Educating Evolution

Part 1 of my series on an Education Policy paradigm shift

Before The Beginning

One of the first discussions I had with myself about coming back to writing and ultimately political commentary was this one. “What are you doing it for?” I imagine that for most folks who didn’t immediately go into politics, especially electoral ones, that’s an easier question. So before I get into todays full topic, I want to address that. Mostly because even after my introduction last week, I’m sure there are questions. When I was in college, but specifically when I’d come to UMKC, I was not just gunning for an electoral future, but was actively trying to ingratiate myself with the local and national political figures I had some level of access to.

And aside from a few outliers, most people in my life were excited both to help in that pursuit, and “proud” of me for it. In the same ways people in my life took my intellect, compassion, and comprehension as signs I should become at Minister at the church I grew up in, more than a few folks said it openly before I was even out of high school, it was just a common thing my mother would hear, and that I would get told. I’m sure my father before his passing probably got a lot of the same. But when I had the moment to actually see behind the curtain, and work on a few campaigns, I didn’t like what I saw. I’m extremely thankful both for the opportunity to do so, and for the awakening they gave me. What I didn’t know in that time, that I do know now, is that I was disinterested because the rise of candidates as products was happening. To compete and win meant distilling all the work and policy you wanted to do into catch phrases, theatrics, and the most dreaded phrase in politics, a cult of personality.

I was at the time unwilling to engage in any of it. And because of that, I spent all the time since taking my principled stance on the sideline, supported the friends I thought were truly honest about things, and turned my critical eye on the entire process. There is a non-zero chance many of you reading came from my old podcasts, old blogs, or know me from my appearance on other people’s shows to talk these subjects. So you’re used to me lambasting the state of things and at times even ranting about what should be and why the current leadership is failing us all. But as I told you all, I have been through a lot these last 5 years, and the biggest of those things that the transplant journey I’ve gone through has taught me is that I was cheating the system. It is very simple to say what’s wrong and who’s screwing up. The hard part is providing the solutions, alternatives, and vision/direction to fix where we already are. These substack pieces are the first part of many in how I fix my portion of things. Or as my dear friend Shae would say when she wrote for my blog, “my 50 percent.”

The Elephant in the room

And so, with that preamble finished, let’s get to today’s piece, which may be a bit of a lightning rod to those who are parents, because I’m not one. At a surface level it can be easily understood why a parent feels like education policy is outside of the realm of non-parents. You perceive us as not invested in the system, as able to walk away from it, or that it is a hobby for us to play around with. Again, I can understand your trepidation to trust the thoughts of someone who has no children, but allow me to elucidate why you’re incorrect.

Investment

The first part of that is investment. We have for far too long treated anything but post-secondary education as if it only benefits the children in the system, and the parents of those children. And I’m here to say that’s incorrect as a basic premise. Literacy, calculation, comprehension, and appreciation at their most basic level have a positive effect on society, and for you truly money minded, the economy. Aspiring to have the quality difference between Gildan and Balencia can only occur when you can perceive a difference and understand what the concept of quality even is. Of course there are also the obvious things like reading signs, understanding directions, and basic civil duties like voting and taxes. But investment from non-parents needs to be seen beyond that. Education as a societal interest bleeds into elderly care, into support staffing, into unnoticed things like entertainment and social space quality, and even tech advancement adoption.

I can easily point to the widespread use of social media today, and then trace it back to how fast sites like Myspace, BlackPlanet, Xanga, Live Journal, and of course Friendster rose to prominence. And from them back to early chatrooms, early forums, and back further to early website hosts like Angelfire and Geocities. None of that occurs without massive adoption by the then teens and children of the time. And they wouldn’t have done so without an education system that could foster the environment. I think many millennials especially, forsake how many times we were taken to computer labs to learn but also had some access to typewriters as a good “here’s where we’ve been, here’s where we’re going” lesson.

