New research shows that equality, not other issues, equal the most health and happiness. This new research isn’t shocking news or anything. I’d wager that most people would agree that feeling like an equal does correlate with happier feelings. Still, it’s an interesting issue that should be made more public.

British epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson has been researching healthy vs. non-healthy societies for decades, and recently sat down with YES! Magazine to discuss his findings.

Wilkinson notes that the healthiest societies he’s come across don’t have more income, more education, or more wealth—but the things they do have are more equitably shared. He also points out that inequality is linked to issues such as higher rates of mental illness and drug use, eroding trust and increased anxiety and illness.

I think this is highly relevant research when discussing educational choices. In most cases, conventional schools don’t promote equality. Schools promote adults as better and smarter than youth, bullying as a norm and the school itself as knowing more than parents. The school speaks and everyone must listen. There’s no equal footing. This system truly sets up schools and the people who run them as far more valued than the families who attend them.

This issue is far reaching, beyond schools, for example, Wilkinson talked to a prison psychiatrist who spent 25 years talking to violent men, and psychiatrist said that he’s “Yet to see an act of violence which was not caused by people feeling disrespected, humiliated, or like they’ve lost face.” If these are major violence triggers, wouldn’t our schools (and other systems) be better off discouraging humiliation, not encouraging it?

Wilkinson says:

“This is about the psychosocial effects of inequality—the impact of living with anxiety about our feelings of superiority or inferiority. It’s not the inferior housing that gives you heart disease, it’s the stress, the hopelessness, the anxiety, the depression you feel around that. The psychosocial effects of inequality affect the quality of human relationships. Because we are social beings, it’s the social environment and social relationships that are the most important stressors.“

One of my favorite points made is that, “Inequality affects our ability to trust and our sense that we are part of a community.” If kids are brought up in a system that ultimately and consistently undermines their equality, what kind of a society are we building? Not a happy and healthy one.

This research says a lot for democratic education, a system that does place youth on equal footing with adults and teaches youth that they actually matter. Democratic education doesn’t tell kids, “Hey, your opinions mean nothing” – which of course will lead to kids who think they’re less equal than others. Perhaps this is one reason why democratic school students have better mental health and believe in their own abilities. It’s something to think about for sure.

+ Equality and the Good Life

In a previous post we looked at research about how public schools don’t prepare kids for college. However, it’s not just before college that’s the problem. After public school kids arrive at college there are some problems as well, beyond the remedial classes discussed in the last post.

Three of every four students in one survey (pdf) told surveyors that they thought college would provide them with substantial support to help them cope with academics, non-academic responsibilities and help them enrich their social life. In other words, these students expect some major hand-holding through college. Over 50% said college did no such thing.

Many students who start college never finish. Research shows that just half of students who enroll in college end up with a bachelor’s degree. This creates a financial issue too as one study (pdf) shows that college dropouts amount to $4.5 billion in lost earnings and taxes to state and federal governments across the nation.

One recent study of more than 2,300 undergraduate college students found that around 45% failed to demonstrate any significant improvement in learning during the first two years of college. A book based on the research, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, and its accompanying report, specifically notes that 36% of students showcased no significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication over all four years of college and that 1/3 of all college students never took a class requiring them to read even 40 pages per week. The report goes on to show that most students who did experience grade improvements over high school, did so only modestly.

+ Why universities are failing

In a previous post we looked at research about how public schools don’t prepare kids for college. Due to the fact that very few high school grads are college-ready, it makes sense that not all kids go to college. That’s fine, not all humans need college. However, most high school graduates also aren’t prepared for work.

High school graduates aren’t ready to work

During a survey (pdf) of more than 400 employers across the U.S., it was found that almost all employers say that high school and college graduates should have the following four major skills down pat in order to succeed in the workplace:

• A professional work ethic.
• Critical thinking and problem solving skills.
• Good oral and written communication skills
• Ability to work on a team and participate in team collaboration.

