How to Fix Our Schools: Lower Standards?

Before you teachers get all excited and in a huff, know this.  I am not for state testing where the results determine how much money goes to a school district.  However, I am for state testing, that is challenging and measures how a student body is doing academically compared to others.

I come from a manufacturing and logistics background, so I have a very good understanding of quality control and the metrics used to measure them.  What,  you say students are not like manufactured goods? Of course they are not, but the ideas of testing and measuring the results are the same as used in a manufacturing process.

When a student takes a test, a score on that test is recorded.  That score is an accurate metric only if the test is a fair and accurate test of the knowledge that student has been exposed to and expected to learn.  For example:

• The widget should come to me meeting the requirements I have given my vendor.  
• I can then measure the quality of a widget only on those things that I have altered anywhere along the production line.    
• I can measure each at step in the process, or pick points in the process that are critical and measure there.  
• I can use any number of quality control measurements depending on the product being built.
• I then analyze the measurements/metric and determine if my process, machinery, and personnel are working properly in building my product..  
• The same can be done for students.

As an example, let's say we are building an electric motor shaft.

1. First, our vendor of the steel rod must assure that they have met our standards.  Sound familiar.  
2. When we cut the steel rod to length, that is measured to tolerances in .0001 range.  
3. When ring groves are cut, they are measured in the .0001 range for location and depth.   
4. Any deviation from my tolerances that I discover during testing must be addressed in the process, machinery, or the personnel manufacturing the product.

If I am having problems with the process, machinery, or personnel my inspections will tell me.  If I fail to fix either the process, the machinery, or the personnel, I will be making bad shafts that fail to meet my customers requirements.  If I decide to alter the test I use so my shafts pass, but still do not meet the requirements of my customer, I have done nothing, and am wasting valuable resources (money, materials, and personnel) in that the product is not sale-able.

In the manufacturing process there is no "teaching to the test."  You set up your process, machinery, and train your personnel to assure that when the product is tested, no matter when, or what the test consist of (as long as it is a fair measure of the process you have implemented) that it will pass.  In school teachers should teach the subject and be more concerned with the student and the process used to teach them than when or where the test will take place.  And if the teacher is assured the test is a fair and accurate measurement of the subject, they should have no issues with testing.  There is never,. repeat never, a reason to teach to the test.  There is never, repeat never, the need to have school assemblies to motivate a child to take a test.  Do you think there are daily company "assemblies" where the workforce is supposedly motivated to do their jobs?  The motivation to succeed is a daily part of the process.   Every day in the workforce is a test of knowledge.  Schools should operate under the same philosophy.

Whenever someone says we need to lower academic standards, and that is what the state is proposing to do, we will be sending kids up to a college, or job, where the minimum requirements to enter are not met.   These Texas students will be forced to compete against those outside the state, who have had to accomplish more in high school because they we forced to meet higher standards that their state/country required for completion of high school.  Lowering standards does not work.  It is the quickest path to failure.

And those that will suffer the most under lowered standards are the minorities and poor students according to LaRaza, and other groups involved with the issue.  They understand that lowering standards will only produce lower quality students.

So, we should ask:

1.  Who is calling for lower standards and why?
2.  Who does not want to measure a students progress and why?

Answer those questions and you will be disturbed.