And that’s just technology related investment. Those in entertainment know without much prompting that youth culture often drives what entertainment lanes gain traction in mainstream spaces. As well as how easy it is to build an audience in alternative spaces. So why then would we not be or want to be invested in education? It would be working against ourselves in a system that is based around society investment to not want to get to the root driver. And make no mistake, education is the root driver. To test this, parents, give this piece to one of your kids under 21, and have them write down every word they couldn’t immediately define. I’ve purposefully tossed in a few SAT, LSAT, and generally high end academic terms for just that reason. Now, you still think I don’t see a need to invest in your child being properly educated? Who would even understand some of what I said?

Proximity

But then we get to other half, the notion that this is a hobby/that we can walk away from it all. Well yes, but everything can be walked away from if you aren’t required to do it. So why look with any disdain at people choosing to put time, money, and brain power into something that doesn’t actually require them to be involved? Wanting to be here when you don’t have to be is a sign of care about the issue at hand. And as for it being a hobby? Besides the obvious from the previous part on investment, nothing that takes work like this should ever be denigrated as just a hobby. That’s an insult to that person’s commitment and to your role as parents. Always question motives, but based on the actions taken, not the perceived closeness or distance from the main demographic of something. No need to gate keep helping children when all the obvious danger signs have been accounted for.

Photo by Erika Fletcher on Unsplash

Policy

So this is the first of many pieces I’ll do on education. For those that aren’t aware, my mother was an educator, first as a teacher, then as a counselor, and finally until retirement a school psychologist. Alongside all her time in the Kansas City, Missouri School district, starting in 1969 until 2009, A majority of her friends, co-workers turned friends, one of my Aunts and Uncles, as well as plenty of church members were involved in education and would openly talk about it around me. Because of this I developed an extensive interest in how education works in the US versus elsewhere and the unique challenges of different sized and located school districts. So much so that several papers for my undergraduate Political Science degree were education policy based, and much of my more philosophical interests lean the same way. Education is a passion for me because I see just how important it is.

I think one of the bad raps that education policy gets is that it is too often a struggle between ivory tower education elitists, and practical parents. As someone outside that particular paradigm, I do hope my words cause somewhat of a shift, more on how later in this series. This struggle between what the academics and parents think I believe gets into the coke versus pepsi, liberal vs conservative, us vs. them line of thinking that ultimately hurts kids. Education shouldn’t be anymore political than trash pickup, but where we are as a society makes it that way.

Policy area 1: Tracking and Emphasis

I want to start the series with some seemingly mundane topic areas, and some more contentious ones. Tracking and Education Emphasis seem to have become quite contentious since I graduated in 2000. Which I honestly find a bit humorous, because as a Debate and Forensics team member, Model Senate or Congress would often include some bill that was about tracking and a bunch of teens hotly debating it. Seems we took that out into daily life after high school. One of the things I think people get wrong on the side of pro student tracking is that they try to apply this in the same way as it is seen in European Subcontinent and Southeast Asian education systems. As you will come to find in a lot of my commentary and policy discussions, I recognize the unique nature of American development that necessitates an alternate structure to things.

Tracking also is often pushed against by the anti tracking crowd because it seems to limit the potential of students at a time when they should be able to find out more about themselves. Essentially, how many people are lost to aptitudes and propensities because they grow up in certain environments and with unequal outside of school resources. I think to a certain degree that is a valid argument, but only because of how we normally are pitched tracking and emphasis pedagogy and the related curriculum. A clear distinction I want to make between my ideas in this series of pieces and the things that normally are discussed is I think there needs to be more of a hybrid to things. We don’t need to go full Socratic method with kindergarteners, just some adjustments to the general versus specialized primary through secondary education culture and curriculum.

