Tag Archives: accountability

We Get Lower Achievement Because We Accept Lower Achievement

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Given time and effort, we can teach every child to be proficient in reading and mathematics. In truth, with time and effort we can teach any child to be proficient in any subject. This is a true and correct statement of teaching and learning.

You can define proficiency as reading and solving math problems at grade level for elementary age children or as achieving a standardized score on reading and math assessments. These are not unreachable goals nor impossible tasks, if ensuring proficient reading and math abilities are as highly valued as we say they are. But they are not that highly valued – if they were, we would achieve them. Children in American schools are not proficient because we accept and even expect lower academic skills from 50% of our children.

The problem is not the students in school who are not meeting our achievement goals. They meet the farcical achievement levels we accept. They repeatedly score below their prescribed proficiency levels and repeatedly are advanced in grade levels. I am not advocating retention of any child, because we can teach students to meet higher learning goals. If we choose to do so.

The problem is not our goal for every child to be college or career ready. This is the banner headline goal for Wisconsin public schools, and it is a solid, high ground goal for public education. We can teach all students to be college and career ready. The problem is that we, the State of Wisconsin, and its hundreds of school districts, say one thing and accept far less. Most Wisconsin students are not proficient by any measure in reading or math. And we accept this. If we did not, the results would be different.

The problem is our hypocrisy.

What do we know?

If reading and math proficiencies are our gold standards for educational quality, we are failing.

A search of data says this – “Based on spring 2025 results, Wisconsin student performance showed slight gains, with 47.7% of students proficient or better in English Language Arts (ELA) and 48.6% in mathematics.”  The data has been saying the same things for years. Less than half of all students are proficient in reading and math.

What does this really mean? Student assessment data are grouped into four categories: Developing, Approaching, Meeting, and Advanced. Students in the Meeting and Advanced categories achieved scores at or above the target for proficient skills. Students in the Developing and Approaching categories are not proficient; some are far below the proficient level.

In real terms, 52.3% of students are not proficient in reading and 51.4% of students are not proficient in math. We can use softer words to describe the results, but softer words do not change the true meaning. Today, by our own measures, we do not make Wisconsin or any other state’s graduates’ college and career ready.

What should we know about this?

The word “readiness” is a misnomer. A high school graduate thinks readiness is acceptance by a college or being hired into a career apprenticeship or job. I am accepted = I am ready. Readiness is not the status of entry. Readiness is the ability to succeed in college or in a career. Our children are victims of standardized assessments and intransigent institutional standards. Instead of archaic and uninformative statements of proficiency, we must give children real school achievements targets. Like these –

  • College ready means the cognitive and emotional abilities needed for a 75% anticipation of earning a C grade as a minimum in college level courses.
  • Career ready means the cognitive and emotional abilities to successfully apply learned skills necessary for an adult career.

To be cognitively ready for success in college, a student must be able to –

  • Independently read and understand high-school level and introductory college level texts. These are complex and complicated texts and documents.
  • Analyze, evaluate, and synthesize multiple sources into coherent written and oral arguments (papers).
  • Use personal, collegiate vocabulary in all subjects.
  • As a beginning point, master Algebra 2 problems, quadratic functions, polynomials, basic trigonometry, and an ability to interpret statistics, and
  • Make sense of a messy, real-world problem and translate it into a mathematical equation.

To be cognitively ready to apply skills in an adult career, a student must be able to –

  • Follow multi-step complex instructions, safety protocols, technical diagrams. Career-based reading in technical careers often is more complex and complicated than general courses in college.
  • Navigate digital resources to expediently find specific data.
  • Communicate in writing and orally with clarity, as lack of clarity can cause safety and work errors.
  • Master applications of ratios, proportions, and spatial reasoning – tolerances matter.
  • Accurately interpret charts, spreadsheets, and data and communicate this with others.
  • Master fractions, decimals, and basic algebra and geometry.

These are the academic achievements that matter for a high school graduate to predict success in college and a career. Instead of a test score or a grade point average, colleges, universities, and technical colleges should use acceptance tests, like placement tests, to verify an applicant’s likelihood of success. Placement tests are used selectively today – make them universal acceptance tests.

