| Test Anxiety, Part 1 | for everyone |
So last month we toured The College School, helping Ben and Nicci with their preschool search for Becca. To say we were impressed (I don't want to speak for Nicci or Ben or even Becca, for that matter) would be an understatement.
Formerly the laboratory school for Webster College, it has moved onward and upward and now offers what seems to me a challenging, nurturing curriculum and environment for kids through the 8th grade. If that should be their choice, I can foresee a real reluctance to move away from The College School into the public schools of Webster Groves after a couple years of pre-school there.
In no way is this a criticism of our local public schools. I know Bristol (where Becca would go), at least one teacher there, several students who came out of there and I have nothing but respect for all of them. I am extremely pleased with Webster Schools. I believe they're outstanding.
But they're also caught in the same political bind as every other public school in Missouri and, probably, the United States. The primary goal of public schools has become not the education of individual students, but achieving an arbitrary district average on a mandated test. Public schools are no longer, can no longer afford to be, primarily concerned about meeting the educational needs of individual students.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not suggesting that individual kids don't get their needs met by individual teachers at varying points throughout their public school journey. If they're lucky, and in a good district like Webster their luck odds improve, they will have several teachers who inspire them. But being an inspirational teacher can no longer be the primary objective for those who work in public education. No, the primary objective is all about test results.
I hate that I feel like I'm abandoning the public schools (and I know that this sounds like it's my decision; in no way do we want to usurp it from Ben and Nicci) but I feel like that's what is happening, at least attitudinally (apparently there's no such word, but there ought to be). My parents were well-educated in public schools, Carolyn and I (and our siblings) were well-educated in public schools, my daughter was well-educated in public schools and I spent a rewarding career in a public school. I have always been a public school advocate; I absolutely believe they are necessary, essential, vital.
But as long as the public schools have to focus on test results as their first priority, and I don't see that political fact of life changing any time soon, I don't know that they can compete with a place like The College School. And it makes me a little bit sick to hear (see) myself saying (writing) that.
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