I often complain about the lack of “good news about schools” stories in the media.
Sure they get the story when a third grader brings a gun to school but I never saw my 6th grade Science Fair on Channel 2. So, hey, I was thrilled, thrilled, I tell you, on the front page of my Washington Post.
I could have spent the day a happy woman, but noooo. I just had to read the whole story. I wanted to love this story. I wanted to call up the Post writer and invite him over for a pedicure (which I believe is the highest form of human gratitude). But I am haunted that the good news was the bad news.
It was a sweet piece on the success in, where a superintendent is getting well-deserved credit for concentrating on closing the “achievement gaps” between white kids and black and Hispanic kids.
(I hate to be picky, but this is actually standardized-test-score gaps which, please trust me, is not the same thing as achievement but anyway the point is…)
Everybody focused. He instituted full day kindergarten (yeah!) But then the article mentioned, in passing, that they (hmmmm).
The K-12 focus on test-score-gaps was like a military objective. The goal was beautiful: All kids would be college-ready at graduation.
The really representing white kids and the lines representing brown and black kids were inching ever closer to a common point. Could this be The One? The legendary Best Practice model? Finally! Good news! Page one! I begin to hyperventilate!
But I just had to read the whole story, didn’t I? Buried near the end of the article is a small bitty fact. The graduation gap between white and minority kids in the last five years actually increased. The gap increased. The gap in college entrance SAT scores actually increased! The gap increased!
Come again? The goal of focusing on state standardized test scores was…remember? Anybody?
You’re not ready for college if you don’t graduate. Just maybe there’s a correlation between focusing so heavily on getting test scores up for poor and minority kids and graduation rates going down for poor and minority kids.
Shouldn’t we wonder if narrowly focusing on drilling in elementary and secondary schools, might actually on a much more sophisticated test like the SAT which (whether or not it should be) is still the hottest ticket to most colleges?
The graduation and SAT gap-growth got almost no play in the article. The piece is completely the good news that we’re taking the high ground on narrowing the test-gap.
I don’t want to diminish the determination, planning and effort by teachers, administrators and support staff who soldiered through land mines and crawled under barbed wire to pull this off. They thought they were doing the right thing. But if the victory objective was to have every, single, blessed kid college-ready, they are winning the test-score battle and losing the war.