Apprenticeships in skilled trades and should require real-time applied knowledge tests. A highly successful home builder friend tells me, “For example, I hand an applicant a 2 x 4 and pencil and give them an applied math question of measurement, angle, and dimension. They need to make a sketch. Then, I check their assumptions, figures, and diagrams. They need not be 100% correct but demonstrate an understanding of building basics. We will refine their accuracy if they know what they what to do.”

Colleges, universities, technical schools and trades need to define college and career readiness not public schools.

Improve the expectations to improve student achievements.

Many worry that students will fail to meet new requirements, so they are reluctant to make new requirements. Hogwash! Experience tells us that children adapt to new school requirements. School boards have been adding requirements for years and students have adapted to each addition. However, adding new requirements has not improved academic achievement, it only makes schoolwork denser.

The real “new” that is needed to improve student achievement is labeling and teaching to the new descriptors of college and career readiness.

What to do.

  1. Stop soft selling the lack of proficient achievement. Drop the categories of “developing” and “approaching.” Relabel them as one – “Not proficient.” Then, counsel each non-proficient student on how to achieve proficiency. Today we expect children to self-identify their own remedies. That is more hogwash! We are teachers, so teach them.
  2. Strengthen “learn to read, read to learn” instruction in PK-4 with mastery teaching techniques. And create a “learn the math, do math to learn” mantra for mathematics.
  3. Reduce the current number of academic assignments and insist that all students succeed at every assignment. Spend more time teaching children to understand and plan how to successfully complete every assignment. Today “how to” is a mystery to most children.
  4. Stop accepting holes in student learning. Today, teachers begin the next lesson regardless of students who were not successful in the prior lesson. The 80% Rule leaves holes in student understanding and skills. Use more mastery teaching strategies in PK-4 to ensure every student is at grade level reading in reading and math. Use multi-tiered interventions in regular education to ensure that every student ends each unit of instruction successfully.
  5. Stop issuing less than proficient grades on student assignments and tests. Use an A, B, I grade system. Stop using C, D, and F grades. Every student whose assignments are less than a B grade is incomplete, and all incomplete grades must be improved to a B grade or better. Stop i

Successful student learning begets more successful student learning. Make these changes in the PK-4 grades and sustain these new practices through subject instruction in grades 5-12. Being below grade level can be habitual for a student. Do not let that habit start. Once students are meeting grade level success, do not let them fall below grade level.

The Big Duh!

No child starts school with the desire to be less than successful. All children look to their teacher with the anticipation of “I can do this.” As soon as we start accepting less than successful from a child, we say to that child “Less than successful is okay for you.” This is wrong. We create a learned habit of unproficiency. When we stop accepting less than successful schoolwork, children will need to be successful every day. We must mean what we say when we say, “Every child will be college and career ready” and begin meaning that in PK.

Be Bold and Emboldened About Your 2025-26 Educational Goals

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Every new school year brings a discussion of the educational goals a school will strive to achieve for its students. This is not the time for a complete rewrite of goals; there is no time to retool for new goals. But August is the right time to confirm existing goals and ensure commitment of all school resources to achieving those goals. In the weeks before children walk into school, be bold in publicly broadcasting your educational goals for your students and embolden all educators to achieve your/their goals.

Achieving educational goals is not a New Year Resolution; be loud, be active, be honest!

Where are your school’s or your classroom’s achievement goals published today? Most often they lie in the humdrum posting of school mission statements, the finer print in newsletters, and are announced on day one but seldom to never mentioned after day one. It is no wonder that so few are achieved. We allow the busy urgency of school days to overwhelm the goals that our school business is supposedly committed to achieve. State and restate your achievement goals every week in order to keep them vibrant.

Educational goals are not like an annual new year resolution. Most of us break those resolutions before the end of January, if not before. First, educational goals are about children, not our proverbial self-promise to lose ten pounds of body weight. Instead of looking at our image in a bathroom mirror, we look at the faces of classrooms of children who are counting on our commitment to advance their education. Each child’s face stands for our promise to cause that child to learn and grow because of our work. Every time we look at a child’s face, we need to tell ourselves “Advance this child’s education today!”

