Jean, an Aretao (www.aretao.com) consultant, tries to read all the great material on education that shows up in her in-box. Recently, two showed up with "at Risk" right up front. She decided to investigate. This is her report.

The Education Report Card on the effectiveness of the nation's schools by the US Chamber of Commerce (February 28, 2007) and the article "Education at Risk" (March 2007) appearing in Edutopia: The New World of Learning are much more powerful read side by side than either taken separately. Readers will see the report's and the article's major points more clearly as they set each another in relief. Readers will also see strategies from both to take directly into the classroom.

First, the question: Is “Education at Risk” in a “Nation at Risk”? The Chamber in its Report Card says absolutely: “The conclusion of this report card is unambiguous; the states need to do a far better job of monitoring and delivering quality schooling.” There is no misinterpreting that position. Furthermore, in the Overview in the Report Card, it explains, “It has been nearly a quarter century since the seminal report A Nation at Risk was issued in 1983…Throughout that period, education spending has steadily increased and rafts of well-intentioned school reforms have come and gone. But student achievement has remained stagnant...”

In other words, according to the US Chamber, efforts at improvement in education have been ineffective and expensive for a very long time.

Or maybe not: Edutopia writer Tamim Ansary makes the case that A Nation at Risk was a flawed, political tool full of fear-laden rhetoric, that the statistics used to “prove” educational failure were the results of “Simpson’s paradox” and that “The decline [in scores] signified not failure but rather progress toward what had been a national goal: extending educational opportunities to a broader range of the population.” In other words, according to Ansary, efforts at improvement in education were effective across the board as all subgroups held steady or improved; statistics were used in a way to mask the real movement. 

And as for reform today, Ansary sees flaws in No Child Left Behind as a way to improve public education, while the Chamber recommends re-authorization of NCLB. Ansary says “it’s never really a choice between supporting or rejecting school reform. It is, or should be, a choice between this reform and that reform.” According to the Chamber, “Reform needs to be rigorous and well developed to best meet the needs of all students.
Further, it will require a willingness to push both political and educational leaders to upend familiar arrangements and comfortable routines.” They both call for reform, but not reform the same way.

With the analysis of thoughtful people from the Chamber and Edutopia seeming to present positions at polar opposites, a quick click through the Report Card will stir up even more questions: What does it mean when a state’s “21st Century Teaching Force” earns an A but the state scores an F in “Academic Achievement” yet a B in “Post Secondary Readiness?”  (California) Or what does it say about the importance of academics when a state’s rigor and academics garner C’s, but its teaching force earns an A and its Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness rates an A? (North Carolina) How proud can parents be if their state’s academics are rated A but its rigor a D? Can they be comforted that their workforce readiness is B? (New Hampshire)

The apparent lack of correlation between the ratings for academics and the ratings on readiness with necessary skills for the future makes cherrypicking the results an attractive option, depending on one’s point of view.

Meanwhile, while reports and articles stake out intellectual and numerical  standoffs, millions of children and teachers are working in classrooms on the business of teaching and learning. For them, what happens today matters, long before the questions of reform are settled. When teachers read reports like the US Chamber of Commerce’s Report Card, how should it inform their teaching when they face their students? When  they read an article like Edutopia’s, should teachers be content with Ansary’s confidence that “only on-site teachers can really make a broad on-going assessment that gets at a range of achievements and takes the individual into account”? What should the twentyfirst century teacher demand and what should they give? How can education achieve its  mission to prepare students in the midst of divisive rhetoric that tears down the very practitioners who have invested their lives in the profession? Can there ever be a clear mandate for educators?

Seeing that the debate is not clear-cut leaves educators with the options of maintaining the status quo, throwing their hands up in frustration, or deciding to wait until consensus is reached. But true education, as many educators are fond of saying to their students, means “becoming life long learners;” teachers know they are called to continue to learn about their profession throughout their careers.

So, as many a former student has learned when confused, skip to the summary; in this case, faced with the mixed results of the report and the article, skip all the arguments and go right to the recommendations. They send teachers to school with the following: Ansary cites several currents of educational reform as possible medicine for American schools, but they boil down to this: draw into teaching the best minds who also can motivate students to learn, and allow innovation in education so that all students have the opportunity to succeed.

The Chamber’s medicine for American schools, according to Tom Donohue, Chamber president: "We must immediately ensure that our students have effective teachers, that all schools use rigorous standards, and that education systems are innovative and employ sound management principles." The Report card also suggests that schools “create opportunities for dynamic problem solving and the reinvention of outmoded routines, whether in the form of more flexible charter school laws, greater openness to online delivery of educational content, or other approaches that are still being developed.”

From the two sources, teachers can glean that they really matter: highlight “best minds” and “effective teachers.” Teachers can glean that innovation really matters, and that all students must be given the opportunity to succeed. They can also conclude that the pressure is on them to prepare students and to have the results stand up to business metrics.

To measure up, teachers must be afforded the resources and the opportunities – local and international - to utilize the critical thinking, the collaborative and the problemsolving skills needed to train their students to succeed in the global economy. What teachers can take from these publications into their classrooms is that every day when they go that extra mile for that weary or discouraged student and when they create that workaround for the equipment they don’t have, they are undertaking educational reform. While the chalk-and-talk approach is outdated for students, it is even more so for their teachers, who, given 21st century tools and opportunites will be eager to use them.

To read the publications referenced in this article, go to the following links:
“Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectivenss” http://www.uschamber.com/icw/reportcard/default
“Education at Risk” http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/edutopia/0307/
Jean Locicero Shankle is Director of Training at Aretao (www.aretao.com) and is a  certified public school teacher in New Hampshire.  copyright Aretao 2007

Published March 21, 2007