"... whatever it takes!"

The news of North Carolina requesting a waiver from the No Child Left Behind requirements is bittersweet possibly teetering on a violation of trust or at worse a broken promise.

First, the idea that each child should be, could be, and must be proficient in reading, mathematics, and writing as a minimum is a necessity not a fantasy.

Though argumentative, NCLB was flawed from its’ inception. The notion that each student learns the same way in the same amount of time is not based on human learning science or what we know about how the brain develops let alone environmental factors that influence human learning. Note – influence not determine.

Further, the belief and practice that punishment will produce results that to date had never been achieved is also flawed theory and flies in the face of human motivation as well as human learning theory.

Certainly fear and avoidance of punishment are motivators. However, prolonged fear has an adverse effect that more often or not creates the antithesis outcome or result.

For nearly forty years researchers (chief among them Dr. Larry Lezotte) have stated that learning not time be the constant in the organization and delivery of instruction.

The inability to recognize that time needs to be variable, flexible, and adjusted to address the root causes of failed learning and the failure to learn has led the Federal Department of Education to provide waivers from the very goals, aspirations, and “best hopes” that each state created and approved.

Aside from the single metric for assessing student learning, the lack of recognizing human learning theory, and human motivational theory, NCLB represents the one fact that cannot be lost – universal proficiency of the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics.

Ensuring that each student is proficient must remain our focus.

As previously stated, proficiency is merely the starting line not the finish line.

We must remind ourselves that getting every student to the starting line is not because every child should go to college.

This was not the aim of NCLB or proficiency.

I have shared previously the question, "What do my four children lose if all students are proficient in the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics?”

I expect my children to compete, excel, and to be the very best in whatever career choice they make.

Those expectations are more or less based on this fact - my children have choice.

Proficiency is a first step to choice.

They have choice because they had access and opportunity derived from expectations for and proficiency of basic skills. In addition to their formal schooling they have also had incredible experiences to “see” possibilities.

Proficiency is a second step to seeing possibilities.

The writers of our Declaration of Independence penned the right of choice in these words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Proficiency is a right.

Our staff and community must embrace that without proficiency our students have no choice.

In a like manner, we cannot accept that proficiency alone is the goal.

In as much as choice is derived from proficiency, proficiency alone limits choice.

We must push, pull, and challenge each student to go well beyond proficiency to mastery.

Proficiency leads to mastery.

Mastery creates the ultimate in choice. Now I ask, “What do my four children lose if every student has mastery of the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics?”

My expectations for my children don’t change in the least. In fact, they may increase.

Proficiency or mastery – it doesn’t matter. Each learner must still make choices based on their interests and desires. Hence the wonderful benefit of choice – they have one.

Though some may think me idealistic and possibly unrealistic in achieving universal proficiency, yet, why not?

For too long, many of our students have not had the benefit of choice because they were not proficient in the basic skills.

Wavier or not, the Anson County Schools must remain relentless in our pursuit of universal proficiency for each student as starting point.

We cannot abandon this cause.

We must get there whatever it takes.

Stay the course!