Arkansas Watch | Discerning hype from reality in scores

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

— Arkansas Education was ranked sixth in the nation by Education Week magazine. It sounds like a cause for celebration, but the details provide a lesson in hype verses reality. When you have a heartland view of the world, the way the Washington beltway rates education “progress” is upside down. It’s like getting rated as having the best banking laws by J.P.

Morgan and Goldman Sacs. “Best” for them means worst for the average consumer.

Our high overall rank was due to high rankings in three of the seven categories: “Transitions and Alignment,” “The Teaching Profession” and “Standards, Assessments and Accountability.” We were ranked first, second and seventh among the 50 states in those respective categories. That’s good,right?

Here is my translation of what these categories really mean. “Transitions and Alignment” means how quickly Arkansas jumps into whatever the latest fad the feds want to implement. Right now it’s an “international” curriculum.I don’t want my child educated as a “global citizen” with “global values.”

I happen to think a classical Western worldview, in particular the American view, is superior to that of socialist Europe. I also think it’s superior to Islam or Chinese Communism, which are some of the other ways of thinking that are in vogue out there. I’d prefer they “transition” to successful adulthood as an American and “align” with values selected by the local community rather than some U.N.

task force. Bottom line: It’s bad news to me that we are all in a rush to “transition” and “align” to these alien and inferior ways of viewing the world.

The “Teaching Profession” refers to how many hoops we make someone jump through to get in the teaching profession and stay there. It means we require a lot of bogus “teacher training” which guides teacherson how to implement the “transitions” to “alignment” with beltway education standards. Ironically, the more hoops we make someone jump through to be and stay a teacher, the less competent teachers we will have. That’s because those with other options will eventually get tired of all the baloney and pursue those other options. Raising paper “standards” for teachers past a certain point will actually lower teacher quality, especially if the standards are to prepare them to implement something that most parents don’t want.

The “Standards, Assessments and Accountability” refers to how much our student testing lines up with said transition and alignment goals and “accountability” refers to how big a stick the state uses on districts who don’t comply.

The whole premise behind these rankings is that conformity to federal education standards is a good thing. It’s not. There is no reason to have anymore faith or confidence in D.C.

on education than we do in any other area of life. Perhaps less so, since by definition, any federal initiative ineducation is done in violation of the U.S. Constitution, which does not assign the federal government any role in education.

And that leads me to where Arkansas is weak in education, according to the magazine. We were 36th in “K-12 Achievement” and 45th in “Chances for Success.” Ironically, our education system scores very well in keeping up with federal fads, but it fails at actually getting students to achieve and be successful. So what’s more important here, following the centralized plan (instead of the communities) or student success?

Of course, if student adoption of global values (and thus rejection of yours) is their goal, then I’m glad it’s not being achieved.

It could mean our kids are not buying their baloney!

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Editor’s note: Mark Moore is the lead writer for an Internet blog on matters pertaining to Arkansas culture and government, Arkansas Watch, and on Tuesday nights is the host of an Internet-based radio program, Patriots on Watch. He can be reached through The Times at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 01/19/2011