Reader's Views: Keep eye on education reform
The recent elections and subsequent influx of freshman legislators and BESE members provides Louisiana with the opportunity to address some of the most significant issues facing our state, particularly the pressing matter of reforming our public education system. For most of the past decade the policy debate over improving public education has centered on accountability and testing, not on student learning or growth.
In this debate, teachers are often seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution. What is missing in the discussion is public school reform that looks at the way schools are organized, teachers are trained and compensated and the way decisions are made at schools, school boards and the state. Most of our public schools today continue to follow an organizational design better suited for 20th century mass production rather than educating students in the 21st century. There should be an additional viewpoint in this debate.
School reform must include collaboration among stakeholders through the creation of partnerships among parents, advocates, business, policymakers, educators, school administrators, and school boards. These partnerships would improve and restructure public schools from the inside to enhance planning, decision-making, problem solving and the ways teachers interact and schools are organized. However, we focus all the energy on a narrow view of accountability.
The emphasis on school accountability is important and needed. However, despite our best intentions and efforts over the years, we know that our schools are not functioning as well as we wish.
We see persistent achievement gaps between our white, middle-class students and our students from different racial and cultural backgrounds or less advantaged circumstances.
We look at our changing world and realize that we need schools not only to cultivate basic literacy and numeracy but also to have more of an emphasis on complex thinking skills, collaborative personalities and an understanding of global issues.
I agree that public schools should be accountable to the public. So much is invested in our schools — and not just in taxpayer money — that to have no accountability would be equivalent to planting seeds and not tending the garden. Yet, how can we trust that the hopes we have for our children, our communities, and our state in general will bear fruit unless we watch, understand, and act to promote the health of our schools?
Ryan West
communications and policy director
Louisiana Progress
Baton Rouge