School Reform Measures 101 for Governors

Excellent teaching isn’t guesswork. Instead, it’s instruction based on the latest research studies concerning who, what, when, where, why and how to teach children; effective ways to measure the quantity and quality of “lessons learned” or the authentic progress the children are making; and effective ways to use the measurement results for the purpose of creating new lessons that allow each child to progress from his/her current level of knowledge and skills to the next.

Who, what, when, where, why, and how are factors or variables that produces the day-to-day achievement of students.  It is important to understand that it is the product of all of them that determines how much each student learns and how well each student learns it. In other words the amount of learning that takes place in the classroom for each child is literally determine by multiplying the factors,  in the following equation: who x what x when x where x why x how = daily achievement for each child.

I wrote this equation for several reasons. But the most important reason is it shows that the argument, which suggests students are failing because many teachers are unskilled-overpaid public employees, is wrong. Children are the “who” in the equation: who x what x when x where x why x how = daily achievement for each child. And this argument, in the language of mathematics, is suggesting daily achievement for each child = zero, when one or more of the other factors = zero. This is especially true when the factor is who or the child.

This is easier to understand when we state it in plain language: Regardless of the knowledge and skills of a teacher, and the excellent quality of his/her lessons, the daily achievement for a child is going to be zero if the child is sitting in jail, truant from school, spending time in a detention room . . . at the time the lesson is being taught in the classroom. Additionally, hunger, domestic abuse, unemployed parents, homelessness, divorce, separations, etc. are parts of the “why” factor. They explain why some students come to school unprepared to learn, unable to concentrate, with low self-esteem, and preoccupied with family matters. Many of the children in the United States who are failing in schools are facing one or more of these challenges. And these challenges require solutions from men and women with far more social and political power than teachers, principals, districts superintends, school board members, and local community government officials.

Governors, however, have the power ― especially when their parties are the majority in both houses of their state governments, to create solutions to these challenges. There should be no doubt in any governor’s mind that any education reform policy that fails to address the growing issues of poverty, hunger, unemployment and homelessness will not raise the achievement level of the poorest Americans. Any governor who intentionally divert federal funds away from specific poor school districts" and give those funds to the wealthy school districts should be jailed for breaking the law: His behavior isn't any better than the robbers that are stealing in the poor neighborhoods. More importantly, his actions will not lead to higher achievements in these neighborhoods.
by James A. Porter