A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Asking Questions: How Well Are Students Learning?

Once the discussion gets under way, you'll probably notice some differences of opinion. Some people in your community will point to all kinds of problems with schools today.

Others probably won't see any real problems. In fact, national surveys suggest that many parents and citizens would tell you that the schools in their communities are doing just fine.

"Instead of a high school diploma being a symbol of academic achievement and preparedness for life's challenges, we have allowed it to become, in all too many cases, nothing more than a certificate of attendance -- a simple piece of paper that says a student showed up in school for 12 years."

Building The Best: A Summary Guide to the National Education Goals Report, 1993.
Where complacency prevails, change doesn't have a chance. So your planning panel may want to get the community to take a good hard look at "how our schools and students are really doing, and why." The panel may start by asking some preliminary questions.

How are our students really doing in reading, writing, English, mathematics, the arts, and other subjects?
When looking at student performance in your community, your planning panel may want to step back and look at the national picture. The National Assessment of Educational Progress tells us that:

In addition to test scores, your planning panel will want to look at children's "readiness for school," attendance at school, discipline and safety issues, and dropout rates. It might also want to ask a few questions:

These and other questions can help your community begin to get an idea of how well students are learning what they need to know and be able to do.

Are our students and schools doing worse than in the past?
It's not that students are learning less than they used to. In fact, there is evidence that American schools and students, as a whole, are performing as well as ever.

But doing "as well as ever" is not good enough. The world has changed; our schools have not. Our educational performance has not kept pace with rising demands in the workplace; nor have we kept up with other developed countries. For example, although our call for students to know one foreign language, the European Economic Community recommends that students learn two languages in addition to their own native language.

Continuous improvement is the watchword for education reform in the remainder of the 1990's. Your planning panel may want to ask: What are we doing in this community and its schools to continuously improve teaching and learning for our children?

How serious are our students about their studies and learning?
Research and common sense tell us that students generally learn more if they study and work hard at it. Yet national data and everyday experience tell us that common sense is not common practice. Many American students are not working hard at learning.

Our students consistently perform near the bottom on international tests of science and mathematics. In the most recent study two years ago, our 13-year-olds reached an internationally competitive level in only one of nine areas -- the nature of science. In all eight other topic areas, U.S. students as a whole performed below most or all of the other five countries.

(Topic areas included life science, physical science, measurement, geometry, and five others. From the National Education Goals Panel.)
We know that American students can learn at high levels. When our students read at home, do their homework, and take challenging courses (such as algebra in 7th or 8th grade, and calculus in 12th grade), they do as well as other students anywhere in the world.

Why don't our students invest more in learning? One reason may be that, as far as they can tell, it simply does not matter whether they do well in school.

Our youngsters know, for instance, that no matter how poorly they perform in high school, they will be accepted by a college or university somewhere. They know that their performance in high school won't affect their job chances if they're headed directly into the workforce. Not even one in five employers looks at the transcripts or grade point averages of high school graduates seeking jobs with them.

There may be another reason our children don't put more effort into learning. Many of us, as parents, seem to think our kids are already working hard enough. In fact, despite how little time most students spend reading and doing homework -- no more than 10 pages or one hour a day -- parents of three-quarters of American 8th-graders say that their children are challenged and working hard at learning.

"In their final four years of secondary school, according to our estimates, French, German, and Japanese students receive more than twice as much core academic instruction as American students."

From Prisoners of Time, the Report of the National Education Commission on Time and Learning

Are too many of us, as parents, easily satisfied? Probably. According to a survey two years ago, roughly 65 percent of parents and students think students are learning to write well. Yet less than 15 percent of businesses and colleges agree with that assessment.

Your panel may want to ask: How much effort are our students putting into schoolwork? How much time do they spend on homework? How much time and effort do we expect them to put into their studies? Is their schoolwork challenging and engaging? How can parents and the community help? What incentives can we offer for all children to invest their best effort in studying and learning?

Answering these preliminary questions can help engage your community in examining its educational performance. It can also paint a clear picture of the most important feature of that performance: student learning. Both will be critical as the development of your GOALS 2000 plan gets under way.

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