One of the areas that I think post-secondary academics and trade education get right is that they want a balance of general education and the more specialized coursework. And while I will get to the teaching to “achievement” testing(read as: the insipid manner that politicians penalize school districts) that is the bulk of the current model later, I do think there is a need for some aptitude and propensity testing. Just not in the way it is often suggested or applied. In the case of Aptitude especially, it needs to be moved to learning style. And in the case of propensity, it needs to be for showing the student possibilities. These aren’t hard concepts, and by moving them away from “what” someone is taught to “how” someone is taught, it can be a useful tool for parents, who may not have understand the potential of their own children relative to their understanding. And it helps the student get outside of the limitations of their small life experience to this point.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

A Brief Aside

A quick story, despite my love of politics, education, and writing, I actually started school with much different aspirations. From as early as kindergarten, I thought I wanted to be an actor and or musician. My parents, godparents, and other relatives and extended family could tell you tons of stories of plays I was in, or musical instruments I played growing up. I was in band and or orchestra from K-12, and toss in plays in and out of school as well as choir at church, you could be forgiven for thinking that was going to be my path. “See,” I can hear you saying, “You would have been harmed by tracking, you wouldn’t have found your current career, Attorney Williams.” Well not quite. Those same people are, as I said before, the ones who cheered on my political ambition, my writing, and were there for my debate and forensics competitions. And a lot of my access to those including mock trial competitions, were because of my test scores showing my aptitudes and getting me into gifted and talented programs in both school districts I attended. Tests are a tool, not a determination.

Back to the topic at hand

When you see these tests as a means of helping faculty, staff, and parents better understand the student, you open up possibilities instead of close them down. But this should go hand in hand with reevaluation. So little follow up is done on students at all levels. So little is done for adults(don’t get me started on driving tests and age). And I think that’s the biggest failing of ideas like this. Students naturally evolve over time due to any number of factors, and that can lead to vastly different results for them at 7 to 10 then 15 to 18. Thus, we need a system as focused on updating the state of the student as we do the state of their achievement. And while it needs to be coupled with some standardization at a national level, that discussion by me is for a future piece.

So brass tacks, Each level of education needs an evaluation or re-evaluation. For primary education, I would currently suggest 2^nd grade. Because even as late as 1^st grade, there are socialization and basic skill gaps that need to be addressed before any real understanding of aptitude or propensity could realistically be gathered. While there are children who would stand out due to significant over or under development presentation, there are other mechanisms to identify and assist those students. My entry to the gifted and talented side of special education was first identified going into first grade. Under development is often caught before that. The social aspect of the first 2 years of primary education is also important, separation too early could stunt the learned social skills that need to be nurtured in the school environment. In part two of this discussion of tracking and emphasis, I’ll detail a lot of the changes to the structure of the first two years of primary education.

The first major reevaluation period would then logically come at the end of primary education and into intermediate education, for the purpose of this piece, 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade are what I’m referring to as intermediate. This first reevaluation would look to see how developmentally the student’s learning style, comprehension, and rate of absorbtion/retention have changed, positively or negatively. This lets the school adjust to meet the needs of the student, and helps the parent better understand at home portions of their student’s education.

An example I like to use here is a student who before a more specialized or tracked primary education, in kindergarten and first grade, may have presented as a primarily visual learner. Under reevaluation though, it is found that they actually thrive in written instructional environments. How did this occur? Because prior to their first evaluation, they were in a home and school environment that was still primarily about getting them to understand things in the context of the people around them. How to act with company, how to treat other children, introductions to basic math, reading, science, writing, and exercise/activity. Their lack of presenting to that point was really a product of lack of experience and comfort related to what they were learning, so they defaulted to acting as other students act. With time to better understand and get comfortable with how they learn and socialize, they are able to show their actual learning style when it relates to topics they have a natural propensity and aptitude for.

The obvious reevaluation period is secondary education at the high school level. Again, I’m for a national standardized structure where high school is always 9^th -12^th grade. While this would of course also be a chance to see what internal and external factors may have changed or newly presented, it would also be a good chance to analyze the resources that a particular student needs more of as they go through adolescence and into young adulthood. Bringing back things like driver’s ed, and more focus on their integration into the larger society would go from a small part of their education to a large influence following this.

Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

A final reevaluation would occur at the end of secondary education in the 12^th grade. Giving the student and their parent a real understanding of what additional help or outside work that may need to be done, as well as a means of advising them on the larger role in society they will now have. You probably noticed I didn’t talk about the coursework and curriculum related to this testing. And I didn’t address “achievement” test scores. That is by design. I grew up with ITBS, MMAP, and one other achievement test that I can’t actually remember the name of. They are inherently intrusive to learning. And districts and schools know this. Parents are well aware of it. While it seems like politicians that control the purse strings aren’t. Spoiler alert, the are fully aware of the problem. All things are political, and “achievement” testing is a political means of state legislatures and education departments controlling what is seen as successful to justify everything from closing schools, to backing voucher programs that end up costing states billions of dollars and not helping the vast majority of students they claim it will assist.

This isn’t to say some means of understanding the progress in educating students and the skill at which teachers are handling the front lines of education should be done away with. But teaching for the tests 45 – 75 percent of the school year depending on the district, is preposterous. Competency testing can be simplified, and standards set on a national level that can be correctly evaluated state to state and district to district is possible. So where does it start? Achievement testing is built around a year to year single standard for a given state. As I’ve gone through in this piece, how we think about that needs to change. This doesn’t mean suddenly every student is evaluated differently. It means the testing is done differently. Skill level in the core areas, and only the core areas, done at the beginning of the year, and at the tail end of the year would replace single year, weeks long, all day evaluations. Think about yourself as an adult now, If someone wanted you to test your knowledge and or skills from 7am until 3pm every day for nearly or in some cases over a month, you would increasing burn out and have issues with it. We don’t ask this of doctors, lawyers, electricians, or even servicemembers. Why are we doing it with children?

Instead by focusing on the development of students in the core skills of Math, Reading Comprehension, Writing, and Critical thinking/logic, there is a way to see how effective the teacher is and what additional help the student might need between major evaluations. Going back to me as an example, I’m good at math, but I HATE doing math. I can do things up through basic collegiate calculus in my head, but I am NEVER happy while doing it. Evaluation would tell you that, competency testing would alert you that I’m doing well in it, and achievement testing would depend on how bored I was taking the test and whether I had a good breakfast that day. These are already compelling reasons to toss out the current model, right? Exactly.

But I know the current political crowd will ask how this change will help deal with gluttonous spending by districts, which districts and schools have effective teachers, and other budget related concerns. I’ll get into teacher retention related policy in the future, rest assured I have a wonderful group of people I can lean on for that subject, but I want to address the money problem in this piece before we move to education emphasis. In a perfect world every district in a given state would have enough money to do everything possible for students and be full of educators, faculty and staff, who can handle everything related to my changes. But we don’t live in a perfect world, and generally districts are run based on the property taxes within the district lines. Competency allows for a clearer picture of how a given district is doing, and stronger evidence to advocate for or against resource deployment. While the evaluations and reevaluations can show department to department needs to apply existing funds. Both sides win and the children are less testing taxed so they are learning more.

Education Emphasis

So I’ve given the case and examples for competency and evaluation testing, now let’s apply it. This is the big restructure side of things. Until this point, you could honestly implement things with minimal interruption to the current approaches. But what good is evaluating students and then sending them right back into the exact same coursework and style of learning as before? We need to make some major changes. I’ll start with one you’ve probably heard a lot of from parents and non-parents alike about education. We don’t teach enough basic skills. It is important that I’m saying basic skills not core skills, as they are not always the same. Writing can easily include the use of tablets and computers. Critical thinking can include decision making and choice selection. But handwriting and research? Those are specific basic skills that are used in society and need to be developed from an early age. These basic skill developments should occur throughout primary to secondary education, but should evolve as the student grows and develops.

A Brief Example

Taking us back to the math example, my favorite time of year in math during elementary school was the money unit. In 3^rd grade they even gave us a field trip where we had to calculate how to spend 5 dollars including tax at a mcdonalds that was a decent but not long walk from the school. And then they took us there, walking, as a field trip, and we ate outide at a nearby park. Every 3^rd grade class in the school went, and I vaguely remember I got a combination of a mcDLT extra value meal, large, with a sundae? Maybe? Look at was 1991, I’m only certain I only got under 5 dollars with tax by less than a quarter, but I remember my strong affinity for the McDLT. Anyway, what public school district, much less elementary school do you know that would risk that trip now? Despite how much easier it would be to do now? Kind of my point. We don’t trust the world, so we don’t trust students, and thus they don’t get the experience to develop and we end up with more problems not less.

