Lets see what has occurred after "A Nation At Risk." The calendar did not reform. Many schools are still as set on an agrarian calendar as if we needed to head to the fields each Memorial day. School funding hasn't equalized. We had great debates regarding equity and adequacy. We learned that we can find taxing mechanisms that seem more fair but less stable. Michigan still reels after it's "Proposal A" funding reform which while the auto industry boomed during the first 5 years was fine and has since had 15 years of cuts to the point in which if one wants to become a teacher more often one leaves the state. Professionalization and respect for the teaching profession has not increased. Teachers and administrators are pitted annually with false layers of "unwillingness to change," "lack of accountability," and "satiated by tenure."
In the last 32 years, we have as a nation have added standards set after standards set, test after test, reduced professionalism in the classroom and added accountability. We are sending the children of No Child Left Behind onto college and into the career world discovering that that are really good at standardized having completed year after year of test prep and wondering why they are disenchanted and disconnected with greater society values. We have stressed accountability in the classroom and demonstrated a lack of accountability in other institutions. They are America's children. They have noticed the gridlock in the legislature, the huge corporate funding influencing their "representatives" and the bailouts of Wall Street. If we wonder why they don't go into teaching, look at their experiences. They want to create and have found that schools were a test prep academy.
In an era of statistical sampling, SABRmetrics, and advanced metrics in life and in sports, only through Federal mandate and state law would we create a system that required annual population data. The census is taken every ten years. Elections accurately predict winners prior not only to every vote being counted but rather most votes being even cast. Yet, each child, third to eighth grade and some high school years, will spend more time this year than any year prior taking standardized assessment.
The funny thing is despite this journey through education reform after reform, test after test. Inside schools Generations X, the Millennials, and Generation Z have decided to create, to innovate, to grow flowers in the desert. For them, for us, we look at these mandates and ask, what can we do despite the legislature? How can we "right size" this assessment and our efforts to fulfill it? How quickly can we get back to the business of having children explore, create, dialogue, argue, and build? How soon can we be back to coding, genius hour, guided instruction, science exploration, and social-emotional learning? We have received the letters from the Illinois State Board of Education and US Department of Education. Letters from leaders of generations past, reminding us of our legal requirements and the penalties we will receive if we do not comply. And we will be compliant. But do we value the energies of your reform? Will families value these PARCC and SmarterBalanced test scores? Or is this simply an exercise until we get back to the good stuff. We are doing it. We will be compliant. But will we value it, what will it's impact be on this next generation of learners, and is it worth it? What is price tag of our journey? Have we become the Nation at Risk?