The problem? Around 70% of employers stated that new workers with high school diplomas had no professional work ethics and no critical-thinking or problem-solving abilities. 54% of employers think new workers are math deficient. A full 81% of employers said high school graduates couldn’t manage written communication, while over 40% of employers said high school diploma holders were entirely unprepared for even entry-level jobs.

High school grads were deemed “adequate” in just two areas – information technology application and teamwork and collaboration. Still, simply being rated as adequate is nothing to dance about.

It’s not just those major skills above that employers are looking for though. Creativity and innovation is important to 73% of employers. We already know that public schools are stifling student creativity, but how much? 54% of employers say that high school graduates are totally creativity deficient and packing kids off to college doesn’t help. Just 4% of employers rated students with two years of college as having “excellent” creativity skills and after four years of college, just 21% of employers said the graduates were creatively excellent.

Other skills deemed important by employers in the survey included workers who are capable of handling increased responsibilities over time, project management, community involvement and interpersonal skills. High school graduates have spent a lot of time on learning how to take standardized tests, but they’re not being taught these very basic and necessary skills.

Not surprisingly, over 27% of employers said that they’d be phasing out hiring high school grads within five years. Since this research was completed in 2006, high schoolers are facing this predicament right now.

What about the future?

The report above is one of the only of its kind but it was written in 2006, so maybe things are looking up? Not so much. The most current ACT test results for College Readiness Benchmarks by Career Field show that students are not meeting high benchmarks for any of the 2018 projected five fastest-growing career fields. The chart explains it better than text, so…

What should be happening

In 2008 the National High School Center issued a brief (pdf) on what might make school kids more workforce ready. Although this organization was big on tests and other schoolish ideas, they also noted that youth should be better exposed to the world of work such as paid and unpaid internships, guest lecturers from the business community, career days, youth apprenticeships and job shadowing.

One study (Haimson & Deke, 2003) shows that students report that one-on-one contacts with employers onsite are more helpful than group worksite tours or school-based activities. Another study (Kemple, 2004) showed that students who do participate in career awareness sessions and internships as opposed to simply being immersed in school work experienced higher post-high school job earnings.

So, if high schools aren’t prepping kids for college or work, you gotta wonder, what’s going on 5 days a week for 14 long years. That’s a long time to be getting ready for nothing. Maybe these kids are getting ready for life? We’ll try to look at that next.

Do you think your high school prepared you for the workplace, or better yet, a career? Let us know in the comments.  

Often people wonder if democratic school students will be college-ready. In fact, folks can get downright snotty about it, saying stuff like, “A school like that won’t prepare your son for college or a real life!” People are incorrect. Kids in alternative ed. programs go to college all the time, but that’s besides the point.

What really irks me is that so many people declare (loudly) that public school is some magical college-readiness world, when in reality, a landslide of research shows that public schools fail, almost entirely, at getting kids college-ready.

Traditional schools don’t prep kids for college:

A 2006 study showed that just 51% of high school sophomores are enrolled in programs defined by their high school as “college prep.” Only 31% of high school graduates complete a basic college preparatory curriculum and amazingly, just 14% earn math or science credit in Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. Not that AP students are prepared. Of the small amount of kids who do take college prep courses in high school, only 60% get the minimum score needed for college credit.

According to ACT 2011 scores, just 25% of high school students are college-ready. Just 4% of African-American students who took the ACT test were deemed college-ready in all subjects. A full 28% of all students, across the board, failed in every single category of college-readiness according to the four ACT benchmarks.

It’s not just ACT tests either. According to 2011 SAT scores, fewer than half the students who took the SAT in 2011 are prepared for college-level work.

It’s estimated that at least 43% of students at public two-year colleges and 29% of students at public four-year colleges are enrolled in remedial courses, plus about $2.5-billion is spent annually providing remedial instruction for new college students. Worse, about four out of five students who have to take remedial classes in college somehow graduated from high school with grade-point averages of 3.0 or higher. Many statistics are far worse. For example, 90% of California’s community college students need remedial math and 75% need remedial English.

White rich kids get some college prep, but not others. One article points out an obvious problem - schools in well-off neighborhoods do offer at least some college prep, yet schools that mostly serve low-income, black and Hispanic children typically don’t offer college prep. In fact they usually offer curriculum choices designed only to meet the very minimum state graduation requirements.

Colleges don’t just look at grades and test scores. For students who set their sights on four-year schools or Ivy League schools, extracurricular activities are a must. Yet, high schools with homework in overdrive leave little time for any normal human to fit in extras of any sort. Too bad, because activity is more (pdf) than just getting into a good college. Kids who don’t participate in outside of school activities are 49% more likely to use drugs and have lower GPAs overall than kids who do get extracurricular time. In addition, kids who participate in sports and other activities while in high school are more likely to volunteer, register to vote, feeling comfortable speaking in a public setting and pay more attention to current events. Other benefits of activity for youth include teamwork, discipline, goal setting, leadership, independence, self confidence, stress relief, character development and personal growth plus acceptance of others.

What students say:

54% of new college students report that college work is more difficult than they expected. In addition, the same research notes that students say they wish their high schools had given them more practical career and life readiness, along with more information about how to successfully engage in a college environment. Most students also felt high school should teach students how to manage personal finances better.

Less than half of high school students say that their schoolwork makes them curious to learn about other things and only 35% (pdf) said they were excited about their high school classes. Not a great college lead-in.

Young adults say high schools fail to give students a information that’s useful in the working world. In this research, most of the 18- to 24-year-olds surveyed say their high school wasn’t helpful regarding choosing a field of study or helpful at aiding them in finding the right college or vocational school. In fact, just 4 in 10 youth said they were satisfied with their high school education. On the flip side, almost a fifth of high school students say they’re unsatisfied and of those, twice as many as expressed unhappiness once they got to college. Many students said they wished their high school had taught them how to deal with the ups and downs of the real world.

What teachers say:

In one survey, the majority of more than 1,000 college and university presidents said that public high school students are coming to college less prepared than students were a decade ago. In another survey, a full two-thirds of high school teachers said that their students are not ready for college upon graduation.

Cheating is not the same as college-readiness:

Cheating isn’t the same as learning, has nothing to do with college-readiness and it’s rampant in high schools across the country. Cheating of course isn’t new. A 1998 poll of Who’s Who Among American High School Students, showed that a full 80% of the best students in the United States self reported having cheated to get to the top of their class. Most didn’t feel it was a big deal and most said they did not get caught.

Today, somewhere between 75% and 98% of all college students surveyed say they cheated in high school. Worse research shows that cheaters in high school feel justified because everyone else is doing it to and cheating is seen by many students as a means to a profitable end.

Parents are a real problem – not just public schools:

Schools aren’t the only reason new high school grads aren’t prepared for college. College administrators note that college freshmen today are seriously suffering the aftereffects of being raised by overinvolved parents or parents who push their kids towards college at any cost. Administrators say that parents will hover over kids at every step, call teachers to complain about grades and even do homework for their kids, leaving kids at a major disadvantage once they get to college and are expected to complete their own work and think on their own.

Robert Neuman, a retired associate dean for student academic development at Marquette University, tells U.S.News & World Report, ”These children don’t have the confidence they need… They’re immature.” What is recommended by college administrators is that youth be allowed to devise their own schedules and should figure out how to fit in all their classes, activities, and chores on their own.

Basically, parents and other adults need to help kids learn to solve their own problems, not solve all their problems for them. In that same  U.S.News & World Report piece, Robert Epstein, founder and director emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, says that a top predictors of a good parent-child relationship is when a parent has the ability to foster independence and autonomy in a kid. Hovering over kids and making sure they’re told what to do every second of every day is not helping kids prepare for college or life.

But once kids get to college, it all evens out right? Think again.

Coming up, find out how well high school graduates fare once they actually get to college.

A common argument I personally hear against my son Cedar’s democratic school is, “How will your son be college-ready without school?” And by school, I should point out that people mean public school. Since my son attends a democratic school, his ability to be college-ready is usually discounted.

