is a definition of crazy. It is also a definition of a lack of imagination and vision, and a lack of courage.

If I had to point one single aspect of the paradigm that guarantees that the system will never succeed, it is that the leadership cannot summon the character and the courage to engage in open and honest discussion of the issues that confront educators.

The first step in solving any problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem; candidly, forthrightly, and honestly.

For as long as the leadership of the APS continues to hide problems in order to escape accountability for creating and enabling them to continue, the problems will never be solved.

It is as simple as that.