Progress for schools requires valid goals

WHEN it comes to setting goals for state schools, a common problem is adoption of “goals” so vague their achievement provides little benefit. And when concrete goals are set with serious accountability for failure, politicians are quick to water them down.

Thus, Oklahomans should keep an eye on the process underway at the Oklahoma Department of Education.

Under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state education agencies have to generate a plan for common education regarding the use of federal education dollars. The state Department of Education has created a proposed eight-year plan that includes six major goals touted in a recent release.

It’s important that the final product involve credible goals where there are consequences for failure. Otherwise, the process becomes another government farce.

Some goals in the proposal appear specific. But others appear open to interpretation, and therefore subject to manipulation.

For example, the draft plan endorses moving Oklahoma into the top 10 states for students graduating in the four-, five- and six-year cohort. Increasing the number of high school graduates in Oklahoma is certainly a worthy goal — but only if those graduates actually have a high school education. Yet the trend in Oklahoma has shifted toward giving more students diplomas regardless of achievement.

Last year, lawmakers voted to repeal a law requiring that high school seniors pass a handful of subjectmatter tests in order to receive a diploma. The tests were so easy students could miss roughly half the questions in some instances and still pass. Most students did pass the tests, but some school administrators complained that it was unfair to deny a diploma to any students simply because they couldn’t pass an algebra or biology test. Lawmakers caved and ended the tests.

It does Oklahoma no good to increase the number of high school “graduates” if many of those students have only an eighth-grade-level education.

Similarly, the department proposal calls for 100 percent of students in grades 6-12 to have an Individual Career Academic Plan. But the real question is whether those plans will involve aggressive academic goals, or simply lower the bar so everyone “succeeds.”

The proposal does include elements that could be beneficial, such as calling for Oklahoma students to score above the national average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in all subjects for fourth and eighth grade, and reducing by 50 percent the need for math remediation after high school.

But such goals cannot be achieved if there are no consequences for failure. If students never have to repeat a grade and receive a diploma no matter what, and if schools face no penalties for failure, apathy and the status quo will continue.

According to the department’s release, the latest version of the plan also endorses state interventions in some districts, including “school calendar requirements” in chronically underperforming schools. That appears a reasonable effort to rein in use of four-day school weeks. Yet lawmakers this year failed to pass a law to simply require districts that adopt four-day weeks to submit reports showing whether the shift “yielded any educational or fiscal benefits.”

Oklahoma has suffered for decades from low educational achievement. This won’t change until state policymakers truly raise the bar.