That’s actually fine with me.

• First of all, college is only useful if one wants to be there. With that in mind, if Cedar wants to go to college, I’m down with it. But, if he doesn’t end up wanting to go to college, or he wants to go when he’s older, I’m okay with that as well.

• I don’t believe college is necessary for a happy or successful life.

• If Cedar is gung-ho about college it’ll be fine, because all sorts of free school and other alternative schooled kids get into college easily. If he does want to go, he’ll get prepared. His staff at school and I will help him figure out how to do so. At this point he’s just ten-years-old, so I’m not really worried about his adult life just yet. He’s got lots of time to figure the future out.

Lastly, and most importantly, democratic schools are modeled much closer to real world issues than traditional public school models. In most colleges the ages mix, parents don’t do your homework for you, you have course choices and no one is standing by forcing you to do stuff. You’re expected to take personal responsibility for your education. If you don’t take responsibility, you face real consequences, such as failing classes, being asked to leave a program or loosing scholarships.

College, in my experience was nothing like elementary through high school. Democratic schools are designed to teach the necessary skills a person will need to succeed in college – for example, self-regulation, freedom of choice, independent learning, knowing how to spend your own free time, taking responsibility for your actions (both good and bad), creativity, problem solving, working with others (and alone) and many other important skills that benefit the average college student.

It’s funny because people are so concerned that democratic education fails to prep kids for college. Yet, how successfully do traditional schools prepare students for college? In many cases not much. We’ll look at that next.

I remember homework. Barely. I didn’t do much of it when I was in elementary through high school. I thought it was boring and a waste of time. Plus, after sitting all day at school, the last thing I wanted to do was sit some more. I did all my college homework by the way, likely since I was in college by choice (longer story for another time).

Anyhow, I think one of the best things about my own son attending a democratic school is that there’s no lame homework. That said, I didn’t fully realize how cool no homework is until I saw homework in action in my own house. Sure I’d seen friends with kids in public school deal with ongoing homework trauma, but it’s not affecting me much when the trauma happens at a pal’s home.

Then I moved in with someone and he had kids in public school. Thus, I got to see homework in action with my own eyes. It’s not pretty. Here are some of my major pet peeves about homework.

It’s a total time suck: There are weekends when all that happens at my house is homework. I’m not kidding. Forget family time. Forget trips to the bookstore on the weekends. Forget hiking. It’s completely unreasonable that kids are expected to sit 5 days a week in school, then sit all day on the weekend doing homework too. It’s not just weekends either, kids are also sitting all day after school doing homework, in many cases claiming that they need to forgo sleep and meals to even get somewhat close to finishing.

It’s not about learning: Homework isn’t about learning<. It's about getting one task done as quickly and as minimally as possible so you can move on to the next task. It's for sure not instilling a love of learning in kids.

It’s all on the parents: When I saw Race To Nowhere, the one major statement that stuck with me in that film was a dad who said something like, “Homework makes us (the parents) feel like jail wardens.” No kidding. In most homes it seems like homework is parents begging and or bribing kids to do it. It’s parents having to put aside fun to force kids to do homework. It’s parents asking over and over, “Did you do your homework?” It’s parents suggesting topics, typing, reading assigned books and doing research for their kids. It’s even, in many cases, parents 100% doing their kids homework. The jail warden statement is true to a fault. Schools use homework to turn parents into nagging jail wardens or second time students (or both). Also, most parents have jobs and responsibilities all day long – how fair is it that schools expect a second school day to take place with parents heading it up.

Kids hate it: I haven’t met many kids who like homework. I know parents who say their kids cry over homework. I know kids get frustrated and depressed about homework. I’ve met kids who say the worst thing about their life is that they can’t eat or sleep – all they do is homework. Kids don’t have to like everything. My own son doesn’t want to wear a bike helmet, but he’s not loosing sleep or getting weepy about it. The homework deal is hands down unfair to kids.

