High Stakes High School

For many reasons, I thought that the mock school board meeting that we had on Monday night was very interesting and informative. I've never been to any meetings of that sort before, and to be put in that same situation was a little unnerving, but I enjoyed it as well. I was surprised at the discussion that was happening, considering that all sides taken were completely hypothetical and not really based on our own ideas. Despite this, many people were very very passionate about their "opinions". My group was representing a group of parents of high-achieving students. We supported the plan to raise standards for our children and teachers and increase punishment for standards not met. We argued that the bar should be raised so our children have something to strive for as well. If the standards are lowered for under-achieving, then our children will have nothing to work for. However, the parents of the low-achieving children could've also argued with the point of the zone of proximal development. According to Vygotsky, children can't learn things that are too far beyond their reach, and I think that this would've been a good thing for the parents of under-achieving children to have brought up. Also, our group mentioned that we supported the idea of higher standards of teachers as well, with mandatory workshops and weekly lesson plans to be turned in. We, as parents of high-achieving students, thought that this would lead to teachers' increased accountability. We believed that if teachers weren't producing results, that they should be moved to a school where students are less dependent on their skills. However, as a future educator, I don't support this idea. Sure, I do believe that teachers have to be accountable, and that it won't hurt anyone to have workshops, or mandatory lesson plans. But I don't really think that teachers should be moved out if their students are not showing a certain pre-determined level of progress on standardized tests. I think that perhaps a better way to deal with this would be to offer the teacher more assistance, and to work with that teacher in areas that might need improving. This might mean that the teacher would have to be observed in the classroom, and her students' test scores would be analyzed for patterns. If the teacher is merely moved to a school that doesn't challenge them as much, how are they to learn? This is not contributing to the solution, but rather, the problem. Ultimately, I'm still not exactly sure how I felt about the proposal, I certainly don't feel like it was either 100% wrong or 100% right, but I think I would've liked to have taken bits and pieces of it and rearranged it into something that I believe would be most beneficial for all parties.