"Math and reading are very important, obviously … but what's far more important is what kinds of human beings are doing the math and reading the books," noted Charles Haynes, director of the Newseum's Religious Freedom Education Project, during a recent event in Washington, D.C.
WCS Live, part of ASCD's inaugural Whole Child Symposium, brought together a panel of experts to discuss the future of public education. Under the lights of the Newseum's Knight Studio, the conversation focused on issues of equity and choice over testing and high-stakes accountability.
Unequal Footing
In a discussion on the symposium's theme, "Choosing Your Tomorrow Today," Haynes honed in on choice, explaining that students will be better prepared for success when schools become "laboratories of freedom and democracy" that empower students to make choices aligned with their passions.
Haynes advocated for character education as a means to "shap[ing] the civic habits of the heart and mind" and priming students to be "ethical and engaged in our world."
Yong Zhao, an internationally known scholar and author of Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization (ASCD, 2009), argued that reforms such as the Common Core standards are "squeezing out other choices" for students and teachers. Choice is an oxymoron in the current U.S. education system, he told the audience. "You cannot have government-mandated choice."
In the United States, "students are deprived of the opportunity to practice, make mistakes, and understand consequences," and "we punish teachers when kids fail."
"Unless we maintain and expand choices," Zhao warned, "there is nothing to choose from."
As the panelists discussed policy, Dr. Gene R. Carter, ASCD's executive director emeritus, raised the larger concern of equity. For all students to participate in the future under debate, they must have equal opportunities, he remarked.
Although "education in this country is a state-driven responsibility," said Dr. Carter, "states are not created equal." Leaving states to resolve their own challenges is something "we've been through historically, and we know [it] doesn't work."
Competencies Over Content
David Osher, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, shared similar concerns about equity. He suggested that educators increase choice for all students by "creating conditions in schools where kids can innovate."
To make that happen, schools need to provide students with "the supports necessary to … fully participate in learning," said Osher, and build their social and emotional competencies so they can make healthy decisions.
Karen Pittman, president of the Forum for Youth Investment, explained that supporting the whole child requires a willingness to let go of the content and invest in competencies.
Developing competencies such as problem-solving, work ethic, and time management requires us to first identify those desired skills and then provide "the environment … so kids can practice and transfer [those] skills," Pittman said. She described how this might look in action: in a classroom where competencies are valued and assessed, "students would get feedback not just on mastery of content, but [also] how they worked in a team."
Shared Responsibility
The panelists agreed that outside of changes to public policy, one of the keys to reclaiming public education is choice: student choice (creating their own pathways), teacher choice (differentiating learning based on students' needs), and community choice (developing meaningful goals and holding citizens accountable for outcomes).
Figure
Additional Resources
Visit www.ascd.org/wcsymposium to access the archived Town Hall, WCS Live, and Virtual panel discussions. You can also follow the conversation on the Whole Child Blog and tweet questions and solutions with the #WCSymposium2014 hashtag.