What on earth are kids gaining from homework? That parents will do their work for them their whole life? That doing the minimum is a-ok?  That learning is a terrible experience full of anxiety and stress?

Having seen homework in my house, I honestly can’t see one benefit of forced homework. Not one. I’m not sure why it exists.  Are schools are so bad at teaching that they have to send topics home to taught by parents? Do schools truly consider homework a learning experience? I really don’t know. When I asked one young girl what homework is for she said, “The teacher gives homework so that their grade books look better.” I’m not sure the teacher would agree, but that’s what the kid is getting from homework.

Coming up soon, some research about homework and what it really accomplishes (or doesn’t).

What do you think about homework? Obviously if your kid attends a democratic school it’s not an issue, but what do you remember about homework? Was it worthwhile? A pain in the neck? So so? Tell us in the comments.

If you’ve been looking into alternative education paths, you’ve likely run across the term “deschooling.” I’m not sure who officially coined this term, but I’d guess that the 1971 book Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich has much to do with this term’s popular use among unschoolers, homeschoolers and other alternate schools today.

What the deschooling means:

For practical kid-minded means, deschooling stands for a period of time, the adjustment period if you will, that comes after a child is removed from a current educational system. The deschooling period is a time when a child, or an entire family can re-group, get rid of school-minded thoughts and if necessary, recover from harm the school inflicted.

By getting rid of school-minded thoughts, I don’t mean getting rid of learning. Deschooling is more about finding out that there are other approaches to life and learning that don’t involve structured schooling.

What deschooling is like

My son’s always been an unschooler or free schooler, so I don’t have any experience with deschooling my own child. I do however have plenty of experience deschooling myself. I had terrible school experiences, and yet, I really did still buy into a lot of the hype. For example…

• “If you don’t go to school, you’ll be nothing.”
• “Good grades = good kids. Bad grades = bad kids.”
• “Your worth is measured by your school degrees.”
• “School drop-outs are some of the worst people in society.”
• “School prepares you for life.”
• “If you can’t sit still and be quiet in school, it’s all your fault. Something must be wrong with you.”

Although I hated school, I was told, and almost religiously did believe all of the above. By my mom, by my teachers, by friends and by society. If you’ve been in school your whole life, you may think the only way to learn is via school and that without it you may as crawl under a rock, because that’s about all you’re good for.

Deschooling is about dropping all those preconceived educational notions implanted in your head by school and society.

I quit school at 17 and for years after, I did figure that I was a loser – just as the schools told me. Then, at age 23 or so, I picked up a copy of Utne that contained a special section on alternative education. I read two articles How I Got My DIY Degree by William Wimsatt and Lifelong Learning, A Degree is Just One Facet by Charles D. Hayes. Both pieces discussed learning on your own terms, with or without school.

This was my first introduction to unschooling, or really any alternative schooling, and it changed everything I thought about the education system. For me, these articles were the first of many steps in my own deschooling process. The articles meant so much to me that I still have both of them today, carefully filed in my desk. It took much more research and other unschoolers to really pound it into my head that school is often unecessary and arbitrary but eventually I caught on.

Now I’d say that I’m a  full fledged deschooled human, which to me means someone who doesn’t place all their worth on school and someone who believes fully that learning can happen in all sorts of places and via countless activities, not simply in school. I’m sure others have their own definitions though.

Is it easier for kids to deschool?

All humans are different. However, my guess is that probably kids deschool easier than adults. The less school you’ve had, the easier it is to deschool. I know one 13 year old who recently quit her traditional public school. She was stressed, hated school and yet told me before she quit, “If I wasn’t forced by teachers I’d never learn.” She also related that school is what makes you a good person and she appeared to have a ton of guilt about quitting.

After three months of no school, this kid still has some school-minded issues she’s working on, but overall she’s said that she feels less stressed and much healthier, plus not “freaked out” all the time.

How long does deschooling take? 

Most deschooling experts note that the process of unschooling should be calculated like so – for each year your child is in school, allow them a month to deschool. So if your child was in a harmful school for three years, it could take three months to deschool. I doubt it’s this clear cut for every kid and every family. Parents in particular, in my experience, who take their kids out of school often take way longer to deschool than their kids.

