TOMMIE SAYLOR: Do not overreact to misunderstood stories about standardized testing

“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.”

-- Albert Einstein

By Tommie Saylor

Kennedy High School Principal

This is the time of the year where administrations begin the tedious evaluation process.  From October through April, every instructor in the building is heavily observed, scrutinized and critiqued to ensure that our students are receiving the highest level of education possible. 

Though this process is highly stressful for both the administration and the instructors, there is one silver lining in this most hideous cloud.  As a principal, I get to be in the classroom seeing firsthand what is taking place. I am privileged to witness the passion our teachers have for teaching, the innovative lessons they create and the joy on our students’ faces.

What is truly unfortunate, is that parents and community members don’t get to see what takes place in our classrooms.  They don’t get to see the student’s eyes light up. They don’t get to see the dynamic lectures, innovative labs and thoughtful discussions.  Because they don’t get to see these things, they have to rely on asking their students when they come home in the afternoon, “What did you learn today?”

That is usually followed by the universal response of, “nothing.”

Lacking any substantive information, the next best source of information regarding what takes place in our schools is the news.  Unfortunately the media is often fed information that is wrong, not fully understood or a tool used by someone for his or her own agenda.

This last week Fox 2 news reported that only 45–50 percent of American students in grades third through 11th had test scores that were proficient on Standardized English tests, and 28–45 percent on Standardized Math tests. The report went on to say that given these scores, American students rank someplace around 27th in the world. 

What the report do not state – and thus parents and community members do not know – is that these standardized tests are in fact college readiness tests.  Taking into consideration that only about a third of the adult population holds a four-year college degree or above, having approximately half of the students coming out of high school deemed as “college ready” and/or “proficient” is actually rather impressive.

Most people believe that the standardized tests being given to students represent a “basic skills” test, a measurement of our student’s proficiency regarding basic reading, writing and mathematics.  But this is not the case. If we did give a basic skills test, I’m absolutely convinced that 96, 97, maybe even 98 percent of our students would have test scores that would be deemed as proficient. 

Therefore, all those who declare that our schools are failing – that teachers are not doing their jobs, that our students aren’t learning – is absolutely false.  The truth is that more students are graduating from high school than ever before; more of our graduating students are going to college than ever before; and our students are coming out of high school better prepared for the real world than ever before in history.

Despite what comes out of our media and others, do not lose faith. The numbers do not lie. Your students are receiving the best education possible and the best educational experience in the world.  We as a nation don’t send our young adults to other countries to be well educated, but the rest of the world is still sending their young adults to the United States to receive the best all-around public education money can buy.

How and where will you lead them. Making Kennedy the school of choice. Excellence by design.