Standards Meaningless without Literacy First
The National Governors’ Association and the National Association of School Boards just released a report concluding that education standards are meaningless without literacy first. Common sense? Apparently not in the Hawaii Department of Education. The DOE has eliminated grades and measurable performance and has replaced them with letters that stand for “approaching standards,” “meeting standards,” “exceeding standards,” all of which are meaningless to parents and students. This kind of ranking of student performance is completely subjective on the teachers’ part. Why? Because, despite the fact that Hawaii claims to have “Content and Performance Standards,” it, um, has failed to develop any performance standards at all and therefore there is nothing to measure. Alice in Wonderland would have a field day in Hawaii. Will the madness ever end? Will children ever learn to read? Not if the DOE teachers are coerced into believing that children can achieve literacy without explicitly learning the the mechanics of the English language like decoding and syntax.