It’s very hard to live in a society that places so much worth on traditional education and yet find a way to go about learning in an alternative way. So, deschooling may take longer than you first estimate.

Should kids be at home while they deschool?

If your child is transferring from public or another traditional school to a free school there’s always going to be a period of adjustment. In unschooling forums I used to frequent, many parents felt that allowing a kid plenty of free time at home is totally necessary vs. enrolling them in another alternative school right away. I used to agree, however, something Jack, our Village Free School Executive Director said made me consider not waiting to transfer.

Jack noted that when a kid has been in public school or some other traditional school setting, instead of deschooling at home, one of the best things a kid can do is be with other kids at a free school. Deschooling from public school is possible at a free school, and may be a better choice. At a free school, a kid who fully believes in traditional schooling, and who may feel guilty about leaving their school, gets to see how other kids in a free school act and learn about their beliefs. They’re not at home stewing over their choice of leaving school, but instead they’re immersed in a more productive, happier school situation with kids who, for the most part, love their school.

If you’re considering a free school the choice is up to you – deschool at home or at the free school. Most kids do need some time to decompress after spending time in traditional school. However, free school students may set an excellent example for a kid in need of deschooling.

To learn more check out: 

• Deschooling for parents
• Deschooling kids
• Deschooling Yourself – How to Recover from Traditional Schooling

A new study looking at 34 child care centers serving young children found that parents are instrumental in how much physical activity (or not) kids are getting. In all cases, no matter the setting (inner-city, suburban, Head Start, or Montessori) researchers found that kids are sitting sedentary for most of their day and that very few children are meeting physical activity levels for their age group (ages 3-5 years).

Although in some cases, kids weren’t playing enough due to lack of funds, i.e. the center couldn’t afford a decent playground, in many cases, child care staff at these centers blame parents as a main cause for the lack of activity and play. In some cases parents told the child care staff that too much active play may result in injury. In other cases, staff felt pressured by state guidelines and parents to push academics before play.

The researchers note that both societal priorities for young children—safety and school readiness may be hindering children’s physical development and recommend that child advocates should think holistically about the potential unintended consequences of such policies.

Academics before play… in 3 to 5 year olds! It’s a real problem, and not just in this specific study. Plenty of research is stacking up that shows that schools in general are cutting recess time and limiting free play all in the name of academics.

What is free play exactly? 

Research shows that real, honest-to-goodness free play means play that is imaginative, unstructured and rambunctious. Free play does not mean play designed and monitored by teachers or parents.

Free play is touted by researchers as one of the most essential developmental activities children take part in. Free play is so important to child development that it’s actually been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child. Yet sadly, as the study above, among others, points out, most kids nowadays experience a major lack of this sort of play.

Why parents  and schools choose academics over free play

It’s hard to say on a case-by-case basis, but the urge to get ahead academically is strong in the U.S. Researchers on the child care center study note that many parents now ask staff about what their child learned that day vs. asking about developmental motor skills or outdoor time. A 2009 report by the Alliance for Childhood found that children get less than 20 to 30 minutes a day, on average, of free play. The study further found that free play was eaten away by most of the kindergarten day being filled with academics and standardized test preparation. Many parents and most schools simply value academics over play.

In my own experience, when a kid is doing “bad” in school, one of the first suggestions by schools and parents is to cut that child’s sports activity. This is a terrible choice that may be taking away the one good thing a kid has going at school, not to mention making it even harder for that kid to succeed.
Free play benefits

Putting academics before play is entirely backwards thinking because research shows that free play and activity actually improves learning skills. Free play is also completely developmentally necessary for kids. Free play has been shown over and over to be a major component of a successful and happy childhood. For example:

• Free play allows kids to develop important cognitive and social skills; skills that later allow kids to master more complex concepts.
• Free play is linked to memory growth and better problem solving skills.
• Free play has been connected to better mental health, decreased ADHD symptoms, more in-tune attention spans, lower stress levels in kids and even builds resiliency to life’s sometimes harsh events.
• Free play is also linked to better self-regulation, improved language and literacy skills plus math proficiency.
• Free play teaches children how to work well in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts and to learn self-advocacy skills.
• Free play boosts creativity in kids.
• Free play throughout the day actually improves standardized tests scores (pdf) – even for low-income children who fare worse across the board on tests.
• Free play is linked to kids who are less prone to childhood obesity - which is a growing issue in this country today.

