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Friday, June 29, 2007
When Raising Achievement, Students Must Step Up, Too
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sometimes I’m puzzled when I read about school officials or politicians shooting at the diverging targets of increased rigor and higher graduation rates at the same time. Do they not understand that any time you raise the bar in education or in any endeavor you automatically exclude a higher number of students from clearing it?
Over time, some of the students will recognize that the standard has been raised and they will adjust their sights and clear the new height. Many won’t. They will continue what they have been doing and settle for a lesser outcome or, in some cases, choose to drop out sooner as the finish line is moved farther out of reach.
When I graduated from a Georgia high school in 1975, the public schools were educating a rather homogeneous student body. There were few, if any, special-needs students in regular schools. The only students who came in speaking another language were exchange students, who probably spoke English about as well as many of the American-born students.
Today’s schools are being required to teach a much more varied group. Students are coming from around the world never having heard English. Many of them had been unsuccessful in school or had not been attending school in their home country. The number of students with various disabilities also has increased tremendously. These students are now required to complete course work that would not have even been offered to them 30 years ago.
Currently, the State Department of Education is considering raising the graduation requirements from 22 to 23 credits. This will include four years of English, four years of math, four years of science, three years of social studies, one year of physical education and health and seven electives — including two years of foreign language for college-going students or three years in a job-related pathway for career-technical students.
Increasing the rigor of the high school diploma is fine. Those who achieve that goal will have a fine accomplishment and should be prepared for their next level of academic course work.
What we must understand is that we are working at cross-purposes if we expect more students to meet a more challenging standard. For those students who, for whatever reason, cannot meet the more rigorous requirements we can offer a different goal or a different level of diploma to demonstrate their abilities and efforts. If we don’t offer it, they’ll find it for themselves. It’s called the GED.
In almost every article on increasing student achievement, someone mentions helping teachers to be more effective in their efforts. When will we realize that it is not the teacher but the student who, as he enters each successive level of education, increasingly dictates the pace and amount of his learning — either enhanced by or in spite of the efforts of his parents and teachers?
Perhaps the disparate targets of more rigorous graduation requirements and a higher graduation rate can both be hit. But it will take more than one entity taking aim.
The student must come ready and willing to learn with a quality education as his foremost priority.
Today’s guest blogger is the principal of Sagamore Hills Elementary School, part of the DeKalb County School System. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger on Get Schooled, submit an entry on any education-related topic to bgutierrez@ajc.com.
