Education in Oregon has been fad-driven for the past several decades, and the Department's current response to the possibility of "Race to the Top" dollars signals a strong commitment to staying the course. Unfortunately, staying the course against the winds and waves of adversity is only a virtue if one is ON a course. Oregon has no basis for making any such assessment: no prize, no vision, no star by which the course might be judged true. Achievement in Oregon has been stalled out for at least a decade, leaving the deployment of the latest educational fads the 'last refuge' for those who have no vision, no educational goals, and have never so much as caught a glimpse of a navigationally useful star. Lacking any sense of direction to call its own, Oregon looks around to see what others are doing and tries inconspicuously to imitate them. Oregon seems strongly committed, in fact, to 'staying' a fad-driven, grant-addicted non-course.
The tricky thing about educational fads is that their marketeers get together, hold industry sales events (called state, regional and national conferences) and proffer their wares as 'Best Practices'. The temptation to do so must be overwhelming. There is nobody in the room to counter false claims made by salespeople, so they are able to prey on the uncertainty of their prospective clients (superintendents, board members, principals, teachers) and lure them with the promise of higher test scores, lower dropout rates, and brighter, whiter teeth! And with the constant onslaught of criticism of public education in the press, the legislative chambers, and the chambers of commerce, why wouldn't educators be vulnerable to false promises of relief?
Why not look at what others are doing? It's a perfectly reasonable strategy. How else would we ever know what 'Best Practice' is? What's the difference between pursuing 'Best Practice' and otherwise just following the crowd? 'Best Practice' would involve the adoption of practices that are getting results. Are we adopting our latest version of 'Best Practice' based on incontrovertible evidence that these practices have born fruit elsewhere? How have our last 10 attempts at imitating what was then touted as 'Best Practice' worked out for us? What has been the impact on student achievement? A state with a 30% high school dropout rate at the end of 20 years of 'continuous improvement' could do with some soul searching. But there's no time. The next grant opportunity is here. It's time to 'improve some' more. (Not that we ever stopped!)
The cornerstone of Oregon's improvement strategy seems to be "Proficiency Based" learning. It's a pretty radical idea. The premise is this: students today earn high school credit by sitting in chairs for 135 hours per year. This should change, and students should instead be required to demonstrate proficiency in order to earn credit. Wow. This claim is so flawed as to defy simple description. But here are some problems with it:
1. Oregon law today doesn't allow the withholding of a credit or the reduction of a grade based solely on lack of attendance. So seat time is not a legal requirement for earning credit. (Why ODE would seem not to know this is a mystery.)
2. Most high school dropouts report that their number one reason for leaving is that they got hopelessly behind in credits toward graduation. If those credits are based solely on seat time, then by what criteria did these young people fall behind?
3. Nobody in Oregon would dispute the fact that too many 9th graders enter high school unprepared for the rigors of secondary coursework. If all they have to do is sit for 135 hours in order to earn credit, what is it that they are unprepared to do?
4. The seat-time claim is a clear indictment of virtually every high school teacher in the State. The claim is that they do nothing beyond taking role and that they fail to appropriately instruct or assess their students.
5. The seat-time claim is a clear indictment of every high school principal, as principals have evidently not provided adequate supervision to teachers who are dispensing high school credit without assessing their students.
6. The reduction of a rich course of study (say, U.S. History) to a list of proficiencies demonstrates a lack of understanding of the discipline and a lack of experience in a good U.S. History course.
7. 'Proficiency' is another word for mediocrity. It is a drive for standardization, and so far, standardization has always resulted in the lowering of standards.
Are the proponents of credit by proficiency utterly disconnected from how high school really works, or are they disingenuous in their claims? Neither should inspire much confidence, and yet one seems clearly to be the case.
So it's another round of fads, another quest for grant dollars, and another deferral of improved achievement in Oregon schools. Improvement will, once again, be right around the next bend.
This is not a Race to the Top. It's a Race to the Tap. It's a Canter to the Kool-aide. Granted, we are thirsty. And after the next election we may be dehydrated. We still should take some care regarding what we are willing to drink.
Corbett Charter School will not be imbibing at the Tap.
