Celebrating Mediocrity is No One's Dream
Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Dr. K.P. Loftus
Columnist EducationNews.org

A recent television commercial begins with students peering at dolphins in a public aquarium. An oceanographer addresses them saying, "We feed them 13 pounds of food per day. Who can tell me how many pounds of food we feed them in one week?" One girl, who happens to be a minority, responds, "189 pounds!" The "oceanographer" now reveals his true affiliation, turns to the camera and declares, "That's the kind of confidence [the well-known educational tutoring firm] instills in our students!" Unfortunately, 13 pounds, times 2 feedings per day, times 7 days, is 182 pounds, not 189!

Certainly, the authors of this commercial did this on purpose. They were protecting themselves from being held accountable for falsely advertising a guarantee that their students will actually become smarter, only that they will gain "that kind of confidence." Sadly, they may have also figured that most people wouldn't even notice the error. Unfortunately, that's part of what is wrong with American education. Of course, any thinking parent can avoid sending their child to a tutoring firm that boasts of helping a child blurt out incorrect answers. But, most public schools are guilty of an even greater degree of false pride, celebrating and settling for only minimal student achievement gains. Too often, these gains are even more meaningless, as they are not even measured by student, but only by class , (e.g. this year's 3 rd graders, vs. last year's 3 rd graders). In fact, any teacher who actually wants to view the achievement of his or her own students, as measured by the school's standardized test scores, almost never can. This is because teachers rarely have an opportunity to learn these scores by student, or even by class, only by grade-level, and then not for a good six months or longer. By then it's too late because the teachers no longer have these same students. In this era of instant computerized results, there is almost no logical reason why these scores should be delayed so long, and yet they are almost never made available to schools until the following school year, with individual student performance buried in grade-level scores and percentages. Imagine the controversy that could result if these scores were suddenly made available instantly so that the students' current teachers could be held accountable for their errors, and teacher job-performance could be tied to student results.

The scenario depicted in the commercial only illustrates all too well how complacent most Americans have become with mediocrity in our students' performance. Gone are the days of rewarding only excellence, to be replaced, instead, with our eagerness to reward anything. While parents may have the right to encourage a child in this manner, schools are obligated to hold students to a higher standard. Much has been written of late about the decline of America 's schools since the 1950's or '60's. Too often this decline is tied to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling and to the Civil Right's Movement, suggesting that schools' overall academic decline is the direct result of too many "inferior" students "contaminating" the system. This is actually partly true, but not for the reasons many would believe.

One other change to America 's educational system occurred in the 1960's. Students who could not learn easily, as well as those who did not wish to be there in the first place, were no longer able to simply be dismissed from school. This included not only poor performing minority students, but poor performing and resistant students of all subgroups. This presented schools with the task of not merely presenting information, but, from this point forward, actual having to teach the material. Further, schools now faced the far more enormous task of teaching the "unteachable" as well as the teachable; the unwilling, as well as the willing. This expanded responsibility has demanded far more instructional effort and skill than was required of schools of the past, yet very few changes have been made in over 40 years to the educational requirements of America 's teachers. While Special Education was developed to reduce some of this burden on the schools, it has not begun to meet the needs of the growing number of students of all races, many with severe, but not always identified emotional and learning problems, who are now being compelled to attend school, regardless of ability or desire. Instead of recognizing this added obligation and reinforcing their efforts to truly teach the basic subjects to all of their students, most schools' budgets and staff are spread far to thin, attempting to accomplish far more extraneous tasks than are actually necessary to education, while doing none of them well. In order to meet this need, schools are too often guilty, like the man in the commercial, of patting themselves on the back for minimal or even non-achievements of their students. Further, schools, for too long, have been permitted to blame their failures on student characteristics beyond their control, instead of facing their failures head-on.

While we celebrate the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his dream of an equal opportunity for all , we must not ignore the failure of America 's schools to truly teach , regardless of race, desire, or ability.