The Imperative for Education Reform: Personal Standards Most oi rhe impart of thr publication of A Nation At Risk, the report of the Yational Commission on Kxcellence in Educati&, has now been absorbed into responses that attempt to put some of the report's recommendations into effect. By necessity, the recommendations are cast in global termsmerit Dav, hack-to-basics, lighter teaching loads, more time on-task, &olvement of the Givate sectorLyet improvements in such areas will not guarantee a reversal of our slow slide to oblivion. A number of knowledgeable ohservers suggest that key elements in this struggle to regain control of our educational system are the quality and the will of the classroom teacher. I t has been sueeested also that the widesnread institution of more rigorous criteria for passing courses, whether thev he in elementarv school or in doctoral Droprams. would do more to force into the open every major &me related to the inadequacies of American education than all the reports issued by all the commissioners that have ever existed. Attempts to put any recommendations into action may take vears as thev filter through committees influenced hv various Bpecia~inteiest groups. Further, we have no assurance that any recommendations will have any effect on the problem, assuming they were to appear in their original form. Indeed, e perhaps as long us ag~neration.I~cforethe ir u ~ i i yt ~ k years, issue can he decided. On the other hand, if we could agree t o reverse the common practice of giving students credit where none has been earned, the effect would he felt virtually immediately and at all levels of education. Not giving a passing grade when it is not deserved would attract immediate attention to all elements of the prohlem. Caring parents and counselors would have to deal with a student's failure to learn at the time it is actually happening, rather than all concerned being lulled into a false sense of accomplishment which ultimately leads to the worst failure of all-a person who has been certified as a success hut is, in fact, illiterate andlor nonfunctional in modern society. He or she has the classical trappings of success but is unable to cope with the demands of the real world. Under these conditions the educational system must change, or the real world must accommodate to such people. To try to make the real world deal with such persons by administrative or legal devices is counter-productive to the extreme.
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Assigning failing marks to those who have not learned the required material would force administrators (principals, deans, presidents, school hoards) and voters to come to terms with cost as a central factor in improving our educational system. The number of students at any given level would initially increase because of those who did not pass, hut the increase would be transient as more effort would have to be diverted to accommodate them. Such students would not be accommodated in the sense of passing them through, producing more persons about whom more reports would he written; rather, they would be kept a t one level until they learned what was required. The process should produce quality efforts addressing the teachingheaming problems that kept the students from passing on to the next level of work. Careful attention to respecting the division between passing and failing would be as beneficial to teachers as to students. Experienced teachers know all too well that a failed student can he the product of a "failed teacher". This very concern should ultimately produce teaching methods, classroom presentations, and testing procedures-expressed in the context of each teacher's environment--of a very high standard. It is difficult to imagine how any dedicated teacher could conscionahly assign failing grades to students without having made a quality effort to assist them to learn the required material. The principle discussed here would provide the teacher with the resources to do so. If every teacher took seriously the admonition not to assign passing grades where none were earned, we might return more rapidly to the desirable situation where each generation of students outstrips its parents in education, in literacy, and, ultimately, in economic attainment. Some knowledgeable analysts of the present educational morass believe that, for the first time in the history of this country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, and, indeed, will not even approach those of its parents. Each individual teacher can make a difference, and the sum of these differences will quickly become apparent a t all educational levels in a short time if he or she will not give credit when material has not been learned. The development of explicitly recognized high personal standards may be more important than all the commissions, reports, and recommendations that have been-or ever will he-organized, written, JJL and presented for action.
Volume 61
Number 6 June 1984
477
