PSU Magazine Spring 2000

result: mass student transfers to the schools deemed "best." When the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) unveiled Oregon's first report cards on public schools this winter, parents across the state went on an informational feeding frenzy. The ODE's Web site took 200,000 "hits" on the first weekend. The report cards sparked contro– versy on a variety of fronts and raised tough questions for parents. Is your child's school exceptional, strong, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory? Are these labels fair and accurate? How seriously should we take the state's rating of the schools? And ultimately, what are the best standards for judging quality education? SU education professor Ken Peterson's advice to parents concerned about their school's rating by the state: Ignore it. "I think school report cards are an inadequate idea," he says. "It's a fad." Peterson decries the trend that has parents shopping around for prestigious schools to the detriment of public schools deemed "inferior," and ofren left with dwindling enrollment and, as a consequence, declining resources. There have only been a few studies on how parents shop for schools, Peterson says, but the little research available indicates that they don't do it well. "The quality of a child's education becomes subject to their parents' ability to pick a good school-rather than ensuring quality education for all," Peterson says. However, another voice in the education dialectic says school report cards are a step in the right direction. According to Molly Huffman, author of School Choices in Greater Portland, they succeeded in bringing much-needed attention to the school quality issue. "We can't get away anymore with a substandard education," she says. "We are no longer educating our students to go into jobs in the timber and fishing industries; we're educating our students for jobs at Intel." The Oregon school report cards, created by an act of the state legisla- ture in 1999, are its attempt at uniformly applying quality control guidelines to all public schools. Oregon is not alone; school report cards are used by more than three dozen states across the country. Many experts see it as the latest trend in an educational reform movement kicked off during the Reagan administration. In a strongly critical report on the public education system, the president's advisers reported a decline in educational qual– ity over the previous generation and called for massive change. That report, called "A Nation At Risk," proved to be a watershed for both decreased school funding and higher graduation standards that have dogged public schools-and taxpay– ers-from coast to coast. The irony, says Peterson, an expert on teacher evaluation and educational account– ability, is that it's all "based on a misconception." "The evidence is clear that over the past 30 years te t cores have either stayed the same or increased-there are no national test scores that have declined," Peterson says. That's remarkable because in some grades, such as elementary, the tests have been made increasingly more difficult each year; also, a larger proportion of students are tested these days. "Kids really do know more now," Peterson says. "More kids are aware of a wider variety of phenomena than ever before-our schools are very good. "We're aware of some groups that aren't getting what they need, but that's a matter of the distribution of education resources, it's not that our schools aren't as good as they can be." Oregon's school report cards focus on three categories: student performance on statewide tests; student attendance and dropout rates; and the percentage of each school's students taking the tests. Judging those factors in various ways, overall ratings are given to the schools: exceptional, strong, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory. (Complete reports on every K-12 school in the state are avail– able on the ODE Web site at www.ode. state. or. us/ReportCard/) The biggest complaint that critics level at the report card is the apparent errors in judgment caused by its heavy emphasis on standardized test scores. Such scores, experts argue, are simply not the best indicators of learning. "No one talks about how the students feel," says Tom Chenoweth, associate professor of education. Yet, experts generally consider student satis– faction to be critical in evaluating educational quality in a number of areas. In his classroom observations throughout Portland schools, Chenoweth says, even the students with high scores increasingly complain of too much time memorizing facts and techniques for taking the standardized tests used for state evaluations. The new report card also does something that may confuse people, says Chenoweth. "Lakeridge High School earned a 'satisfactory' rating, yet it's sending students to Harvard," he says. "Other schools that only have 30 percent of kids reaching grade stan– dard are rated 'strong' because they've improved their test scores over time." hat's a parent to do? Chenoweth suggests going to your child's classroom to look around. Talk to teachers and students, then ask yourself: • Are the kids really learning? • Are they working together? • Are all the kids involved? • Do they like going to school? • Are the teachers working together or in isolation? (The newest approach has teachers working in teams for "inquiry" and problem solving.) • Is there a "school vision" supporting policies and decisions at the school? Back at the swimming pool that day, I decided to stand up to the snobby moms. "My kids' school doesn't have special programs," I said, "but every– body does a lot with what they've got." Not the hippest response, but I'm satisfied. D (Lisa Loving, a Portland freelance writer and mother of two, wrote the article "All the World's on Stage" in the spring 1999 PSU Magazine.) SPRING 2000 PSU MAGAZINE 11