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Back To Basics

Building off of the example, experiences like applying the academic in real world environments and for real world purposes should be a means of culminating the lessons of the year. By adding these as a reward for learning, the student and their parent can feel more integrated into larger society, and that social aspect of education is enhanced. Obviously, the example was for 3^rd graders, so it would look vastly different for high schoolers, but this isn’t the entry in this series were I go grade by grade. That is probably a few months away from now if I’m honest. But all basic skills have easy to utilize things from the past, and innovations from the present that can be updated and reconceptualized. Ask most adults who were in primary education from the 1980s until the very early 2000s and they’ll wax poetically about the nostalgia of Pizza Hut’s Bookit program, that got kids a free personal pan pizza for a set amount of book reports approved by their teacher and in conjunction with the area school district. They’ll spin you a yarn about their purchases at the scholastic book fair. And how they wish those things were around now, not for the kids, but for themselves. These programs have lasting impacts because they engaged students and didn’t insult their intelligence. Something that occurs far too often currently.

Speaking of intellect, language development is often simplified to spelling and reading in English. With the learning of other languages reserved for much later in the process. I’m aware some districts have endeavored to change this and start earlier, but remember, I’m advocating for nation wide changes, and of course state wide changes until then. Yes I’m looking at you Kansas City Metro Area School districts on both sides of stateline. And it doesn’t stop at teaching Spanish, French, Japanese, or other languages, students getting to practice these skills in the same immersive manner at early ages, getting to go into limited elective means of learning within the context and structure of the coursework is just as important.

A 5^th grader who grows up with Spanish in the home, learns English both at school and home, but also is in the Mandarin learning tract, might be learning about Chinese theater because they really enjoy acting or scriptwriting. And part of their coursework elective is writing reviews for a set number of plays this semester after watching them or reading them. That’s how you can integrate the mass ubiquity of current technological developments into learning without overpowering the basics. Imagine that same 5^th grader able to explain to their parents and relatives why the play they watched for school was good, and the family now wants to see some of the plays. Now our fictional fifth grader is translating for the family, maybe even teaching them enough to enjoy the same media. This creates a lot of potentialities, and deepens the students desire to utilize the languages they are already comfortable with. It makes the transitions of English learning, and their at home Spanish learning less jarring.

It should go without saying, but I’ll briefly mention that this would lead to a number of benefits for humanities-based courses like art classes. By leaning into the propensity for young children to want to experience without fully breaking into a Montessori style approach, you have quantifiable growth periods and trackable development so resources can be effectively allocated for the larger volume of students that public districts serve. And I’m not against alternative education structures, even home schooling, but the general public needs a change and improvement to the system that the vast majority utilize. One of the reasons home schooling has had such a rise since my undergraduate years is the decline in learning for an increase in test teaching. And my goal with this series is to advocate for realistic methods of changing that.

The Evaluations Effects

By having the evaluations and reevaluations as a backbone to these system changes, classes from both the teacher and student sides, can now be restructured. Teachers that do well teaching in a visual style have students who learn best in those styles, and this continues all the way through school for core and basic skills classes. With any specialized courses, like schools that provide for philosophy, advanced sciences, advanced math, and advanced writing or other courework, being well aware of the style of learning the student utilizes and aren’t trying to force them into a preconceived notion of how to learn. Not only does this help the student and teacher retention problem some districts have, but it also improves class ratios of students to teachers, and as I’ve said repeatedly, helps better allocate resources. Maybe that student would be fine in Math and Science class, but they don’t have a teacher that can get as detail specific as they need to understand what’s required of them. This change looks to improve their chances. And by making this a state wide and then national standard, every district, should the family move can reliably place the student when they enroll.

