Grant Wiggins and Oprah

Not to be political, although education is seen as taking care of the "polis," but the idea that it takes a village to raise a child is even more important today. After watching Bill and Melinda Gates on Oprah yesterday it is obvious that all the stake holders in all aspects of a student's life must take ownership of the education of our students.

Large companies who flourish because of the products and services our "polis" provides must begin to return some of the resources back to the education of our youth. Local businesses that rely on the future purchases of our graduates need to become positive role models for our young. Parents need to urge politicians that anything less than an adequate public education will not be tolerated at the Election Day. It is time for America to Stand Up.

As inspiring and passionate as this may sound, currently the student and the teacher are ultimately the only people held accountable for the education of the individuals in society. Teachers passing rates and ability to measure up to the NCLB force accountability heavily on the classroom educator.

Teachers are not alone. Students are also held accountable. Students need to contend with high stakes testing. These high stakes tests are ripe with vernacular of the upper middle class. Students from lower socio-economic ranks are handicapped from the get go with having to learn a new language for a standardized test. They quickly become discouraged as more emphasis is placed on the tests, drop out rates increase, and a replica of a social strata not unlike the one existing in society today begins to blossom in the halls of public schools across the country.

These students become disenfranchised and never become productive members of society.

Although one cannot effectively make a case for the high stake testing phenomena as the sole cause of educational neglect our country is facing; the obvious embedded flaws in a multiple choice sifter of ability can no longer be overlooked.

We as educators must create an alternate way to provide the service of education to our consumers. Grant Wiggins (hyperlined interview from edutopia.org) in his book "Assessing Student Performance" claims as public school educators we have an obligation to provide alternate assessment tools.

We need to realize that students are our "primary consumers".(Wiggins 264)
If McDonald's opens a new franchise in a neighborhood that primarily keeps Kosher and does not change its menu; McDonald's will swiftly go out of business. The failure of the public school system is the result of an unchecked monopoly on the industry of education. We need to elicit feedback from our students, we need to create real authentic projects and assess them using student friendly language based rubrics. Organizing community events and publishing information for their community might be counted in lieu of a standardized test. Without drastic change in our focus drop out rates will not change.


The education system should be looking at standardized rubrics rather than standardized tests. Authentic projects that engage students and cater to the needs of the student/consumers of the school/service provider must become the form of assessment. 30% of our clients are leaving, our business is failing.