Sane Educational Goals

[Gary Chapin]

Hey, folks, in my school district we've been mandated by our board to report student achievement according to a set of standards or proficiencies. Rather then getting a "grade" for a "class,"we report whether or not you know (or are able to do) whatever is described in our districts standards. This has immense implications, that I'm reluctant to go into now, but imagine, for a moment, an educational system that refuses to average grades.

Anyway, one of the discussions going on at our district is what the "vision" of our standards based school ought to be. Here are options:

1) All kids will be given the opportunity to achieve to their potential.

2) All kids will be given the opportunity to achieve to high levels.

3) All kids can achieve to high levels.

4) All kids will achieve to high levels.

Just to riff for a minute, before I ask for your thoughts: each of these has their virtues and problems. The first, for example, references "potential." How can you measure "potential" apart from actual achievement? Research has shown that "potential," very often, is simply cultural coding with a pedagogical gloss. Anyway, second and third have the benefit of being plausible, but, as goals, they leave an out for the institution -- does every kid have a right to an education, or a right to the opportunity of an education? When do you decide whether to give up on a kid? The fourth of these is crippled by the fact that it is virtually impossible. All kids will achieve to high levels??? We know -- in our heart of hearts -- that no matter how inspiring we are, no matter how effective we are, some kids will opt out, some will fall short. All kids will not achieve to high levels, and yet, our goal is that all kids will? Is that unsane?

What is the purpose of a vision or goal or statement of belief? Is it a statement of belief about what the outcome will be (goals, we are told, need to be achievable and measurable)? Or is it a statement that -- whether accurate or no -- will inspire or promote a desired outcome?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I'm chairing the committee that's writing the policies to recommend to the board so this discussion has high marks in the category "applicability to the situation, current."

[Loel Shuler]

Wow, Gary. That’s a rather startling decision for an elementary or secondary school in today’s world in this country. I don’t know that it will have any informative value for your request for reaction, but that was an aspect of the Oxford Tutorial Plan at Olivet College in the 40’s under Joseph Brewer. I loved it.

The only grades that were sent home to parents were S, U, or I., satisfactory, unsatisfactory and incomplete. Written exams received number grades which were also designated by class, 90 and above being 1st class and below 60 being flat out failure. Those would, I suppose, be equivalent to A.B.C. D & F.

The real kicker was an event called “Collections.” At the end of each semester the entire faculty gathered in one room and one at a time each student was invited into the room and sat in a chair before the group. One by one each of the instructors who had had any association at all with that student reported on his/her progress. They were free to say anything they felt moved to say, and did so. Anyone else who had not been a direct instructor was also welcomed to speak if they chose, as was the student when all others were finished. This opened a door for social as well as academic comments. The whole was recorded verbatim and a copy sent home.

I assure you this was a nerve-wracking affair especially the first time when one had little clue as to what to expect. As well as providing a pretty clear picture of what kind of progress was or was not taking place, I suppose it had the effect of steeling us to be able to sit in the hot seat of judgment without collapsing into a blithering heap. Although there were always a few who were rumored to have done just that.

This could only work without becoming unreasonably unwieldy in a school with a small student body. But I judged it to be very effective. I don’t think I’d recommend it for elementary grades. But possibly high school students could handle it and benefit.

I should add that collections were never circulated beyond the individual student and family, unless of course the student wished to brag. In fact I personally do not recall ever sharing anyone’s collections with the possible exception of an anecdote or two. I do remember one teacher making a gentle joke about me which caused a burst of laughter from all present. When I left the room I encountered the group of strained-faced students awaiting their turn and wondering if I had fallen off the chair or what.

As far as I know the one place where the Olivet grading system encountered difficulties was in providing transcripts for transferring to other schools. But that was the responsibility of the administration to devise satisfactory equivalencies in the way of records. And I guess it worked because people did transfer and many went on to graduate school.

[Gary Chapin]

Loel, this is beautiful. Could I print it and share it with my admin team and school board. Really captures what we're after. The problem I see isn't class size -- that's a money issue that my distract has addressed for the last decade: class sizes around 15 -- but the compulsory nature of school. You can force someone to go through the motions. You can compel attendance and allow them to accumulate seat time. How can you force them to engage in the process you describe? The level of engagement and ownership -- the best aspects of it -- would be undermined by compulsory attendance laws.

This is a dilemma I'm still wrestling with.

[Loel Shuler]

Sure, Gary, you're welcome to use it any way you choose. Perhaps my Maybe Our Times Were the Best Times from the Jan. 2007 ETC would amplify it. In regard to your observation about compulsory attendance, that was another aspect of the Olivet system there was no compulsory attendance to classes. Obviously if you failed to attend a class and write your papers too much you were going to wind up with a U or an I.