Achievement goals are a public commitment

Educational achievement goals are public commitments to cause children to learn and grow. They are not silent, personal promises to give up late night bowls of ice cream. Publish your educational goals as a school and as individual classrooms. One of the reasons new year resolutions fail is that we keep them to ourselves. We do not tell anyone that we want to lose ten pounds; we make it a silent, personal struggle. Instead, we need to enlist all educators, school parents, and school community in helping our goal achievement by telling them on day one and all school year-long what we will achieve this school year for our students.

There is a positive and active snowballing effect when goals are loudly published. Snowballing occurs when a small effort begins to accumulate more mass and more membership because it is in motion. As goal achievement occurs, individuals want to be part of the snowball; they want to be identified with its positive imaging. We need to celebrate snowballing and proclaim every classroom that is joining in the achievement work.

Achievement is personal

We need to make our educational goals for children personal. Teaching and learning are essentially personal activities between teachers and children. It is extremely personal, yet we always depersonalize the outcomes of teaching and learning. We aggregate the data of goals achievement, and we drop names and drop accountability, usually because we do not achieve the goals we published. Instead, we need to keep the data disaggregated and personal. If a teacher knows that her students’ learning achievements will be averaged with all other students’ data, there is diminished urgency every day to “push” on those goals. We see data obfuscation clearly with high achieving schools whose high averaging practices hide the reality of low achieving classrooms. Or with low achieving schools whose averaging practices hide the reality of high achieving classrooms. We need to disaggregate data to make goal achievement real at the classroom level where achievement is measured. There always is a worry that disaggregation allows data to identify students. The equal worry is that fully aggregated data makes those students disappear. Let’ see – using data to effectively educate all children or using data to hide children who are never fully educated. As our practices are FERPA-compliant, we shall decide to educate all children.

Be bold with honesty

Honesty about goals and goal achievement is a necessity. Too much of our culture today is hammered by “big lying” about data and practices. Without commenting on our “big liars”, consider the big lie effects. Lying makes facts untrustworthy and fact checking is ridiculed. Honesty is what honesty does; it builds trust. We need to talk about our positive achievements, and we need to talk about when we fail to achieve the goals we set. And, after explaining our failure to achieve, we need to recommit ourselves to achieving success by honestly discontinuing failed efforts and beginning new efforts. No one likes to hear that a school or classroom failed to achieve its goals, but they dislike even more the lies that are told to hide the honest facts. Educators, parents, and community will respect honest effort with honest reporting that is followed by honest changes in effort.

This August, publish your student achievement goals. Publish the work efforts that will achieve your goals. Publish and talk about the team commitment of educators, parents, and community to accomplish your 2025-26 student achievement goals. Publish the date of your first reporting of progress on your goal achievements. And publish your commitment to every child in school that they will be goal achievers.

Be bold and be emboldening regarding your student achievement goals for the 2025-26 school year.

If test scores are that important, eliminate all else in public education but testing and test scores

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Tired of the annual and uninformed complaints about student test scores in our nation’s schools? Weary of the complaint that we spend too much money on public education only to create low-scoring students? Annoyed that politicians use public education as a partisan punching bag always taking their hardest punches at our children’s achievement in international comparisons? Peeved that while conservative critics complain about test scores in public schools, they keep shifting public tax funds to parent vouchers for private education?  

It is a wonder that critics are not as vociferous in complaining about athletics because half of the teams in any conference will have losing records for the season, some for seasons on end. Or concerts in which some voices and instruments are out of harmony. Or math teams that fail to solve any higher math problems. Or school bus routes that run late. Of too much pizza on the lunch menu. I am not encouraging complaint for complaint’s sake but simply pointing to the silo of criticism about academic test scores.

To the annual critics of public education who whine about the status of academic test scores, I propose that we give them what they want. Let’s strip everything out of our public schools but academic test preparation, academic testing, and make this the singular public education program of every school. If test scores matter that much, schools should be all about test preparation and test results.

