Me, Myself, and Why: The Spark of Change in Education Policy

Project background
The impetus behind embarking on a project such as this one is quite personal, and evolved in a rather ironic way. Throughout my years as a middle school and high school student, I was heavily involved in athletics as a competitive swimmer, a sport that required a substantial time commitment of well over 25 hours a week, as well as considerable mental and physical taxation. My participation in athletics was one that was decided entirely independently of any outside influences or pressures: my parents stood in sincere support of my choices in extracurricular activities, so long as my involvement outside of academics did not hinder my ability to perform in school. For whatever reason, I found a sort of solace in the unrelenting monotony of the painfully early morning practices and the relief of finishing a seemingly impossible workout. It was a routine, and deviation from this was uncomfortable and hardly a consideration. It was not until the summer before my senior year of high school that I ever paused to reflect on why I was involved in sports. Why was a subjecting myself to workouts that I spent the day dreading? Why did I feel unrelenting guilt when I was not able to attend a practice or achieve my goals for the day? And last, but most importantly: WHY was subjecting myself to a completely voluntary activity when it caused me more anxiety than pleasure? In hindsight, I really did know the answers to these questions all along: it was a teenage identity crisis, and it unfolded right before my eyes. Somewhere along the lines, I had ensnared myself in the label of being an athlete, without ever stopping to muse over the big “why?”
Making the transition from my home in Maryland to Wisconsin for college sparked somewhat of an identity crisis as well. I was no longer a coastal inhabitant, but a Badger. I was no longer involved in sports, and I was not really sure quite where I belonged outside of my academic life and my dorm friends. It was then, by a stroke of spontaneity, that I became involved in campus politics, which escalated to local and statewide politics. I became immersed in grassroots organizing through the Obama campaign, an opportunity that was presented to me, and an offer that ultimately served to fill any void that I had previously felt. The beauty of grassroots organizing is not only the fulfillment of pursuing a cause that you believe in, or the empowerment stemming from the skills that you learn; the greatest beauty of all is the realization that in order to be effective at the job that you are doing, you must ask the big “why?” You must know for whom or what you are working, and why those people or issues are important to you. And through this realization, I have come to question the issues of identity and the big “why” in our education system. Though the world of athletics is not often seen as colliding with that of education policy, I certainly have established a personal connection between the two. Just as I stamped myself with the “athlete” identity, the education system stamps students with the “GPA” identity. For those that are able to perform within the parameters of the academic system, the GPA identity is positively influential, both in terms of self- esteem and the recognition of professors, employers, and the rest of society society. Even for those who are able to produce, what is considered to be, acceptable work, there are, inevitably, the aforementioned negative outcomes as well.
Out of grassroots organizing, I have come to appreciate the sheer strength of a movement driven by community interest. For this reason, I believe that if students simply take a step back and ask the “why” with regards to our education system, we have the potential to enact great change.

Methods
Originally, the focus of my project was going to take a dual perspective: I planned to collect survey responses from both students and professors regarding their opinions on several aspects of the education system in the United States. However, in the first interviews that I conducted with professors, I found that many were largely satisfied with the current grading system, particularly since it allows them to conduct large-scale assessments of students while allowing for efficient grading through the use of multiple-choice examinations. Due to the fact that my project was based on the premise of reform, I chose to refocus the data collection to exclusively include students. The questions covered a broad scope of topics pertaining to education, including teacher salaries, methods of evaluating instructors, and individual courseloads. The presented survey questions were as follows:

1. Do you believe that teacher salaries directly affect the quality of the education system? Why or why not?
2. Are you familiar with the website “Rate My Professor”?
3. If a site called “Rate My Evaluation System” existed, on which students could post comments on how they would like to be evaluated by professors and why, would this be of interest to you?
4. Do you believe that students need to play an active role in ensuring that our education system fairly evaluates its students?
5. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most satisfied), how would you rate your satisfaction with the current grading system that is employed in our education system?
6. How many credits are you currently taking?
7. Of your academic classes, how many require you to take multiple- choice examinations at some point during the course of the semester?
8. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being the most prepared), how helpful has school been in preparing you for a future career?
9. Please make a brief statement on how you feel about the current grading system being used in United States schools today.
10. What types of assignments do you consider yourself to perform the best on? (Choose from: At-home papers, in class essays/essay exams, multiple choice exams, and in-class presentations)