Admittedly in the public school system you're dealing with some clear differences from those in a private school.

Any other way I can contribute I'm happy to comply. As you know I feel strongly about education.

[Frank Gastner]

Gary, You have been handed a tough nut. How do we know potential? Is it measurable or an empty term like happy, rich, popular, etc.
We have just been through the Olympics. Did everyone meet their potential? There were a tremendous number of also rans scattered around the world. Some even tried to make the Olympics. Our mental abilities vary as much as our physical abilities. Good coaching improves an athlete. A poorly coached athlete we can say probably did not reach his potential. But then again, he might have.

You probably are familiar with the experiment where teachers were told that they had exceptional students, and these ordinary students did better than the control group.

In Cognitive Evaluation and Communication we describe two incidents where serendipitous events changed a student. A friend who owned his own manufacturing company confided that had it not been for one teacher turning him around in seventh grade he probably would have ended up picking corn in Indiana. (See chapter 12, pages 12-04, 05, and 06.)

You can be an excellent teacher, but if your students come to school with preset ideas that thwart you, you cannot succeed until you identify those mill stones they drag with them and show them how to loosen themselves from their grip.

If your school is adventurous enough, have some of the teachers look at CEAC on k-12-communication.com. I don't have to sell you on the idea that gs works.l

[Nora]

Hi Gary. Glad to get a glimpse into what you are researching. And as usual, with your usual deep thoughtfulness and insight.

I've come to rely on a few aspects of evaluation that I think help sidestep some of the difficulties you describe. Most notably, I find it helpful to acknowledge the inherent probablistic nature of what we humans do, and to employ context and purpose to help improve the likelihood of achieving something like what we aspire to. To me, this means moderating evaluations to include the possibility of outcomes I might not prefer or didn't expect.

In terms of your vision or goal, this might manifest in changing from "all kids will..." to something like "We intend to help every student achieve educational goals to the extent of their abilities and interests." I choose "We" to expose the actor--you, not the students, at least in terms of your goals as an institution. You might help your students craft a separate goal statement. I choose "intend" to recognize that what we *actually* do might not take us where we thought we wanted to go. I choose "to the extent of their abilities and interests" to acknowledge that students will achieve to varying degrees and that their interest in their own education will influence their achievements. You can hope to affect their interest, as you noted, you may not in fact do so as much as you would like.

Of course, in the end, a goal statement can only provide a fairly high-level abstract umbrella that enables more agreement than you might actually encounter day-to-day. Easy to agree with "help the student", harder to establish for all teachers that X or Y helps or hinders. Obviously a separate topic.

I think I may have mentioned Evergreen to you in the past, the "alternative" state college in Olympia, Washington. They also do not give grades, but instead use a narrative contract between the teacher and student to establish what they think they will achieve on both sides, followed up by an exchange of written evaluations at the end of the class, that seems to work well for some students. Again, students choose to attend, rather than having to by law as in public schools. Still, I think public schools could greatly benefit from the idea of self-evaluation, assuming students get some guidance about expectations and limitations. With individual contracts for setting goals, and self-evaluations, the teacher can help students to work within the range of possible achievements they can hope to attain, rather than judging all by a single ruler that categorically makes some students "failures" simply because they don't achieve what the "best" students can.

I think you can use context and purpose to adjust expectations as well. Rather than rating students on an unqualified "level of achievement", you might couch that in terms of "level of achievement for a given purpose, within the context of the public school system." Some might condemn such phrasing as "watering down" or "loosening" standards. But realistically, you do not expect a student to learn everything they eventually will learn within your institution, so it makes sense, to me, to acknowledge that. Teachers have great influence, but not total.

A reasonably accurate view of any group of people, enlightened by statistics and probabilities, will show that someone will necessarily end up in "last place" on a given measure, with fewer absolute achievements or lower "success" than all others, just as someone will end up "first". An absolute rating scale thus sets up some students for "failure". A relative scale adjusts the boundaries realistically, probablistically, within a given context, and thus enables every student to "achieve to the extent of their abilities and interests."

Just call me Polly Anna.

[Frank Gastner]

Nora,
I shall not call you Polly Anna. I shall call you an individual struggling with reality. I have yet to see an evaluation system that pleases all the evaluators and the evaluatees. In CEAC we try to address this with children who see the world in either/or terms. If I'm not first, then I must be a failure.
I like the idea of self evaluation because a well trained evaluator can pick up beliefs that hinder the student. Changing a destructive belief must occur prior to permanently favorable change. This is not new. Just look at the diagram that usually appears on the cover of the general semantics bulletin.
Then there are the students who adopt the 'if I don't try I can't fail' attitude. What is their potential?
Yes Gary, you have a tough nut.