“How good is your local school?” There was a time when that question would cause the person you asked to break out with a rendition of the Beach Boys’ “Be True to Your School” and tell you that their school is the “best.” How a person determines an answer to this question, however has changed greatly since the Beach Boys’ song aired in 1963. Today, the informed response is “Just a minute. Let me look at the latest School Report Card on the Internet.” Pause for several seconds for a 4G connection. “Our school is an 83. It exceeds expectations.” Smile and end of response.
School goodness can be an objectified value derived from a number of school data, such as test scores, graduation rates, daily attendance, and the trends of these data. School goodness or quality can be a number, a score that is a summary of the analysis of multi-measures that is placed on a comparative scale that tells an inquirer how “good” the school is and the relationship of the school’s score with the scores of all other schools. Want a high performing school? Pick a school with a high score.
There are many school purveyors who prefer the quantified descriptor. Proponents of school choice and voucher systems clamor for the transparency of school data so that parents can make informed choices regarding how their children will be educated. They, through their elected representatives, have caused state governments to create school report cards that display standardized data about the school district and its schools. Comparatively speaking, a parent can match a school’s quantified data with their educational wants for their children and enroll in their school of choice.
Let’s change the question.
“How do you feel about your local school?” Now is the time to sing the unique harmonies of Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson with Mike Love and Al Jardine. How you “feel” about your school asks an entirely different question than how “good” is your school. Probably, students in the high school wear their letter jackets or put on school colors because of how they feel about their school rather than the value of its goodness number. Feelings about a school can be quantified, but more often they are qualified. The result is a subjective response based upon experiences that are weighed against expectations. If this feeling response was placed on a scale, it probably would be a sliding scale that allows for a cluster of feeling responses.
Sadly, there is no governmental mandate for school districts to be transparent in sharing the feelings of their school constituents about their local schools.
But, there should be.
The mandate for School Report Cards that can inform parent choice and hold school districts accountable for the quantified outcomes of their schools also should inform the public about how the local people feel about their school. Regardless of the annual school data, there will many local people who have high, positive feelings about their local schools based upon their experiences with the School Board, administrators, teachers and staff. Likewise, there will be many local people who have low, negative feelings about their local schools based upon bad experiences regardless of how high the goodness number may be. The high quality of human interactions makes a school a good place for children to be educated just as much as the high quality of educational outcomes. Literature and Hollywood provide many stories about schools that abuse student and constituent trust behind a façade of high achievement and bravado.
There should be a dual index of values to describe school both sides of school quality.
- One value should describe the ability of the school faculty and staff to cause children to attain high achievement on measured outcomes of education.
- A second value should describe the confidence of the school constituents in the school leadership, faculty and staff to create and sustain a quality school as a place for education.
When a parent considers schools for their children, a discerning parent should be looking at both of these values – how good is the education in this place and how good is this place for educating my child. Anyone who is not looking at both of these values is looking with one eye closed. And, that person never will want to sing “Be True to Your School.”