Announcement – Tests Only Matter Schools (TOMS)

Beginning today:

  • The only educational programs approved for children in public schools will be academic instruction in preparation for annual MAPS testing, reading assessment in third grade, and NAEP testing in grades 4 and 8. All other academic instruction, arts, athletic, and activities programs are hereby eliminated from public schools.
  • Contracts for all teachers except those specifically assigned to teach reading, ELA, and mathematics are immediately voided.
  • All children from age 3 through age 13 will attend school five days a week for 40 weeks each year. School instruction will be provided in four (4) ten-week blocks with three (3) weeks of no school between each block. A school day will be four hours in duration beginning at 8:00 a.m. and ending at noon.
  • Parents of school-age children are responsible for transporting their children to and from school each day.
  • Attendance is mandatory with parental incarceration the penalty for student truancy.
  • Children aged 3 through 5 will receive pre-reading, literacy, pre-composition, and numeracy instruction every day.
  • Children aged 5 through 8 will receive reading for understanding, grammar mechanics, composition, arithmetic, pre-algebra, pre-geometry, pre-statistics/data understanding instruction every day.
  • Children aged 9 – 13 will receive reading complex text and literature, advance composition, algebra, geometry, advanced algebra, trigonometry, probability and statistics, and problem-solving instruction every day.
  • Annual MAPS testing will be used to assess each student’s progress in preparing for the national third grade reading test and the 4th and 8th grade NAEP tests. The three-weeks between each instructional block provides reading, ELA, and math teachers time to evaluate each child’s academic progress and plan personalized instruction for the next ten weeks.
  • Only children who are prepared for the third-grade national reading assessment and the NAEP tests will be allowed to take the tests. Preparation means achieving scores of 85% or better on pre-tests for these assessments. Unprepared children will be recycled in third, 4th, and/or 8th grade until they are prepared to take these assessments.

TOMS reduces the cost of public education.

The immediate cost saving will be mind-blowing, and every proponent of TOMS will beat their chest with pride.

  • Teacher and support staff payrolls will be reduced by 90% or more.
  • School administration, counseling, curriculum and instruction, and campus supervision will be streamlined.
  • Athletic, arts, and activities budgets will be eliminated.
  • There will be no need for food services or school transportation.
  • There will be no heavy budgeting for technology education, science labs, art or music studios.
  • The school’s utility costs will be minimized to HVAC, water, and sanitation. There will be no after school/evening programming.
  • School taxes will be greatly reduced. The state’s per pupil formula will fund TOMS and no revenue limit override referenda will ever be needed again.

TOMS succeeds!

The United States will top the annual lists for international student academic achievement, all children will achieve high academic standing, AND the cost of public education will be a pittance of what it is now. The critics of current public education will be able to say, “I told you so.”

Oh, and TOMS only applies to public schools. Children enrolled in private schools will have their activities, arts, and athletics programs because there are no public complaints about test scores in private education.

The lesson.

“We only appreciate what we have when we lose it.” (Isabel Allende)

And “we get what we settle for.” (Thelma and Louise)

If TOMS don’t work for you, please choose future leaders who understand that public education is an investment in our commonwealth and our commonwealth is worth the investment. We are our commonwealth.

Atlas is Shrugging

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Think Ayn Rand and then think 2025. Think John Gault and then think the American commonwealth. Think the consequences of industrial leaders shuttering their talents and then think the American people shuttering their care factor. Think the tenets of democracy and then think the pettiness of empirical rule.

When a slim majority of our electorate believes an egotist will elevate their status and cure their woes, what happens if everyone else shrugs? We are finding out.

Fellow educators, we shall not shrug.

Rousseau, Come Back

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“Education is an opportunity, and children should make the most of it. You can never have too much education.” Guilty as charged. As a principal, superintendent, and school board member, I overloaded children aged 5-18 with too many education requirements and compelling programs.  School was an open frame of time, and I led educators in prescribing as many things as we could for the education of children. We labeled our programs as curricular and extracurricular opportunities and were proud of the total education available to our children. Even after traditional academics, activities, arts, and athletics, we wrapped our arms around atypical school activities, like sailing, bowling, archery, trap shooting, biking and hiking, and electronic gaming and made then school sponsored. Schooling was the full Monty.

Seldom did we experience an existential moment, notably “what am I doing and why am I doing it”, the answer always was “this is good for kids.” Today I am no longer convinced of that answer. I would do it differently. Rousseau, come back!

Nature or nurture should be nature and nurture.

