Where Should Administrators Spend Their Time?





A student’s ability to read and comprehend, communicate, and reflect that information to real world situations is one of the primary goals of education. There is a lot of research to support how educators can best accomplish this goal. The two prevailing schools of thought among educators and the general public about how schools should accomplish this task are:

  1. Some educators believe, we should teach all students on grade-level and lower the standards to the ability level of the students. Understanding that students are tested on grade-level, how will they get to grade-level if educators continue to lower the standards. This research contends that educators do a disservice to students not to introduce them to the material and hold them accountable for learning it. When students are taught below grade-level and tested on grade-level, the test information and questions are foreign to them. If educators teach them using grade-level material, the students have some prior knowledge, exposure to the information, and test questions are not foreign to them. This idea gives students a better chance of scoring better on criterion reference tests. Remember that….
  1. When students are taught using below grade-level material and graded on the accuracy of that work, it is not a true grade. Students who make “A’s” on below grade-level work don’t really understand that they are preforming below their peers. It is also very difficult to explain to parents how their child performed well in class but filed the criterion-reference test.
  1. Other educators believe, we should teach students on the level they are performing so they can experience some success and want to do better in class and on homework, they will want to work harder, and will ultimately catch up to their grade-level peers. For this group of educators, I simply ask the following question; how has this worked for you during the past few decades? Title I was designed to accomplish the task of giving additional assistance to those students performing below grade-level. Title I was developed in the mid-60’s. How many students in Title I classes across the nation, how tested out of the Title I program and moved to on-grade-level lessons?
Are schools setting students up to fail? Or Are parents not assisting in the readiness preparation students need to come to school?
Which came first the chicken or the egg? There is enough blame to go around.
My belief is that if something is not working, try something new. You never know, a new idea might work.

As educators these are the kinds of conversations we should be having daily.

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