This morning I read with interest the editorial in the Houston Chronicle titled America Must Make Effort to Retool Education System. Writer Charles Meisgeier is right on the money when he states that often times children do not learn the way teachers teach. He says pressuring teachers to use old methods better is not working and that an entire retooling of the system is necessary. He indicates that retooling could be “chaotic, expensive, and time consuming” and although I agree with that, I think it certainly cannot be more chaotic, expensive, or time consuming than the Texas Taks initiative.

This method of accountability has somehow morphed into a system of education that actually teaches our children strategies to pass a test rather than really learning the material. We have confused accountability with education. In our efforts to be sure teachers are teaching and children are learning we have traded short term results on the test for real long term learning.

Although Charles Meisgeier is correct, our schools do need to rethink the methods used to educate our children, it will take a VERY bold district administrator to focus on the long term education of students rather than the short term gratification of achieving recognized or exemplary status. Most districts are too fearful of a poor showing on the TAKS to boldly go where no administration has gone before. It is safer to hire a covey of administrators to tell other teachers what to teach, when to teach it, and how to teach it rather than look to the future of real long term gains. The focus needs to be on students not the test and not the teachers who must creatively teach, prod, and cajole students into passing this test, this year.

Our current system does a poor job of preparing our students for college let alone preparing them for life. In my next blog I’ll write about some of my suggestions to retool education.