No shock when I read in the Star this morning that State Superintendent Tony Bennett had capitulated in the race to receive education reform money.  The inability to cooperate with the Indiana State Teacher’s Association and other school superintendents around the state is part of the problem, but the worst part is what is being proposed.

My daughter will be taking the ISTEP test for the third time this year.  All this testing is no more than a form of inspection.  Just as in manufacturing and service industry we know that inspection is costly and more inspection has nothing to do with improving .  We may be improving against a test, but this has no correlation to our ability to compete in an international marketplace.

The proposal is similar in nature to a plan presented back in 1990 titled America 2000.  The US has been on course to use elements of America 2000 for years and education continues to decline.  Programs started from this thinking like No Child left Behind and Deliverology which are target-laden and based on mass inspection of children using tests.  Merit pay and results focus were the purpose, not finding better ways to educate children.

The whole approach is based on results and not method.  We have ruined students based on grades and competition in schools (why do we need competition where cooperation should be desirable?).  When we have targets this becomes the defacto purpose of students, teachers and administrators . . . our real purpose should be to learn and be able to help improve government, service and manufacturing.

“Race to the Top” as outlined by the Star and produced by Tony Bennett is a potential disaster that needs to be stopped.  Let’s take a look at some of the misguided elements:

Four Tiers for Teachers.  From highly effective to ineffective, teachers in higher categories get bonuses and those targeted as ineffective get dismissed.  We stand to have a whole bureaucracy of people inspecting teachers to determine their tier.  Reviews, appeals and competition will be the result accompanied by great waste in money.  If we have winners and losers in teaching, than what will be the reason any teacher with better method to share what they are doing?  Creating tiers creates artifical scarcity where there should be none.  More cooperation is needed not less.

Evaluations.  Teachers would be evaluated with 51% of the evaluation given to test scores (I assume ISTEP).  So what this means is that 49% will be subjective as their is no objective performance appraisal.  Whether an administrator likes you or not will play a key role, this is a play to educational politics and compliance.  Further 51% of the evaluation being based on test scores would predictably mean that teachers would be teaching to the test . . . how is this learning?  There will be appeals to get low scoring students into special programs so teachers don’t get their test scores pulled down (happened in California).  The Star’s opinion is that pay for performance is a good assumption as many in industry use it in the US, and the US has been in a decline since 1968 with this thinking.

School Takeovers.  Low-performing schools would be taken over by a private management company.  Indiana FSSA has already shown that assuming the private sector has better method needs to be questioned.  If taking over the school means someone else has a better method to improving the school, why do we have to wreck people’s lives to make it happen?

Grades for Schools.  Schools would be given grades A-F based on student performance.  We already have grades for our children that sorts winners and losers, so why not schools?  Performance on some arbitrary scale for students or schools based on test scores that can not help us determine future success in the world.

Our problem is not related to more ways to test (inspect) or grade.  We need method . . . a method to create better education for students.  If we want to do better and be better than we must begin by studying the education system in a cooperative manner with all parties going to where the real work is done.  In case you don’t know, Dr. Bennett, it is in the classroom where teachers and students meet  for that mandatory 180 days (even though you still haven’t explained why 180 is better than 179 or why 181 wouldn’t be better).

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.