A New Approach

After twenty years of unsuccessfully focusing on tests scores in an attempt improve our schools, it is time for us to realize that the approach has failed. It is time for a new approach focused on making school safe, equitable, and engaging. Instead of expecting every student to fit into a mold of student achievement, we need to focus on creating educational environments that are relevant, exciting, and full of meaning and where students and teachers are excited to be.

Step 1 - End High-Stakes Testing

The state tests first mandated by No Child Left Behind have been a disaster. They have undermined the public’s faith in American education; falsely labeled countless students, teachers, and schools as failing; led to the unjust firing of countless minority teachers; and had no effect at all on the achievement gap or student learning. To heal our schools, the first thing we must do is end high-stakes testing.

Step 2 - Make Schools Safer

One of the greatest impediments to student learning and engagement is anxiety. Students today are experiencing extraordinarily high levels of anxiety, and it is imperative that we make schools places where students feel safe. To do this, we need to focus on having staff members be kind to students and each other, eliminating anger from the school and refusing to allow dangerous and out-of-control students in our classrooms. We must also work to pass sensible gun control laws.

Step 3 - Increase Student Engagement

Research over the past 40 years has shown that all people have three basic psychological needs to feel motivated to do a task:

Competence: The belief that they can successfully perform the task.

Belonging: A sense that they are part of a community with a shared goal.

Autonomy: A feeling that they are choosing to do the task or that they understand why it is important to do it.

A person’s motivation declines whenever any of these three needs are unmet. Unfortunately, as they are now structured, schools work to defeat these needs rather than support them. For example, inflexible high standards and mandatory high-stakes tests often require students to attempt tasks they can’t possibly succeed at, children often feel alienated at school, and students don’t understand much of the purpose of what they are required to learn.

If, instead of narrowly focusing on increasing achievement test scores, schools work to support the needs of students, they are likely to feel much more engaged in school.

Extensive research has shown that learning is inherently social, yet students are given too little time to work together. A powerful way to help students feel more engaged in school is to give them numerous opportunities to work safely and meaningfully with other students.

Perhaps the most powerful way to increase children’s sense of belonging and reduce student anxiety is by dramatically increasing opportunities for students to work together in a safe environment.

  • Team-building activities such as icebreakers

  • Small-group discussions around lessons

  • Peer-to-peer support, such as tutoring

  • Group project-based learning projects

  • Cooperative learning activities where students work together to achieve a goal

  • Class discussions on topics of high interest to students

If teachers can increase the time students work together, it may greatly decrease the sense of isolation so many students feel and help them feel part of a community.

Step 4 - Make Learning More Social

Step 5 - Recognize the Incredible Value of Diversity

Diversity is the most critical driver of innovation. Countries with great diversity have huge economic advantages over those that don’t because diverse cultures contribute different tools, skills, and perspectives. Because of this, countries with diverse populations adjust more quickly to major shifts in technologies that drive the world economy.

According to Yale professor Amy Chua, history’s greatest economic powers, including Persia, Rome, China, the Mongols, the Dutch, the British, and the United States, were unusually tolerant, inclusive, and pluralistic. They were each able to utilize the wide range of talents of their various cultures to create great empires. When these societies lost their tolerance, they lost their dominance. Americans should recognize both the power of diversity and the enormous risks associated with intolerance.

In schools, we need not just to celebrate the diversity in our schools but learn from the many cultures in our society. Our children from nondominant cultures need to understand the great value they bring to the United States.

American teachers are a huge part of why the United States leads the world in so many ways. Rather than failing, American teachers are the best in the world. Right now, teachers are at the breaking. Our teachers feel overwhelmed, unappreciated, put down, and unsupported. If we want to make schools where our students thrive, we must ensure our teachers thrive. There are several changes we need to make to help bring teachers back from the brink:

  • Create positive school climates

  • End high-stakes testing

  • Give teachers back control of their classrooms

  • Give teachers a much more significant role in school decision-making

  • Let teachers decide the professional development they need

  • End data analysis

  • End the unreasonable protections for out-of-control students

  • Protect teachers from angry, abusive parents

  • Pass sensible gun control laws

Even if we make these changes, it will take many years before teachers feel safe and fully engaged, but we must begin. Both our teachers and children need it.

Step 6 - Support Our Teachers

Crisis in Our Schools

In our new book, Crisis in Our Schools, we lay out the evidence that No Child Left Behind and its high-stakes achievement tests have completely failed, leading to no change in the achievement gap, no increase in students at standard, and no improvement on international assessments. What No Child Left Behind has led to is the unfair labeling of many students, teachers, and schools as “failing.”

With students and teachers both at the breaking point, it is time for a new approach to education that focuses on making learning safe, equitable, and engaging. Taking Back Our Schools lays out the evidence showing that the reform agenda has completely failed and offers a new approach to schools that is meaningful and engaging for both students and teachers following the six steps described above.

We invite you to download an early copy of the book and give us feedback on the book, and share your experiences as a teacher or parent at info@TakingBackOurSchools.org.