The responses to the first question produced diverse responses. While some answers claimed that teacher salaries directly affect the quality of education available to students, others expressed that it was a largely insignificant factor in determining the proficiency of teachers. The former group placed a heavy emphasis on the fulfillment of basic needs as being a major factor in teaching quality, and they argued that low teacher salaries create an additional burden on educators because they must struggle to make ends meet, and this additional effort detracts from their ability to teach. Many also stated that comparatively lower salaries for teachers results in a less qualified candidate field, as young professionals are attracted to other professions with better pay. Others countered this argument with the fact that many states provide their publicly employed educators with generous pension plans, and cited this as a reason for lower pay levels.
With regard to the question about the website “Rate My Professor”, 29% of respondents stated that they regularly use reviews posted on the site to determine which instructors(s) to select for their class(es), and an additional 29% state that they have read through the student evaluations on the site, but they do not affect which instructors they choose for their class schedule. Twenty two percent used the website more actively, to both evaluate their own instructors and read the review of others, while 13% said they were not familiar with the website, and an additional 7% selected the “other” option. Forty three percent of respondents said that they would use a similar service that would allow students to rate the fairness of he evaluation methods employed by their professors (exams, papers, etc.), while approximately 44% said that they might use it and 12% stated that they would not use it at all.
Overwhelmingly, the responses indicated that students should, in fact, play a large role in ensuring fair methods of evaluation (89% indicated that students are responsible for this), while others indicated concern with the fact that students and educators might have a different definition of what “fair” evaluation entails. Whereas students might see a poor grade as being simply unfair, the teacher/professor may have a legitimate reason for giving the lower grade.
The majority of respondents considered the current grading system to be relatively acceptable. On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the most satisfied with the current grading system), 15% of students rated the system with a 6, 31% rated the system at a 7, and 20% rated it at an 8; however, the open-ended question that asked about current opinions of the grading system provided a variety of responses. While some stated that they had little qualms with the 4.0 grading scale, others had issues with various aspects of the system. Some of the responses are listed below:
• I don’t think it’s that accurate. Some people can be really good at just memorizing the answers, leading them to an A.
• The current system doesn’t really cover all the aspects of learning and the different way students learn. Many times this leaves a vast number of students struggling not only to learn the material but also forces them to fit into grading systems that may not show their full potential.
• My impression is that there is no one system and therefore comparing students from one school to the next or one state to another state is very difficult. Standards also vary tremendously — so stand alone grades are not an accurate portrait of any student’s academic abilities.
• Multiple choice exams are definitely a good evaluation for certain levels of schooling (elementary through high school, maybe certain college courses) and in certain subject areas. Multiple choice exams do not work in each subject, just as essay exams or writing papers do not work well for every subject. There is not a one-size-fits-all method of evaluation for every level of education and for every subject, which leads me to my final statement that multiple choice exams DO have a place in evaluating students and it varies from grade to grade and topic to topic.
• Too much emphasis on GPAs, not enough on forming connections and gaining career skills.

On the question regarding evaluation methods, 59.6% of respondents stated that they felt they performed best on at-home papers, while 38.4% stated that they performed best on in-class presentations, 37.4% excelled on in-class essays, and finally, 35.4% felt they received the best grades on multiple- choice exams.

