In the debate about what should be taught in public school classrooms – or any classroom – pretty much everyone has a strong opinion. Tipping the scale in any direction – toward the arts or sciences; toward rote memorization or project-based groupwork – tends to ignite passionate debate from all sides. STEM programs are becoming more and more prestigious and well-funded, but just recently in a Washington Post opinion piece, Fareed Zakaria argued that “America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerous” because it pulls resources away from broader-based programs and the arts.
One thing we all ought to be able to agree on is that every student should be learning – as in, making progress – throughout the school day. Even this most basic goal, however, is not always met, suggests a recent report from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. The No Child Left Behind era has prioritized bringing all students up to a baseline level of competency and, as a result, school funding and resources have been deployed to raise the test scores of the most struggling students. Indeed, providing help to young people who are struggling with their coursework is a very worthy goal, but as the old adage goes, “what gets measured, gets done”; the focus on low-scoring students has made it difficult for educators to give the same level of energy to students who are doing just fine but spending their days feeling a bit bored.
Take New York City as an example. As in many states, students’ standardized tests are scored on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 being “far below standards,” 2 the bare-minimum passing grade, 3 meaning “meets standards” and 4 meaning “exceeds standards.” Because so much of a school’s reputation – and funding – rests on how many of its students make the “3” mark, teachers are frequently pushed to focus extensively on students at the “1” and “2” levels.
There seems to be a trend that the after-school tutoring clubs and the extra pull-out teachers are directed to those lower-scoring students, with the laudable goal of engaging them more in their studies and helping them to succeed. Meanwhile, students who walk in the classroom door already capable of performing at the “3” or “4” level are deemed to be doing just fine and not in need of the same level of intervention and support. Charles Osgood’s poem about the “pretty good” student comes to mind, with its reminder that “if you want to be great, pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.”
Gifted students, the Cooke Foundation report argues, need just as much support to continue to grow and develop as lower-performing students do, but their progress is simply not a current national priority. The report from there goes on to describe the ways in which this problem is particularly exaggerated in low-income areas where separate gifted programs are harder to come by and enrichment activities are simply not in schools’ budgets. It’s very difficult to be comfortable making the argument that low-income schools don’t need those programs – but in effect, the report argues, that’s exactly what our policies are saying.
What are your thoughts about how to keep talented students engaged and excited in school? How does your school succeed or struggle with those challenges? Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments.