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Bill Bosher
Richmond Times Dispatch
(Reprinted with Permission)
August 20, 2000
Fear of failure seems to be pervasive. Schools are no exception.
Young people and their schools should be given the right to
be right and the right to be wrong. When children learn to
ride a bike, they are permitted to fall, skin their knees,
and get up to try again. This should be the case for students
and schools as well.
Webster defines accreditation as “to recognize [an educational
institution] as maintaining standards that qualify the graduates
for admission to higher or more specialized institutions or
for professional practice.” Historically these standards
have simply described “input” expectations. The
number of teachers per one thousand students, the verification
of teaching certificates and proper endorsements (teaching
areas), the square feet in a classroom, the number of books
in the library, and the presence of the flag up the pole are
all actual examples of criteria used to accredit the public
schools of Virginia. The General Assembly through the funding
formula called the Standards of Quality authorizes the Board
of Education to establish accreditation standards. These standards
are not optional.
THE COMMONWEALTH’S six-year-old reform initiative includes
standards (SOL), assessment (SOL testing), report cards, and
consequences (rewards and sanctions). Although a community
conscience should be the first bar raised in any thorough
assessment program, institutions and individuals must also
realize that there are very real consequences related to their
performance. For schools this is accreditation and for students
it is graduation.
While the media coverage and public discussion swirl around
the number of schools that did or did not “make it,”
the critical point in education reform comes when students
fail to graduate in significant numbers. In reality, the first
cries will come well before this occurs. Other than diehard
public education detractors, no one wants to see large numbers
of students failing. Equally important, no one should want
a young person to be awarded a diploma that has no value.
IN JULY, THE Virginia Board of Education, under the
leadership of president Kirk Schroder, did an outstanding
job of proposing and adopting revisions to the accreditation
standards. An initial response to public concerns about potential
student failure included a basic diploma that would not have
required passing the 8th grade SOL tests and lowered requirements
for English, math, science, and history in high school.
The basic diploma was proposed to address the concerns shared
by parents and professional educators for the numbers of schools
and students who might eventually fail. By removing the poorest
performers from SOL testing, schools would have a better chance
of meeting accreditation requirements. Students who seemed
likely not to master the rigorous academic standards would
be caught by a less demanding safety net.
The resounding “no” to these proposals should be
reassuring for the Board and all who have worked to raise
academic standards. Students should not lose hope for the
future by being relegated to a basic diploma, nor should they
be tracked into a program of lower expectations. The Board
responded by appropriately creating a modified diploma for
students with special needs; however, they reaffirmed the
higher standards for all others.
The Board of Education made the right proposal and then rejected
it for the right reasons. The reality is that schools do not
change until the expectations of their communities have been
raised, and students seldom improve without the affirmation
of their families. Virginia will stay this course and permit
the conscience of a community to serve as the first consequence
for school performance. The Board of Education skillfully
gave communities and families the option to ease their conscience,
and they have responded with the basic value often expressed
and emulated by our parents and grandparents, “the easiest
way is not always the best way.”
Failure should serve as an instrument of growth, not a loss
of hope.
Bill Bosher, a 2000 Commentary Columnist, is executive director
of the Commonwealth Educational Institute at VCU.
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