Research supporting the benefits of free play goes on and on. If you don’t believe a lack of play is utterly harmful consider research that shows that a too little childhood play time is a main issue convicted killers have in common. Egad.

What free schools do differently

Free schools, or democratic schools, such as Village Free School, believe that play is not only essential to childhood development but free schools understand that free play does encourage, not hinder learning. In a world that more and more is demanding children excel at academics, at the cost of an all work and no play lifestyle, you do have a choice. You can advocate for your child by:

• Support free play in your child’s school – tell schools that all work and no play is damaging.
• Support school law that demands physical activity, free play and recess be included as a normal part of the school day.
• Support your child by allowing him or her to participate in sports and other physical activity – don’t punish kids by removing physical activity and free time.

If all else fails, look into an alternative education path. Your child deserves a real childhood not forced academics in preschool.

+ Societal Values and Policies May Curtail Preschool Children’s Physical Activity in Child Care Centers

President Obama has been fairly outspoken about what he thinks of schools in America, noting at various speeches that “Four out of five schools will be labeled as failing.” Along those same lines, last year, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told Congress No Child Left Behind (NCLB) would end up labeling about 82% of all public schools as failing.

According to the New York Times, some question those high failure numbers, calling them out as inflated. The Times points to a new study conducted by the Center on Education Policy that shows that just 48% of the nation’s 100,000 public schools were actually labeled as failing under the NCLB law this year. Not that 48% is so much better than 82% though.

48% in fact, is the highest number of schools ever to be labeled as failing since President George W. Bush kicked off NCLB in 2001. Additionally, the Obama administration is accused of, “Overstating the numbers to make a political point for reauthorization,” by Margaret Spellings, Mr. Duncan’s predecessor as education secretary under Mr. Bush.

Whether or not the Obama administration has inflated their numbers, 48% is still woefully depressing. Plus, in the grand scheme of things, it’s all based on test scores anyhow. Thankfully most educators and others are no longer fans of NCLB, with many states signing up for the NCLB waiver, which allows schools to perhaps better set their own versions of holding themselves and their kids accountable for learning.

Still, as it stands, a school that cannot get their students to pass the right tests is considered a failing school.  Is that really the best definition of a failing school? Or should schools be rated on more substantial issues?

For example, I know of one charter school in Oregon that’s scoring at 62% for test scores, better than the national average for sure, but better for kids; well, maybe not. This same school has zero bullying policies in place. One student I know who went to this high scoring school thinks all the teachers are mean and talk behind your back. This school moves kids who speak, “out of place” to the back of the room, even if the kid can’t see clearly in the back, telling said kid, “You should have thought of that before you talked.” This school engages in other nonsensical behaviors as well. High scores or not, wouldn’t this be a school that’s seriously failing their students?

Schools shouldn’t be judged as failures for their national test averages. What if we called schools failures (or not) for their abilities to turn out happy, engaged, well adjusted kids who are ready to take on the world?

What is a successful school?

I guess it’s easier if you turn the equation around and say, what makes a great school? A non-failing, successful school? Maybe the following:

• Students who are so happy that they can’t wait to get to school in the morning.
• Students who hate summer break and wish the school day was longer.
• Students who are healthy most of the time vs. continually sick or anxiety ridden.
• Students who arrive at school knowing what’s expected of them
• Students who are encouraged to set the policies and rules that affect them and take control of their own lives.
• Students who are eager to study topics that appeal to them, and even some topics that don’t.
• Students who believe they can think on their own.
• Students and staff who aren’t fearful of being bullied non-stop at school.
• Students who are developing real skills that will matter to their life.
• Students who aren’t labeled, called names or called out for being “less than” or “dumber than” other kids.

