We continue to look at how to best meet the needs of our students over the next ten years through various activities –“Gateway 2025”, the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS) review of district operations, our upcoming NEASC accreditation process, the recent DESE Coordinated Program Review, and GTAC efforts to focus on town and school sustainability. We were heartened to learn that the recent release of DESE school accountability data shows that our focus on the whole child does not have to negatively impact our district rating. Gateway was one of several school districts highlighted in the Commissioner of Education’s message about standardized testing for our hard work over several years, which resulted in the district moving from Level 3 status to Level 2 status (http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=23922).
This was accomplished by Littleville Elementary School moving from Level 3 to Level 1 status. This means that we currently have only the middle school on a Level 2 status, with all of our other schools at Level 1. As Principal Coburn shared with the school committee, it is hard to determine which strategy used over the past few years was the most helpful in this change but they are continuing to review the data to sustain this level of performance and continue to narrow achievement gaps between different groups of students. However, I would like to congratulate the teachers, students, staff and families for their hard work and success!
While this is certainly good news and should lay to rest concerns raised by some, I would again stress that this is not the ultimate measure of school or student success. Whether it is MCAS, PARCC, or the ‘new’ MCAS test, standardized tests are not a good measure of student performance as acknowledged by most statisticians and the majority of educators. Despite over ten years of national and state efforts, and an inordinate amount of money spent on standardized testing (both at the state and local level), there are many who argue that educational opportunities for students have actually decreased due to the undue pressure to do well on tests, which mean so little in real life.
As I’ve written before, the ultimate test of whether a school system (or society in general) is effective isn’t known until well after graduation, when one can finally see if individuals have become effective, contributing members of society. Of course, schools cannot take either all of the credit, or all of the blame, due to the numerous factors that contribute to how each of us lives our lives. I agree with many others that the primary aim of education is not to enable students to do well in school, but to help them do well in the lives they lead outside of school. This has been well summarized by Raymond McNulty who writes that, “Learning should have its roots in meaning, not just memory; engagement, not simply transmission; inquiry, not only compliance; exploration, not just acquisition; personalization, not simply uniformity; collaboration, not only competition and trust, not fear.” These are some of the reasons for incorporating 21st Century Skills into the education of the whole child and for supporting project-based learning as an integral part of education in the Gateway Regional School District.
