Education Matters
By Larry Lee
In the 1985 movie classic, Back
to the Future, Marty McFly
was inadvertently sent back in time by Doc Brown’s time machine.
It now appears that State
Senator Scott Beason has his own time machine and is hoping to send Alabama
public school students and teachers back to 1999. Beason has introduced SB 380 which calls for
the repeal of the new Alabama College & Career Ready standards and replace
them with standards adopted in 1999.
It’s all about some of the
hysteria whipped up by those who want us to believe that the new standards are
somehow part of a master national plan to subvert young minds. And it once again shows that some elected
officials are far more interested in politics than they are in education.
As best I can determine from
visiting schools, talking to teachers and principals and school
superintendents; the standards are largely hailed as what our kids need to
compete in today’s world.
A Baldwin County teacher
told me, “In the past, we’ve been teaching a mile wide and an inch deep. At the end of the year you knew you really
had not given your students mastery of certain concepts, nor helped them to
think deeply. But now we’ve narrowed the
focus and are going much more in depth.
This is allowing our kids to really understand what we’re trying to
teach them.”
To get to this point school
systems have invested tremendous amounts of time and effort into professional
development for teachers. They’ve
invested substantial revenue into getting ready to implement the new standards.
But what do educators know
when it comes to education? Why should
we be concerned about wasting money or telling teachers to forget about the two
years of work they’ve just spent learning how to be better instructors when a
few votes are involved?
So let’s roll back the clock
15 years for our school kids. Let’s go
back to 1999 when gas was $1.22 a gallon.
A few weeks ago the Talladega County school system was nationally featured
in a meeting at the Library of Congress where they spoke about their
computer-based teaching programs.
Let’s tell Talladega County
to toss out the classroom computers in use now since they were not around in
1999. Let’s pass a law outlawing all
text messages since “texting” was virtually unknown in 1999. And don’t forget to tell all the school
systems that have invested in various one-on-one computer projects to take
those devices to the dumpster.
I’m sure Governor Bentley is
looking forward to holding a press conference to announce that we are looking backwards
in Alabama, rather than forward. I’m
sure Airbus will be delighted to get this news.
No doubt Greg Canfield with
the Commerce Department will soon send letters to companies considering
locating in Alabama explaining that if they want a work force prepared to
compete in today’s global economy they should look elsewhere.
Who knows we may even want
to send a letter to Mercedes telling them that from now on they should only use
their 1999 training methods to prepare employees to work on cars being built in
2014.
Remington has just announced
that they will put a major manufacturing facility in Huntsville. How excited will the managers who move to
Alabama be when they learn their kids will go to schools that use outdated
standards?
Maybe we can redo the
welcome to Alabama billboards to say, “Welcome
to Alabama where the future is 15
years ago.”
The teachers I know have
every confidence in the ability of our students to compete with other students
across this country. All they want is
the chance to give them this opportunity.
That’s why so many of them have invested so much time and effort into
preparation for the last few years.
They don’t want to go back
to 1999. They know that if we do we are
putting our kids at a huge disadvantage.
But hey, why should it matter that students in Georgia or North Carolina
or Ohio are being better prepared as long as you can round up a few more votes?
What difference does it make
that we’re sending the wrong message to the world when it might help me get
re-elected?
Larry Lee led the study, Lessons Learned from Rural
Schools, and is a long-time advocate for public education and frequently writes
about education issues.
larrylee33@knology.net