Proposed changes to the education system
Assessing issues within the education system is vital to the process of making improvements, but the greatest challenge of all comes with identifying a viable solution that will both reform the system, and fall within the scope of available resources. The scope of potential reforms is broad, but they can begin with four distinct changes: improved teacher/professor salaries and performance standards, reforms to standardized testing procedures, the diversifying of teaching techniques and learning strategies in the classroom, and reforms to the grading system. In keeping with the argument that reforms should begin with student movements, these changes should begin with altercations to the current grading scale that has been instituted in the U.S. education system; however, it is also important to explore more expansive reforms that would require changes to stem from national and state government institutions.
To this day, education reforms focus largely on the output of students, in terms of test scores, writing skills, and math proficiency. However, little attention is given to the process of educating our teachers and ensuring that they receive adequate compensation for the vitally important job that they perform. Just as standards for students in the U.S must be elevated, the same must occur with standards for students entering graduate education programs to pursue teaching careers. In countries such as Singapore, acceptance into the educators’ program requires both exceptional scores on entrance exams and the equivalent of what would be a high-level college degree in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the U.S., as schools of education are “regarded as very easy to get into”, resulting in a pool of applicants that lacks selectivity (Tucker). The selection process for admission to graduate programs in education should also include an evaluation of the candidates’ abilities to engage students and generate interest in learning. Just as a market with highly competitive industries encourages competitors to innovate and perform at higher levels, higher standards for admission to graduate programs in education would create a pool of highly qualified educators.
As many survey respondents suggested, teachers are driven to their profession by their sheer passion for education, but it demanding more of those who are attempting to turn education into a profession is futile if there are not mechanisms in place to entice young students to enter the teaching profession. Many foreign countries that are leaders in education gauge teachers’ salaries based on the income of other professions, but in the U.S., the salary of educators falls far below the income of other professions requiring a similar level of education (Tucker). As we face economic challenges and the value of higher education increases, it would seem that the value of educators would subsequently increase, but this is not the case. If the pay scale of educators is not changed to reflect the dire need for their expertise, we cannot expect potential educators to be held to higher standards. Beyond the simpler incentive for higher pay, we must create a pay scale that would reward teachers with specific skills or exceptional teaching abilities. This would encourage educators to go above and beyond what is expected of them, resulting in a better education for students.
In order to maximize learning potential for students, new strategies must be implemented in the classroom to accommodate different abilities and preferences among students. Many educators adhere to the traditional method of lecturing in front of large groups of students, but increasingly, educational research is showing that this form of passive learning is not sufficient. Students are more inclined to retain a substantial amount of information if they are actively engaged in the learning process, through simulations, participation in small discussions, giving presentations, and a variety of other methods that allow them to be immersed in the material. An emerging method addresses the issue of passive learning. The approach, known as “collaborative learning”, advocates for small-group work in the classroom. During this time, students are presented with conceptual questions related to the material being taught, asked to come up with an answer as a group, and encouraged to share their input with the rest of the class (Felder and Brent). Teaching techniques such as this not only encourage student participation and teamwork, but also facilitate interactions between faculty and students. At many universities, the collaborative method is implemented through the system of Teaching Assistants (TAs), by breaking large lectures into small discussion sections once a week. This system needs to become more universal across K-12, university, and post-graduate education programs. Educators also need to promote the importance of internships and other working experiences in which students can apply the skills that they learn in the classroom to their prospective profession.
