Dive Brief:
- Parents, educators and school districts should be wary of prizing “efficiency” in public education above all, as it may causes schools to rush to find the easiest and cheapest means to fulfill student performance metrics, American Enterprise Institute Fellow Andy Smarick writes for U.S. News and World Report.
- Smarick cites the development of No Child Left Behind, when a national reliance on reading and math scores led schools to find ways to boost those scores, including the adoption of tech and online-education processes that could conceivably do so at a lower cost.
- While these innovations may help to raise test scores, Smarick said the same argument occurs on college campuses; tech and online learning may make things cheaper, but schools must question if they make things better.
Dive Insight:
The argument Smarick attempts to unpack is parallel to one plaguing educators in an increasingly disrupted industry; what does it mean to have a ‘good’ education? This question fuels protests of the Common Core standards from parents who worry an over reliance on common metrics may cause educators to forego teaching students essential skills that may not correlate to an exam score. The question also fuels the debate surrounding the necessity of a liberal arts education, with supporters claiming the intangibles of critical thinking and diverse lessons can prepare students for uncertain futures.
In fact, many of the aspects of the introduction of tech into classrooms, both on the K-12 and higher ed level, is that initial explorations can be inefficient in a practical sense; educators often opine on the importance of experimentation and failure in the progress of a student’s development. It is important for districts to remember that there are aspects of a child’s education that are inherently inefficient, but keeping that in mind can be all the more difficult if the metrics for measuring progress are focused more resolutely on exam scores in contrast to other, less easily measured aspects of development.