The longest lever of them all

Let's pursue a mind game of another sort today. It'll be fun!

Let's say your objective is to improve America's schools academically. We want 75% plus of our eighth graders to be proficient in reading and math according to NAEP (see previous post), up from 25% plus today.

We all know that life is a multiple choice question, so here we go:

Question 1: Given the goal of improving student achievement in America's schools, which of the following changes do you think will make the greatest impact?

a) strengthening principal leadership
b) improving teacher quality
c) strengthening parent/ public demand for quality
d) spending more money
e) improving school board governance

OK, so it's an unreasonable question. We're going to need to work at most or all of these levels (and some others) in order to reach the goal. (The money question varies by state - it's clearly pretty important here in California.)

But what if you could pick just one? In that case, I'd pick c: strengthening parent/public demand for quality.

Why? The quality of the whole system is a function of parent/public demand. In America, the education system exists primarily to serve the interests of individuals, not the interests of society as a whole or the state. We love local control. Even though we have a lot more state and federal involvement in education than we used to, school quality (teacher quality, principal quality, program quality) still depends greatly on local decision making.

As Darvin Winnick, Chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, said at a conference I attended, "Ultimately, schools are only going to be as good as the community wants them to be."

Another way to put it is this: if you could strengthen parent/public demand for higher student achievement, it would be "the gift that keeps on giving." It is the longest lever of them all. It all starts with local school board elections. If parents and the public demanded that school boards improve student achievement, then those school boards would quickly discover that their district needs to improve teacher and principal quality. And, where necessary, they'd be making the case for more money to support their mission.

The tougher question, it seems to me, is how do you get a hold of this long lever? A topic for another time.