Currently, student proficiency is evaluated based on the standards set forth by standardized testing procedures. Ideally, the tests should measure the proficiency of students and teachers within a school and increase accountability; however, there are a variety of negative implications associated with such a system. NCLB posits that schools failing to meet the testing standards numerous times will face closure. Such schools tend to be in struggling neighborhoods, with few resources. Therefore, shutting them down invariably defeats the purpose of the legislation: to close the existing achievement gap. Perhaps a better alternative would be not to eliminate standardized testing altogether, but rather to refocus how the results of the tests are applied to the education system. Currently, the tests allow for little opportunity to evaluate the teaching practices of individual instructors. The results are made available months after the tests are administered, and feedback is largely in terms of countywide and statewide results. Instead, teachers should be able to receive results that are specific to their students within days of the test, so that they are able to better identify which subjects require more focus. In addition, the standardized testing system gives little credit for improvements, and instead punishes schools that do not perform well, largely overlooking circumstantial factors and demographics of the area in which the school resides. More focus should be given to targeting these struggling schools and giving them the necessary resources to improve.
Perhaps before any of these institutional reforms take place, changes must occur within the methods of evaluation that are used to assess students. These changes are necessary, not only to encourage critical thinking and promote a diversified learning experience, but also to ensure that evaluation method are adaptable to the strengths and weaknesses of individual students. At the present moment, the process of evaluation that is employed in the U.S. education system creates an environment in which students are held accountable based on standards that are artificially imposed by society. The fact is that the coveted A’s and 4.0 GPA’s that students so closely covet are simply ink on a piece of paper. The education system is based on a “one size fits all approach”, the expectation being that students will enter it at the pre-elementary school level, and improve over the years so that by the time they are ready to enter the workforce, all students that complete an education have the same skill set and are able to perform at the same level. There are two flaws in this logic, the first being that one student may have a vastly different skill set than another student, and the second being that the imposition of a set of achievement standards only encourages students to meet those standards, without exploring the educational experiences that may lay beyond them. These two issues, in conjunction with one another, create a group of young adults that may be considered working professionals by the grading scale, but may actually be far from their full potential.
As class sizes continue to grow, there is little time for educators to develop an understanding of the individual needs of their students. Large classes force educators to employ ways of evaluating students that are easy to grade, such as multiple -choice exams. While some students excel at these types of tests, others do not, yet their grade and because society will ultimately evaluate their proficiency based on grades, this becomes an unfair and perhaps inaccurate reflection of the student’s abilities. Moreover, the use of multiple choice tests as the preferred testing medium requires students to simply recall the information presented to them by the teacher or professor, and does little to necessitate critical thinking, as an essay or presentation might. For this reason, students should have the option to choose the way in which they are assessed, so that their abilities may be best reflected in their work. Though it may be argued that this would upset the uniformity of the education system, the effect would actually be quite the opposite, because students would not be slighted by evaluations that fail to reflect their abilities.
Beyond the general process of evaluation, the numerical 4.0 grading scale should be replaced by a more subjective, non-numerical grading scale. Similar to the pass/fail option that is presented with limited availability, the proposed system would designate marks for High Pass (HP), Pass (P), and No Credit (NC). The use of the High Pass mark would encourage students to surpass the basic requirements of courses in order to receive the better mark, while also helping them to feel comfortable with taking the “intellectual risks” that are associated with a full education. This grading system would maintain the simplicity of grade documentation through transcripts, as the current system so readily allows. In addition to the transcript, the new system would include a qualitative component in the form of a portfolio or compilation of the student’s most esteemed academic works. By eliminating the numerical grading scale, universities and employers would have a more comprehensive means by which to evaluate their candidates.
Addressing the sustainability of our education system is not an option; it is a necessity. As technology slowly replaces what were once tasks that required manual labor, we must arm individuals with the information necessary to innovate, a task that can only be done through education. As the issue of sustainability permeates through economics, agriculture, and other sectors of society, it does so in the school system as well, and while it is certainly not something that can be addressed in one fell swoop, change can begin with those that brush shoulders with the education system on a daily basis: students. At the heart of our generation, there is an overwhelming powerful ability to inspire change, and to create a vision of a different tomorrow that is contagious to the rest of the world, and as we come to grip the challenges that we will face in the working world, we must recognize and harness this potential so that we can affect change in order to improve the system for the next group of students that will brush shoulders with it.

