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Add to Favorites"If you can read this, thank a teacher."Anonymous teacher
On the surface this might seem like a simple question with a simple answer, yet there are many factors to both teaching as well as learning. Not every student who receives excellent teaching learns and not every teacher truly teaches. However, it is a system and as a system it must have parameters in order to create definition and results that enable performance to be measured. Anything else will become devoid of any form in which to establish progress.
In addition, in the absence of accountability or consequence, performance becomes mediocre. While accountability need not necessarily be some draconian measure of such advanced degree to suggest, "If the student does not learn, fire the teacher." Similarly, a complete absence of accountability fails to reward those who are diligently and steadily demonstrating progress. In the absence of a reward response system eventually even those who remain motivated and make progress will begin to falter for a lack of competitive inspiration.
Trying to describe some sort of consequences associated with a compulsive educational system that identifies access to education as a fundamental human right, the following observations reveal some of the benefits as well as drawbacks. If one is offered all the gold one could ever want making unlimited amounts of gold available to anyone and everyone alike, pretty soon, gold holds very little value or interest. Similarly, making education a fundamental human right accessible to anyone and everyone alike, its value holds very little interest.
Unlike several hundred years ago when access to an education often involved significant effort on the part of the individual desiring the opportunity, it was not just enough to want the opportunity, one had to also demonstrate significant ability an remain available, or even seek out sponsorship to receive even a glance from instructors. A specific example brought to mind is Michael Faraday who spent years sweeping the floors of the lab before receiving opportunity to investigate and experiment eventually becoming a Cambridge University Professor and discovering the many properties of magnetism, he himself lamented at his own absence of mathematical facility for furthering his own endeavors.
Neverthele ss, today's children recognize their access to education is a fundamental right requiring no further interest than merely "being." Therefore, they can choose to take or leave the opportunity at any given time choosing to pick up later where they left off today. Similarly, today's teacher is saddled with the responsibility to teach both those urgently desirous of learning alongside those who could take or leave it at any moment. This is decidedly more of a challenge than the instructors of several hundred years ago who not only could select students but could elect to drop them based upon their level of interest or ability.
Taking into consideration, the fact that the student of today holds education to a lesser degree of value than the student two hundred years ago, who might never even receive an opportunity regardless of degree of interest. Along with this lesser degree of interest and the necessity of instructing both those eager to learn alongside those with only a marginal degree of enthusiasm, today's teacher is faced with a far more complex scenario than ever before. On top of this is the expectation that the end result of this effort is demonstrable progress. The task of teaching is ever more challenging than any time in history.
This increased degree of complexity requires accountability more than ever in order to decipher measurable results of learning. For if the drawbacks of compulsory education are a perceived lesser degree of value due to its ready availability. The benefits of compulsory education are clearly defined by its arbitrary elevation of the commonwealth's intellectual capacity. This (along with the industrial revolution) has resulted in a technological explosion in social advancement. Now more than ever, accountability must serve to continuously delineate between what is working and what is not. For in such an accelerated advance in understanding there remains an even greater chance for significant sectors of society to be left behind. Similarly, a collapse of such a system is the equivalent to, the bigger they are, the harder they fall mentality." The consequences of such a system failing can be as catastrophic as the dark ages.
While accountability does not have to be punitive, without it education cannot remain competitive. Clearly, society has shown that significant weight is given to the technological advantage. Losing such an edge could result in the complete collapse of our social construct. Therefore, it remains imperative that accountability remains sewn into the fabric of the educational system otherwise; the drawbacks of the inherent devaluation compulsory education presents will topple the benefits. In this circumstance, low test results could wind up being no test results
"The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction."- Michael Faraday
Learn more about this author, Darrin A Yarbrough.
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No
It seems that every politician throwing his hat into the ring for public office sets his sites on the education system to become the "education politician du-jour," calling for teacher accountability. The idea of holding teachers accountable for the low test scores of their students lacks validity because there are other variables that interfere with test outcome.
What amazes me is not that there are problems with test scores, but that teachers are doing the outstanding job they are doing considering the constraints placed upon them. At one point in my career I ran a small pre-employment testing business for local industry. My business was an after hours operation staffed by school teachers who needed extra income. We administered "cattle calls" for 500 or so candidates, tested them, reported the scores to industry and ten of the most worthy were hired. The frustrating thing was this industry kept hiring my employees away from me. When I inquired as to why, the company HR representative responded with, "We love to hire teachers because they are such hard workers. They are accustomed to doing so much with so little, they can do almost anything with nothing." In general, teachers do the best they can to assure student success. There is more involved than teacher skill.
Holding teachers accountable for their students low test scores is similar to holding parents accountable when their adult children falter in life. Even when good parents do the very best job possible, sometimes other variables take children in the wrong direction. More than one child from a good home with good parents has failed at life. Similarly, more than one child from an extremely bad home situation has risen above the level of his parenting to excel in life. Certainly parents have responsibility in raising their children, but parenting, like teaching, is not an all inclusive preparation for the tests of life. There are too many variables in the formula to draw a straight line conclusion from teacher to test scores.
It is rare to find a business where there is no control of the product entering the production line, no control of the product along the production line, yet every item on the conveyer belt passes inspection for market. The educational climate in a school is a product of the culture that walks through the school door. Teachers cannot overcome all the ills of society that interfere with student success in the few hours a day they have their students. Assuming we say the schools have students eight hours a day, society has them the other sixteen. Where is the greater accountability?
It has become popular in the last decade by politicians to compare the school system to a business. Using terms like product control, cost effectiveness, and accountability politicians have attempted to convince the public that if teachers were doing their jobs effectively every student would succeed. The problem with that is teaching is not a business that can be measured by "product in - product out." Teaching is an art, a science, a ministry, a social rescue program, and at times an act of desperation.
The greater body of research over the last several decades reports that the best indicator of student success is the home. Students whose parents, families, homes encourage personal responsibility succeed. Students who lack this core value are much less likely to succeed in school, on standardized tests, or in life. Our social service institutions and our prison systems are populated with these students. Is this a failing of the school, the home, or society? Considering the ills of society, the larger question is not why are some students not succeeding on standardized tests, but why are so many doing well. In that answer lies the key to teacher accountability.
If teachers could "just teach" their students they might even agree to be held accountable for test scores, but in today's public school system teaching is more than teaching. Teachers must accept every student who enters the classroom regardless of his level of readiness, his willingness to learn, his intellectual ability, and his emotional stability. Promoting success for the lowest, least willing student in the class while simultaneously challenging the class star without losing either, or the ones in the middle, requires a daily magic act by the typical classroom teacher. The teacher is always "on" in the classroom, dealing with the unexpected and the intangible, performing, nurturing, mediating, healing and ministering as well as teaching.
Yes, teachers must be accountable for being prepared, for working hard, for doing the best they can to teach, to support, to encourage, to go the extra mile. That much is without challenge. However, the teacher cannot do the learning for the student. For that the student must be accountable. If all students entered the classroom on the first day of school, on equal footing, with the same skills at the same level of enthusiasm, in schools with the same resources, it would be legitimate to claim teacher ability as the only variable. However, that is not the case.
Holding teachers accountable for low student test scores would be similar to holding doctors accountable for the lives of their smoking patients who die from smoking related disorders. A doctor has no control over the primary variable in patient health under this condition. Teacher effectiveness is only one of the variables figuring into the student success formula. It is invalid to presume teachers should be held accountable for low standardized test scores of their students without first examining and removing the other variables.
Learn more about this author, James Lynne.
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