When it comes to intermediate and secondary education, this manifests into the other part of why evaluation and reevaluation are important. By high school, decisions are being made about what to do in life after school. Not everyone is, or wants to be college bound for additional academic study. Which is why core and basic skill coursework is not eliminated but instead changed to work with the student’s learning style. Whereas these more elective and specialized classes follow from the student’s path or track. It is important to not that under my plans any student would be able to attend college or go into a trade program, but their preparedness for those would be increased or decreased based on what path they were in during secondary education.

Using an example from my high school years, there were 2 geometry classes you take. College bound geometry, as class that was a prerequisite for all upper level math courses and all of the dual credit classes offered at the school through local university UMKC, and Geometry and trigonometry, which was designed for those who didn’t want to do upper level math classes. You might think I clearly chose the college bound class. You’re actually wrong. I didn’t chose either of them. There wasn’t originally space for me in College Bound Geometry but I had tested high enough to get into the college algebra dual credit class, yes I had to fight to do so and used being in the district’s gifted program to help, so I was able to take college algebra as a sophomore, and college calculus. Never set foot in college bound geometry until senior year when I needed an extra class, until they finally let me be dismissed for that hour, and assured it wouldn’t effect me graduating. I did say I was a debater, you didn’t expect me to argue my way around the subject I loathe? That was light work.

For trade tracked students, the difference in classes balance would get into introduction and later deeper understand of what trade they were looking to get into. I know this makes shop teachers around the country jump for joy. But lets also bring the technology into this. Because trade doesn’t just mean building things and doing hair/nails. It means non academic pursuits. ROTC participants who know they are wanting to head to enlist as soon as possible? Get them ready for potential jobs in the services, which means we have a more effective military. Great eye for fashions and dress or suit making? Your classes get you ready for fashion design schools, get you more familiar with work as a seamstress, get you connected with local, regional, or other potential post-secondary pursuits related to it. And much of this doesn’t require the student to expend more than their time in and out of school. We aren’t forcing students and their families to travel the country, everything is as close as the nearest computer or phone screen.

Speaking of screens and emphasis, and yes this is nearing the wrap up, one of the things that would be a brand new but consistent inclusion from K-12, is technology courses, Not only are these teachers teaching tech, tech safety, and tech development, but the students are all getting a better working knowledge of what they are using. How to research and fact check online, how to safeguard against scams and predators. Like our language example, it also helps parents who may be concerned or unaware of the dangers their student is exposed to normally. Everyone is in a better place because for an hour or two each week the student is getting necessary introductions. And as an added bonus, the chance of identifying a student with an aptitude and desire for computer science based work is occurring at an early enough point that they may not need academia to develop the tech that pushes all of us forward.

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

The Wrap Up

While this is part 1 of the Policy overarching series, there will be parts that get more indepth about specifics like courses, school structures, district structures, challenges, and that grade level by grade level explanation I said is months away. The important part to understand is that this is a shift in approach that is not a cure-all. You still need teaching standard changes, budgetary considerations, and parent/student/teacher relationship modification. And that’s before you get to the wider society involvement that needs to accompany all of this. But this is a start, a start that gets us out of the teach to test approach that is just frankly not working and is harming students and teacher alike. A start that reduces the overspending, so the finite resources of even the smaller school districts in urban and rural settings can effectively spend. And a start that makes the understanding of student competency a clearer and more complete picture.

I do want to get into the discussion of teach retention and spending allocation, it may be next. I could also get into depth on the academic vs trade coursework and what tracking and evaluation leads to there. Or I may get into the school board-parent-faculty-staff relationship next. Either way I do hope you enjoyed this first foray into the topic. I’m always interested in your comments, questions, critique, or approvals. SO please feel free to comment, you can also connect with me on BlueSky as I’ve left twitter and most of my other social media. @mattewilliams.substack.com on BlueSky should take you right to me. For now, I’m off. And I look forward to talk to you again soon. Thanks for reading!