Education: What’s next?

John F. Kennedy once said, “All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent”.  The system of higher education in the United States should, ideally, rest upon this principle: the idea that learning provides a haven to both discover and develop skills and that no impediment, fiscal or otherwise, should obstruct one’s place in the public school system where these valuable skills are cultivated, and ultimately filtered into the jobs market. At a time in which our means are being tested and our resources stretched thin, the integrity of this system must be defended through programs that seek to create accessibility and equality in education. During his first term in office, President Obama has signed several pieces of legislation that seek to ease the financial burdens of higher education on families and young professionals. In 2010, the passage of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) set the benchmark for the administration’s goal of ensuring that by the year 2020, the United States will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world (The White House). Included in the legislation are sweeping financial reforms, including the creation of student loan program based exclusively on direct loans, a more generous Pell grant program, and reforms to the Income Based Repayment program.

The pages of history of the United States are full of changes imposed from outside on the education system, but these changes are largely ineffective if the status quo is still accepted within the system.  The inherent failure method of government enacting all changes on the education system is most evident in the failed No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), passed with bipartisan Congressional support and signed into law by former President George W. Bush in 2001. The legislation sought to narrow the achievement gap between minority students and their classmates, by requiring federally funded schools to administer yearly standardized testing to students, the results which would be used to measure the school’s progress and quality. While testing measured basic proficiency in subjects such as reading and math, progress was also based upon graduation rates for high schools and attendance rates for middle and elementary schools (“Fact Sheet on the Major”). The schools that failed to meet the proficiency standards for consecutive years faced a loss of federal funding and possible closure. While the idea of creating uniform standards for school systems across the nation might seem beneficial, such policies do not consider differing needs that must be met for individual students and educators. The law measures student aptitude on the basis of reading and math standardized testing, and does not account for students that might be talented in other academic areas, such as foreign language and science. Additionally, schools became pressurized into diverting funding from other academic programs in order to ensure that enough focus is placed upon the subjects that require testing. And ultimately, the law served to create further disparities in educational achievement from state to state because the provisions were enforce through unfunded mandates, by which states must appropriate their own funding to carry out federal legislation. Subsequently, wealthier states are then able to provide the necessary resources to meet the standards, and therefore remain eligible to receive federal education funding, while poorer schools, unable to provide the monetary resources to meet the required standards, lose federal funding. By this reinforcing mechanism, the achievement gap grows, rather than narrowing.

So the question becomes: if the supposed improvements that are imposed upon our education turn out to be detrimental to students and educators, where should the changes come from? There is no doubt that the status quo is not sufficient, and statistics glaringly speak to this harsh reality. Internationally, United States students lag behind in terms of basic education skills, including math, literacy, and science. Among industrialized nations, the United States ranks twelfth in the percentage of adults between the ages of 25 and 34 with a college degree, and unfortunately, this is due in part of exorbitantly high tuition costs and a lack of availability of financial aid during trying economic times. This presents a dual challenge, the first being to make education more readily available, and the second being to change the education system in way that would encourage students to want to perform well for reasons beyond meeting the academic requirements that society deems acceptable. The former is an issue that, unfortunately, must be addressed through government measures and structural reform. The latter, however, is a change that involves significantly less bureaucracy.

At the present moment, the process of evaluation that is employed in the U.S. education system creates an environment in which students are held accountable based on standards that are artificially imposed by society. The fact is that the coveted A’s and 4.0 GPA’s that students so closely covet are simply ink on a piece of paper.  The education system is based on a “one size fits all approach”, the expectation being that students will enter it at the pre-elementary school level, and improve over the years so that by the time they are ready to enter the workforce, all students that complete an education have the same skill set and are able to perform at the same level. There are two flaws in this logic, the first being that one student may have a vastly different skill set than another student, and the second being that the imposition of a set of achievement standards only encourages students to meet those standards, without exploring the educational experiences that may lay beyond them.  These two issues, in conjunction with one another, create a group of young adults that may be considered working professionals by the grading scale, but may actually be far from their full potential.

In an age where the federal government sits in constant gridlock, and state and local governments are ensnared in debt and infrastructure problems, the reality is that any changes that need to be made to the education system, with the exceptional of fiscal appropriations, will most likely be pushed to the bottom of the legislative agenda. This, however, is not necessarily a bad thing. These much-needed reforms need to begin from the bottom up, perhaps through a grassroots movement. This is arguably the most effective way to secure such changes, as students, teachers, professors, and staff are the individuals that experience the workings of the system every day.  As class sizes continue to grow, there is little time for educators to develop an understanding of the individual needs of their students.  Large classes force educators to employ ways of evaluating students that are easy to grade, such as multiple -choice exams. While some students excel at these types of tests, others do not, yet their grade and because society will ultimately evaluate their proficiency based on grades, this becomes an unfair and perhaps inaccurate reflection of the student’s abilities. Moreover, the use of multiple choice tests as the preferred testing medium requires students to simply recall the information presented to them by the teacher or professor, and does little to necessitate critical thinking, as an essay or presentation might. For this reason, students should have the option to choose the way in which they are assessed, so that their abilities may be best reflected in their work. Though it may be argued that this would upset the uniformity of the education system, the effect would actually be quite the opposite, because students would not be slighted by evaluations that fail to reflect their abilities.

