The Clarkston Community School District has made great strides over the past several years. I firmly believe our success is generated by the support we receive from the community, the dedication of our staff and the vision of our school board.
While these ingredients are absolutely necessary to achieve educational excellence, the recipe for success also requires a focus on the future; a willingness to accept the fact that education is a costly enterprise; and the ability to sort through false assumptions that tend to scuttle school reform.
I believe readers will agree our community has stepped to the plate by providing us with first-rate facilities and our employees are a dedicated group. Some of you will also be able to attest to the vision that the school board has for the future, but I wonder if readers have grappled with the fallacious perceptions that interfere with making schools better. In the article ‘What Educators Need to Explain to the Public,? (published in the October issue of the Phi Delta Kappan) Dorothy Rich writes about misconceptions that negatively impact the public’s view of ‘public education.?
I would like to address two of the erroneous beliefs identified by Ms. Rich:
1. ‘Schooling the way it used to be is best.?
Our community is ahead of the curve when it comes to focusing on the future. We realize that schooling the way it used to be is not the way to prepare youngsters for the world of tomorrow. This is one of the reasons you have provided our youngsters, and the adults who serve them, with facilities that will make a difference. While students still need to commit certain facts to memory, and some traditional teaching techniques are still effective, the truth is that our youngsters will face a future that requires a skill set that goes way beyond traditional teaching techniques.
One would not seek a surgeon with a 1960’s skill set to perform surgery today. The knowledge, proficiency levels and technological capacities that have been developed over the years provide us with better choices. Doctors, like other professionals, dedicate themselves to ongoing training so they can serve their patients well.
Should you expect less from the educational community? I think not. Our new preschool center, the technological innovations implemented at each of our buildings and the administrative services offices are testimony to a vision for a better tomorrow.
2. ‘No matter how much we wish it, education is not a clean, linear process with outputs that match inputs.?
Frankly, I believe this misconception has school systems across the nation placing way too much emphasis on single, high-stake tests designed to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law.
Children enter school with widely differing backgrounds, socio-economic circumstances and ability levels. Some are ready and have an appropriate mind set, others come far less prepared. Some come to school well nourished and in the best of health, others are not so fortunate.
That being said, public schools gladly accept the responsibility to teach all children; but we also know that students learn in different ways and at different rates. So much for a single measure of success. Accountability should be reliable, valid and certainly more rigorous than filling in a bubble sheet.
Again, this is an area where our community stands out. In Clarkston, we expect students to do well and our competitive juices flow when comparisons are made among school districts. Even so, our parents and community members recognize the fact that no single test can accurately define a child’s worth as a student or as a human being.
In closing, permit me to say that citizens across the nation could take a lesson from the Clarkston community. We have focused on the future and we reject simplistic views of education that tend to scuttle school reform. We have come to grip with the fact that education is a costly enterprise, but we also understand the alternative ? ignorance ? is far more expensive!