Of course a successful school might also consider the staff. I.e. do we really think schools with teachers who are stressed due to constant testing requirements and other forced policies are successful? Additionally, while it’s possible that positive test scores can be maintained with enough force, that’s saying very little with regards to retention of topics.

Retention in even ‘successful’ schools is low:

For example, 2010 Santa Fe Community College data notes that of all recent high school graduates, 70% require remedial math and 65% require remedial English before they can take college level classes. Other research says much the same. Although the numbers vary by state (pdf), nationally anywhere from 40% to 80% of new college students who did in fact graduate from high school are enrolled in remedial classes for one or more semesters before ever attending an actual college level class.

Is the above a sign of well-prepared students who hail from non-failing schools? Not that college is all that matters, but high schools place a lot of clout in their college attendance rates, so looking at these figures is a must in the public school system.

My concern isn’t that Obama inflates his failing numbers or that the national failing school average is so high right now. I’m worried that schools are connecting the term “fail” to the wrong issues.

What do you think defines a failing vs. a successful school? 

I’m not a fan of standardized testing. It’s not very useful and a great time waster in my opinion. Mostly though, it really bothers me that some people (some school staff and some parents) use these tests to make snap judgments about our kids abilities. Why not get to know a kid instead and allow his likes, dislikes and other personality traits to form your opinions about him, not some test.

On top of forcing snap judgments, standardized tests are insanely unrealistic.

Consider real life: How often, at work or just in normal conversations with others are you given test experiences? When was the last time your boss asked you, “What will you do to solve this finance problem? A. Nothing; B. Make a new budget?; C. Ask Fred what to do?; D. Crunch those numbers again?” I’d wager this rarely happens.

As an employee, you’re expected to give an insightful answer, one much longer than a test answer. The best jobs expect even more – they want you to think outside the box for a very creative answer. Tests do not encourage thinking outside the box. Tests just aren’t that realistic.

Furthermore, much of school now, thanks to No Child Left Behind, consists of standardized tests and getting kids ready for said tests. I’m not the only person who thinks tests mean nothing in the long-term…

Read some teacher comments about tests. Many teachers think all this testing sucks. One teacher over at the WSJ left a telling comment. This teacher says that the district thinks the best policy is to teach these kids how to take tests, using well, more tests. The teacher notes, “They get the textbook publishers’ tests, district mandated tests, and required teacher created tests in addition to those mandated by state and federal law. Children as young as five years old are subjected to an endless barrage of tests, taking time away from differentiated instruction, remediation, and enrichment.” Depressing.

If you’re so inclined, you can also read an older, but excellent collection of research on testing and how it teaches nothing. Tests rank your child, they don’t teach. This is evident if you check out No Child Left Behinds’ record. Testing has helped improve little. In fact part of No Child Left Behind is an expected date by which all kids are supposed to reach proficiency (pass tests). Since this all started, they’ve had to move the dates back, because kids aren’t close to reaching proficiency (by test standards) yet.

• Some background on how these tests are created by a few, for many.

Lastly, research shows that even if testing did somehow work, most tests place major emphasis on the most minimal proficiency possible – because tests must be appropriate for low and high level students. Because of this, kids who do know more, learn little new information about topics from these tests.

Thanks to No Child Left Behind, if your kid attends a school that receives funding from the government, they are forced to participate in standardized testing. One way out is to look for an alternative school that focuses on each individual student’s strengths vs. test taking abilities.

You can also revolt at public schools. It’s unlikely your child can be excluded from tests, but as a parent, it’s your job to teach your child that he’s more than some arbitrary test score. Don’t judge your child by test scores and make sure he understands that one test, made to fit many, will never be a good judge of character or ability.

What do you think of standardized tests? Good use of school time or arbitrary and wasteful of your child’s time? Let us know in the comments.