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To stay in game, educational system must raise standards
By OLIVER "BUZZ" THOMAS,
News Sentinel
December 31, 2006
If education were a sport in Tennessee, wouldn't we constantly strive to be No. 1? No Volunteer fan worth his salt would settle for anything less. But because education is not a sport, and we Tennesseans would rather be entertained than educated, here's where things currently stand.
We rank near the bottom nationally in high school graduation rates and in per capita spending on education. We spend nearly $3,000 less annually per student than the average Southeastern state. Not surprisingly, we rank near the top in personal bankruptcies and in the number of high school graduates needing remedial courses before college.
Even more disturbing is the fact that we have the highest "achievement gap" in the nation. We share this dubious distinction with Oklahoma. This is the gap between what we consider advanced or proficient in a subject like English and what the rest of the nation considers advanced or proficient.
We say, for example, that more than 70 percent of our eighth-graders are proficient in math, but according to the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 21 percent were proficient. Saddest of all is the fact that the longer kids are in Tennessee's schools, the worse they seem to do. Our fourth-graders outperform our eighth-graders, who outperform our 11th-graders.
Take the critical subject area of algebra — a good indicator of how students will do in college. In order to receive a passing score on the Algebra I Gateway Exam, one of three Gateway tests necessary for high school graduation, students currently need to answer only 56 percent of the questions correctly. Does that sound proficient to you? Yet, the state Board of Education actually will consider lowering the cutoff score in January. Parents should be marching in the streets about this.
Now, admit it. When our beloved Vols fall out of the top 10, we complain so loudly the Earth moves. So what are we going to do about our schools falling into the bottom 10?
None of us would consider shortchanging our children at the dinner table, but we are depriving them of the skills they will need in the future to put food on that dinner table. Gone are the days when we could assume that, if our children didn't receive a quality education, they could always get a good manufacturing job or take over the family farm. The manufacturing jobs are moving overseas at warp speed, and the family farm has gone the way of the carrier pigeon.
Just look around you, East Tennesseans. Much of our prime farmland was paved over or turned into subdivisions 20 years ago. Ours is an information-based economy. Seventy percent of the people in this new American economy are paid for what they know, not what they can do. In other words, knowledge has become the commodity of choice. When that occurs, education is your only ticket to success.
Fortunately, not all the news is bad. Tennessee's ACT scores are up just a shade — plus, we give the ACT to more students than any other Southeastern state — and Education Commissioner Lana Seivers is developing one of the strongest pre-K programs in the nation.
But two early victories do not make a winning season. Knox County also is making progress, especially on its year-to-year gains. Our latest state report card bears this out. However, Tennessee is more than Knoxville, and even Knoxville has a long way to go before it becomes competitive at the national level.
To help all Tennessee public schools live up to their potential, a group of business, educational and foundation leaders is coalescing across the Volunteer State. In Memphis, they are called Partners in Public Education. In Chattanooga, it's the Chattanooga Public Education Foundation, and in Knoxville and the Tri-Cities, it's the Public School Forum of East Tennessee.
Our No. 1 priority for the year? Raise the standards. Do that, and everything else is likely to fall into place. When parents and taxpayers confront the harsh reality that being ranked 47th nationally in a country that has fallen to 17th in the world means that their children will not enjoy the same high standard of living they did, things are likely to change.
Increasing the rigor of our educational system will not be easy. Neither is producing a championship athletic team. It takes dedication, teamwork, preparation and personal sacrifice.
There will be hell to pay when large numbers of Tennessee students fail to graduate on time because they no longer can pass the Gateway exams. But only then will we be forced to confront the gravity of our current problems. Only then will we see the high price we have been paying by trying to educate our children on the cheap.
So, sports fans — are you ready to produce a winning team?
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