Improving schools

To make any system improve, positive and negative feedback are required. Measure what's happening, reward the good, punish the bad. "That which is measured, improves." But that's as much a warning as a rule! Measure test scores, test scores go up. Measure graduation rates, graduation rates go up. That's exactly what we're seeing. But are those the things that matter? No! We care about long-term outcome, post-graduation, which may get worse even as graduation rates and test scores improve!

Schools should be judged by how students do after leaving (which might not mean when they graduate!). Employment rate, income, and incarceration rates are obvious measures, but there are others. Further, schools should only be judged against schools with similar demographics. A 10% incarceration rate a year after leaving might be high in one area, but low in another. And graduation shouldn't be be the only goal; if students can leave without graduating and still have a successful life, more power to them!

It's gotten to the point that graduation is all that matters, so it's been made so that everyone can do it. And if everyone can do it, it's meaningless. It's now impossible to get a grade under fifty in metro schools! School should be hard. Some people should fail. The students that fail should have a different system in place for them. We're trying to make every student fit one system, instead of making different layers of system that fit different types of student. And all we get out of it is very old, uneducated, useless children. It's a giant mandatory waste of time.

And the information taught in school needs to be completely changed. Instead of teaching to the test, schools should teach skills that will be needed in life: writing resumes, interviewing for jobs, doing taxes, signing rental contracts, avoiding debt. Primary among these is simply thinking. Classes should focus less on rote memorization, and more on evidence-based reasoning, problem-solving, and deduction. Teach those things, then measure success in life after school, and we'll have a much better system.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a teacher. I understand the value of math and history and science. But that value is not rote memorization! School isn't about learning what to think, it's about learning how to think. You learn history, not to know what happened when, but to know why things happen. You learn science, not to know about the natural world, but to be able to observe, make theories, test them, and throw out your own ideas when they're wrong. You don't learn math so you can do math, but so you can attack and solve problems in a clear and structured fashion, one step at a time, without being overwhelmed.

We need to abandon this myopic focus on test scores and graduation rates. All that's done is lower standards to the point that a high school diploma says nothing about what you're capable of. Instead, we need to make those diplomas worth something. Schools should teach skills, including thinking, instead of just teaching information.