Education In The U.S. And The Small Contribution of School Assemblies

It goes without saying, I suppose, that a company like ours, occupied 24/7 year round, with developing and performing entertaining and educational school assembly programs, would be a staunch advocate of a broad based approach to education. It makes sense, for example, that a company that produces school shows that teach not only reading and math but also, science, writing, social studies and a variety of other disciplines would be against changes in the teaching of education that diminish the importance of subjects like social studies in favor of increased emphasis on other areas like reading and math. Not that we are against reading and math, you understand, but just that we value equally a great variety of other subjects.

So in the interest of full disclosure, we fully admit that we are no fans of No Child Left Behind, nor are we fans of the practice of basing educational funding on the results of standardized testing, either on a local or national basis. Of course, one central disagreement in this argument is age old. Is education better when it focuses on fostering specific career skills, or is it better when it is aimed at providing a broad based education and promoting skills in critical thinking and problem solving? We, obviously, fall into the latter camp in our beliefs.

Driving home tonight, listening to a local NPR station here in Detroit, I happened upon an interview, conducted by local favorite Craig Fahle, with an esteemed teacher named Ken Bernstein. Mr. Bernstein is a now retired high school teacher from the Washington DC area. Some may be familiar with his Twitter account handle “teacherken”. He recently wrote a blog which took the form of an apology to college professors for what they are inheriting from high school teachers currently in the way of freshman students entering colleges and universities across the country. You may read the blog, reposted by another blogger on the Washington Post site The Answer Sheet, and you may find the interview from NPR. I highly encourage you to partake of both. Mr. Bernstein articulates very well the position we have taken for some time now.

That position is simple. The national testing implemented by No Child Left Behind not only fails to adequately solve or even help the problem it is intended to address, IE. “failing schools in the USA", it actually makes things worse. Students arriving in college now, ten years after the implementation of NCLB, and the first generation fully experienced in its methods, are less well prepared for college than ever.

They are lacking in basic skills and often require remedial non credit classes in basic skills before being able to achieve any success at the college level.

Why is this?

Experienced educators have complained all along that rewarding districts for doing well on standardized testing while financially penalizing ones that do not, merely encourages the elimination of instruction in all areas in order to focus exclusively on the areas being tested. Music, art, social studies and other non tested subjects receive short shrift when cash is on the line and depends entirely upon results in reading and math. But those subjects are important in their own right for creating citizens of tomorrow fully fitted to succeed in the world they will inherit from us.

Moreover, NCLB totally fails to address the real underlying problem in schools which centers around the vast inequities that exist in income levels from one district to another. The background of a student does have a huge impact on their readiness and ability to do well in school.

So why are these tests being imposed upon schools when so many professional educators speak out against them? Politics and the allure of “simple answers” is the answer.

H.L. Mencken, the famed Baltimore Sun journalist, once wrote “(in politics) … for every complicated problem there is a simple answer … and it is wrong.” Very true.

NCLB was instituted in an earlier form in Texas schools under the guidance of then governor Bush, but at the instigation of private companies who not only were then charged with creating the tests, but also sold books to districts designed to aid them in preparing students to successfully take the tests. Under President Bush the same vested interests were able to promote this agenda to a national level.

This is the result of politicians being charged with instructing teachers on how to teach. How would you feel if your surgeon were told how to perform your very dangerous operation by a politician with no medical experience? There is no difference between this and sending your kids to a school which has been told exactly how to teach by politicians with no experience in education.

In the last ten years we have personally witnessed a massive wave of school administrator retirements. Some of these very skilled and experienced principals retired, no doubt, because of attractive early retirement packages offered by their districts. But many might not have left had they not been so discouraged by the direction in which education was trending. We were sorry to see them go, taking with them a wealth of valuable experience and skill.

In our own little corner of the education world, we have not been immune to the affects of these changes. Prior to NCLB, our tours were heavily booked in schools with programs equally spread across science and social studies. A good example is Ohio, where, prior to NCLB, Ohio history was part of the annual state wide tests, and so received a great deal of instruction time. We provided a program on that subject entitled Buckeye Bob and the Ghosts of Ohio's Past. It enjoyed great success until new test guidelines, eliminating the testing of Ohio history, reduced the incentive for schools to augment that instruction. It goes without saying that other internal cuts were also made in how much time was allocated to the teaching of the subject in favor of greater emphasis in the areas of reading and math. Demand for poor Buckeye Bob fell so rapidly that we discontinued the program. In a similar fashion, demand for other social studies programs has also fallen. And we see this as a great pity.Not that we are whining about lost income. We simply replaced these tours with newer tours better suited to new demands.. No, we regret these changes because they reflect a negative trend toward teaching only to the test.

We are well aware of the broad based impact a good historical assembly program can have on a student's intelectual development. We have seen it again and again. Like everyone involved in front line education, we are not simply in this crazy business to make a living. We do what we do because we care.

If you care, too, we urge you to read the article above and, more importantly, listen to the interview. It is worth your time. Honest.

Oh, and keep this in mind. Even if the trend toward eliminating some sections of eduction in favor of others is not corrected, there is something you can do to aid your students in getting the broad based education they deserve. Give them a great school show that covers an area the poor teachers no longer get time to teach. It won't solve the problem, but it just might help.