Beyond the general process of evaluation, the traditional 4.0 grading scale should be replaced by a more subjective, non-numerical grading scale. Similar to the pass/fail option that is presented with limited availability, the proposed system would designate marks for High Pass (HP), Pass (P), and No Credit (NC).  The use of the High Pass mark would encourage students to surpass the basic requirements of courses in order to receive the better mark, while also helping them to feel comfortable with taking the “intellectual risks” that are associated with a full education. This grading system would maintain the simplicity of grade documentation through transcripts, as the current system so readily allows. In addition to the transcript, the new system would include a qualitative component in the form of a portfolio or compilation of the student’s most esteemed academic works.  By eliminating the numerical grading scale, universities and employers would have a more comprehensive means by which to evaluate their candidates.

Ultimately, the journey of an individual’s education is one that is wrought with emotion: stress, excitement, enthusiasm, and at times, frustration. Through this project, I hope to gather information from students and educators about the feedbacks at play between their emotions and the impact that they feel from our current education system. Through the compilation of this information and the inclusion of my research, I will create a policy proposal that ties together the need for innovation in education, and the negative implications that the current system effects upon them.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/‌2011/‌08/‌08/‌education/‌08educ.html?_r=1&hpw

http://www2.ed.gov/‌nclb/‌overview/‌intro/‌factsheet.html

“Effective Teaching: A Workshop.”- By Richard Felder and Rebecca Brent

http://www.whitehouse.gov/‌issues/‌education/‌higher-education

http://it.stlawu.edu/~lrediehs/grading_files/grading-hp.htm

“I’ve never let school interfere with my education”

One of my favorite quotes of all time, as uttered by Mark Twain himself.

After coming from a highly competitive high school, where grades most certainly made the person, and continuing on to an institution of higher learning where the stakes are just as high, if not higher, I think it is vital that students step  back and reflect on why they are here. I like to think that I have found myself in college. Yes, it sounds cheesy (this is Wisconsin, after all), and maybe even cliché, but it’s true. For me, high school was about going through the motions: studying for exams so I could get the A, scanning books in order to complete study guides, and gritting my teeth over the stack of papers that never seemed to leave my desk. College has been a life experience, an education, not only in academics, but also in life, myself, and what I want to do with my future.

In lieu of the aforementioned Mark Twain quote, I firmly believe that I have cemented my future through my experiences in campus, state, and national politics. This is not to say that my lectures, discussions, and labs have not been phenomenal, but it is to say that one’s education is not complete without these extracurricular experiences.

I also think that the heavy emphasis on grades, multiple choice exams, and other forms of evaluation that simply rely on rote memorization are overused, and over-valued. Encouraging students to simply rehash what they have heard in lecture does not teach them to think critically, or evaluate the information that they are receiving. It simply teaches them to copy lecture slides and repeat the information back to the professor verbatim.

For my project, I would like to talk to a variety of professors and TAs at the University of Wisconsin and from my high school about alternative methods of evaluation and learning for students. I would also like to talk to students about how their stress levels correlate with the types of evaluation that are used in their various classes. Finally, I would like to provide students with an anonymous feedback system, in which they are able to suggest new learning mechanisms to professors and to the University. Our country lags behind in terms of education, not because we do not care about teaching our students, but because we are not targeting reforms properly and using the resources that we have available most efficiently. I think it is the job of students who live and breathe the system everyday to let educators and our governments know that we can no longer accept the status quo if we want to build for our future.