“Differentiated Education”

A recent report in an education journal caught my attention. Some schools in New Jersey are experimenting with a form of modified “curriculum” that enables schools to provide students with courses that focus exclusively on standardized test preparation instead of taking elective courses. While perhaps not exactly innovative, the approach is rational and pragmatic. The idea is to free teachers from the burden of training the students to pass the standardized tests, a special “skill,” and allow them to spend time on teaching actual content.

In the current raging debate about how to reform education, the corporate and commercialized product driven philosophy seems to be holding sway as the “sausage” making process of education policy progresses [and I use the term cautiously]. Thus, the move to tie funding and public support for education to standardized test results – production metrics- is gaining momentum. The ethic of mass production, however, does not inherently incorporate the concept of quality. If the corporate goal is to produce as many units as possible that meet minimum criteria, then the system derived from that goal will be one that yields high numbers of units that satisfy minimum criteria.

The New Jersey approach, then, is a logical and pragmatic response to the corporate directive. Whether or not it is proven that students who pass the standardized tests are actually better educated, this approach is likely to yield higher numbers of students that satisfy that minimum criterion. As a consequence of producing the “results” defined by corporate policy, the New Jersey schools should obtain the reward of continued or additional funding that will enable them to go about the real job of educating students. In some ways, this strategy is like shoveling snow in the winter or removing lint from the dryer filter. These chores have no intrinsic value, but they are necessary to maintaining access to the building or continued operation of the appliance.

The teachers view this strategy as a beneficial adaptation that supports their mission. Many feel that the standardized tests emphasize “reading, rote and regurgitation” skills, rather than critical thinking and higher order analytical competencies. Thus, removing that type of training from the regular classroom frees their time to spend with students trying to further their education in competencies that will be more crucial to success in life and their careers. Moving the test training process to elective or “differentiated” classes is seen as politically expedient, although not directly educationally germane. The realities of politics these days dictate that these students will need to pass the standardized tests as their ticket to that future life and career. Driver’s license exams have not been historically or empirically shown to ensure competence to actually operate a motor vehicle safely and well. However, they are required to enable the driver to get behind the wheel legally. Similarly, standardized tests have not been proven as an accurate or effective measure of the students’ competence to critically analyze and creatively resolve a broad array of problems that they are likely to face in the future. Yet education funding requires that schools demonstrate that the students can pass the tests.

The politics of production/scarcity has thrown education in the barrel with other taxpayer supported governmental services that are perhaps more easily amenable to metrics. For example, fire protection services can be measured by response times and resources can be allocated to that function with predictable and measurable consequences. Social services, including education, are more difficult to qualify if taking the quantify approach to evaluation. The number of cases that a social worker processes does not tell us about the well being of the clients processed. Indeed, we may speculate that there is an inverse relationship. Similarly, the number of students passing standardized tests does not tell us how well they are educated. It does indicate whether the school factory is effective at producing units.

And taxpayers have been encouraged, if not misled, to believe that the decision to allocate resources to education should be measured by such production numbers. At the same time, the taxpayers are reading study after study that shows the failure of schools to improve the quality of education and that large gaps remain in student achievement. What politicians are reluctant to focus attention on, however, is the logical disconnect. Simply put, the level of production does not indicate the level of quality. In many cases, the increase in production, for its own sake, will yield no better and perhaps poorer quality.

And so the New Jersey schools have taken a pragmatic approach. Let’s give the politicians what they want, and try to give the students what they actually need. By differentiating the two, they have dispensed with the illusion that the two are the same.