What Makes a School Great?

How do you define a great school?

The way it's typically done in the US is via standardized test scores. If you search a particular school, most likely you'll end up at greatschools.org, a website that ranks schools solely on the most recent standardized test scores available.

Obviously this ranking system leaves much to be desired, particularly for those who realize the flawed nature of standardization and high stakes testing. There is no attention paid to any of the important features of a school that research has proven to be crucial for student learning. These include class size, recess time, parent/community involvement, teacher collaboration/support, and student interest level, just to name a few.

It pains me that some parents select their child's school based solely on a group of test scores that have little application to the world. Standardized tests, after all, cannot measure some of the more important life skills such as problem solving, creativity, social skills, and compassion.

So why then, are we basing such an important decision--where to send our children to school-- on these functionally useless test scores?

Always a Teacher

I still consider myself a teacher, even though I'm not teaching in a public school now, and even though I'm not teaching at all. It is still my passion and what I want to do, just not in our current system.

I read this tweet the other day by Joe Bower: "You're either an accomplice to standardized testing or you are a teacher. You can't be both." In my case, this is true. I can't give students a test I don't believe it, nor devote so much time to practicing and preparing for that test. Not only do teachers have to administer this test, they have to put on a happy face and attempt to convince students that this test is important. My former school resorted to telling students that the benchmark tests would be graded, just to make them take it seriously. Of course they weren't graded. I don't blame those kids one bit. After all, it's hard to take a test seriously when you took a very similar test last month or two months ago. There is no reward for doing well on it. So my former school starting offering rewards: pizza parties, free time, candy.

Learning should never be about bribing kids to try on a test.

Good Teachers and Sinking Ships

Since I have decided to make a career change from teaching to... as yet to be determined, I have heard the same response time and again. "But you're such a good teacher. We need good teachers."

Though I'm flattered by the compliment, good teachers are not what our education system and our children need. Sure, good teachers are instrumental, but in such a broken system, these teachers can hardly play a tune. When good teachers aren't allowed to teach the content they think is relevant, to assess the way they know best, and to teach more holistically than the standards would ever allow, their good ability is wasted. In our current system, good teachers' abilities are stifled. They aren't teaching the way they intuitively know to be best, the way they've seen work with even the toughest of students.

I've read letters written by retiring veteran teachers who can't understand this testing madness we currently practice. Veteran teachers have told me, many times over, that if they had the same decision to make in today's society, they wouldn't choose to be teachers. This is not because they don't enjoy teaching; on the contrary, teaching has been their livelihood. But the system has disintegrated to such a degree that getting started at this point is like jumping onto a sinking ship.

Good teachers won't solve our current problems. We need a fundamental systemic change, so that these good teachers are able to teach to the fullest of their potentials.