The system is perfectly designed to achieve the results we are getting.  Have you heard that sentiment before?  If you are an educator, you mostly likely have heard a similar statement when talking about student achievement results or continuous improvement planning. 

Public education in our country is largely designed to sort students and provide differing levels of education to the various groups that result from the sorting of students.  Every state in our country has rigorous literacy and math standards that all students are expected to achieve and are measured beginning at grade 3 by state assessments. However, not every student receives instruction and support in the rigorous grade level standards.  Therefore when it comes time for state assessments the data show that they are not proficient in their state’s standards despite that being the expectation for all students.  So why are we shocked when students who do not receive rigorous grade level instruction and support to master these standards then receive assessment scores that indicate they are not proficient.

We sort students for reading from the day they enter elementary school.  Some students are in the advanced group; some in the grade level group; and some in a below grade level group.  Students in the below grade level group are most likely to never catch up.  Their instructional program has them plodding long reading below level material.  After spending a school year working below level, they finish the year still behind. Their peers have had advanced or on grade level instruction all year long and have also moved ahead in their abilities maintaining or widening the gap.  No wonder so many of our children are not proficient on their state’s grade level literacy assessments. They have not even been exposed to that level of reading yet.

The same thing happens in math, especially at the secondary level. Students are grouped into remedial math, grade level math, or advanced math classes.  Those spending the year working on remedial math end the school year still behind just as the below level readers group does.  Many of these students never master algebra or higher-level math.  Algebra is a gate keeper to a post high school education: be it technical school or college.  These students might graduate high school, but they can’t pass their state’s math assessment to demonstrate the math proficiency their state expects for every child.  They will most likely spend their life employed in minimum wage jobs and struggling to provide for themselves and their families. If they do go to technical school or college, they find themselves in remedial math classes for which they pay tuition, but receive no credits towards certification or a degree.

We sort students in the vast majority of content instruction in schools very similarly to what we have already discussed in regards to literacy and mathematics. Students that we deem to have disabilities often receive instruction at a lower level rather than providing the accommodations needed for them to learn at high levels. 

Students learning English also are frequently subjected to lower levels of instruction.  Just because they do not speak English fluently does not mean they cannot learn at high levels.  If English is a requirement for learning at a high level, tell me how all those Nobel Prize winners, for whom English is not their primary language, did such brilliant work.

So, if we are not getting the student achievement results that the standards expect from our current educational system: what do we do? We need to redesign the system. 

In my book, Equity in Our Schools: Ensuring Marginalized Students Achieve at High Levels, there is an in-depth look at how the current system fails our children and how it can be redesigned to ensure the success of all our children.  It discusses how successful schools have moved away from sorting students and moved toward ensuring all students are provided a rigorous grade level education with whatever supports they need to achieve success. 

Every day there are schools ditching the old system and recreating their system to ensure every child is proficient or above on the rigorous standards set by their state. These schools are inclusive places where all students are provided instruction on rigorous grade level standards with whatever supports they need to master them.   Here is a story about one such school in Washington State.  

This blog is written by Dr. GwenCarol Holmes, a long-time educator and passionate advocate for all students mastering rigorous standards.