Adults have forever wrestled with the question of the best way for children to learn about the world. Do we let children explore and experience the world and from their natural learning prepare themselves for adult life? Is education the child’s responsibility? Is self-education a natural and adequate phenomenon? Or do we create, pre-plan, and program their education to ensure they learn what we want them to learn? Is education the adults’ responsibility? Does education require direct nurturing?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau helped us understand the value of allowing children to explore and learn naturally. In writing Emile (1762), he created an educational philosophy aligned with the physical and mental development of a child and their exposure to experiential learning. He said that children learn best through direct interaction with a natural environment that optimizes their curiosity and exploration. Learning should be hands-on and active. He was opposed to adults lecturing children, rote memorization of information, and mandatory school attendance. To Rousseau, experiencing life and its consequences taught children critical thinking, moral, and social lessons that were superior to didactic lessons in a school. Life is full of problem-solving needs and children develop skills to match and meet their needs.

Rousseau’s philosophies live in Montessori, Waldorf, and outdoor education programs. They are apparent in school curricula that uses problem-based, project-based, and inquiry-based education. And they are apparent in early child education’s play-based learning curricula.

Horace Mann provided the contrary view; the education of children is a public responsibility and should be regimented. Mann is labeled the “Father of American Public Education.” He espoused universal, free, compulsory education of all children. At a time when a lack of social and economic status barred children from education, Mann led the movement for common schools that would meld all children into a more unified and democratic society as adults. Mann’s schools were taught by professionally trained teachers and used a standardized curriculum focusing on reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and science. He embedded teaching of common morals, civic responsibility, and character development. Schools were funded by local taxes to ensure that all families could afford to enroll their children. Mann created our educational industry.

Regardless of political leanings today, most adults hold to these as the purpose of universal 4K-12 education.

  • Democracy requires educated citizens, and public education equips children with the basic knowledge necessary for informed decision-making, civic engagement, and understanding their communities.
  • Economic self-sufficiency requires foundational skills for personal and professional growth that contribute to the economy and self-support.
  • Public education instills shared values, tolerances, and cooperation necessary for diverse people to live in a stable and unified society.

Mann’s philosophies live in the WI statutory requirements for teacher preparation and subject area curricular requirements. A quick review of any public school’s vision and mission statements and district policies demonstrates Mann’s influence today.  

Why revisit Rousseau?

We have forgotten to balance the fundamental elements of nature and nurture for the best education of children. We are ambushed by these very misleading and disruptive arguments.

  • The education of children is a national priority that ensures the international dominance of the United States on economic, scientific, and political issues.
  • Through public education we shape the ideological thinking of the next generations. They must be taught the right ideology.
  • Because education is funded with public tax dollars, we demand that all children achieve our predetermined outcomes.
  • Public education is the primary daycare provider for children in the United States. The state has a responsibility for the total welfare of children while parents work.

Each of these is balderdash if we believe that the primary and fundamental purpose of education is to cause children to develop into wholesome, inquiring and thinking individuals who are prepared to participate and thrive in a democratic society. To achieve this purpose, we need to provide balance between nature and nurture.

Too much nature creates a Lord of the Flies scenario, and too much nurture creates a totalitarian scenario. As we bent toward too much dictum in the education of children in the last 30 years, we need to take our adult hands off the throttle and allow children opportunities to learn from their innate curiosities and wonderment.

In the argument of nature versus nurture, who speaks for children?

In my late career thinking, I observe that few adults speak for children. We speak from self-evident biases and for our self-serving needs. Almost all, if not all, critical decisions about the education of children are made by the political negotiations of adults. There are no children at the table or in the room.

In our post-pandemic data, it is clear that when children do not see themselves and their needs being met in their public education, they bail out. The major dilemma we face in this decade will not be the loss of academic achievement and the onset of socio-emotional problems in youth. The problem will be that as children matriculate into middle and secondary education, they lose faith in the efficacy of the education adults deliver to them. Our issues today are not lack of achievement but lack of engagement. We need to reassess the overwhelming manner in which we dictate schooling and life for children and reincorporate more of Rousseau. We need to rebalance the virtues of nature and nurture in the educational development of all children. If we do not, we will stand alone in classrooms that children have fled.