RT Vol XVI: Generations: Ch 9

From the Book: The Refractive Thinker® Vol XVI: Generations: Strategies for Managing Generations in the Work Force

Summary

The challenge remains of the inability for schools to maintain and achieve their mission. The goal for this writing was to look at the refractive thinking perspective of asking the question of how society can help get the education back on track and back to basics to educate the current and future generations to prepare them to be productive members of society.
The public school system is stuck on a merry-go-round of failure disguised as accountability. It appears that education policy makers and professionals have fallen into the lock-step ranks of preparing students for standardized testing while neglecting the needs of students who lack the skills to pass grade-level tests. Despite the reality that students may be two, three or more grade levels behind where they should be, the school year is spent “preparing” students to take tests that data, teacher input, and common sense indicates they will not pass. Education professionals know when students lack the skills needed to pass a test, but they are mandated by the state to prepare them to test on grade level. Teachers are literally mandated BY THE SYSTEM to set students up to fail. Rather than subjecting underprepared students for a test they cannot pass, perhaps educators and policymakers could consider alternatives that meet under-resourced student’s needs by gauging growth as opposed to passing a test. Business stakeholders would never continue to tolerate such dismal results and remain in business. Why do we accept such results here?