The education report with regard to New Mexico schools and No Child Left Behind causes me to believe that not only is our education system a failure but that all the accountability systems designed to improve schools are failures as well. Over the years we have modified our educational system by reacting to every stimulus that comes along and have attempted to accommodate every conceivable incapacity. We have “ruled up” in an attempt to modernize a system that was designed many years ago at a very different time for a very different country. Preparing a child for life as an adult in these times bears little resemblance to the school of 50 years ago.
We are operating a system whose foundation must be flawed because everything we do yields little or no result. Also, we are spending a billion dollars a year more on the same number of students with little or no result. We grasp at the slightest gain and claim that it’s working when it is obvious to all that it’s not working. Something is definitely wrong. It is time that those within the system recognize that we can’t rearrange this thing anymore. Pouring money into it won’t fix it. All of the NCLBs in the world will not fix it. A whole bunch of new requirements and special this and that won’t fix it. Hoping that it will get better won’t fix it. We have to redesign it and that means enormous change in the way we do things. It is the hard way and there is great risk, but really, can it be any worse?