What turns kids into students? Once again a rating system has found Marysville’s schools lacking. Along with the majority of Washington’s schools, Marysville did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress standards which requires every child to pass, whether they want to or not.

AYP standards are part of a noble plan. Wouldn’t it be nice if every child excelled? Marysville would become a Lake Wobegon-type Eden where all the children are above average. But reality intrudes with a normal bell-shaped curve that distributes things like aptitude and achievement across a range from not much to more than enough. Given that fact of human nature, it is a wonder that as many as 22 of Washington’s 273 districts made the cut.

In a rational world, the next step would be to analyze those 22  districts to see what it is that sets them apart. If they prove to share significant advantages, then the fair thing to do would be to toss out the AYP’s punitive measures for the reason that all people’s circumstances are not created equal.

I’m always amused at how society attaches all responsibility for student achievement to schools. It is a bit like attaching the responsibility for the comfort of boaters on the boats they take passage in, neglecting to factor in sea conditions and the weather that causes them. It is as though AYP’s analysts forgot that there are other aspects to a child’s readiness for learning than school.

In most modern high schools, it is possible that in a single class, a teacher is faced with students who are experiencing unplanned pregnancy, experimentation with controlled substances, physical or sexual abuse, hunger, recently divorced parents and homelessness.

This is not an exaggeration. Think about it: How might that teacher make the Periodic Table of the Elements erase the pain and dysfunction that clouds children’s lives? How might he or she level the playing field so that all are equally ready to learn?

Pick a town where the average income is high and unemployment is low. Add an average educational level of a few years of college among parents that sets a higher cultural respect for education among kids, even kids who might come visiting from disadvantaged homes. Show me a town like that, and I’ll show you one of the 22 districts that made the cut.

There’s a simple way to find out if your school is likely to pass next year’s test. Get a visitor’s pass to your high school and take up a station where you can observe what happens when kids exit from classrooms. If you’re on watch at one of the 22 winning schools, you’ll find a significant fraction of the kids will still be discussing what happened during class because school is a part of their life they accept, not tolerate.

In most schools, if a student dares to continue a classroom discussion outside where friends gather, he or she is more likely to get cut off with, “Knock it off, class is over.”

You will know your schools have turned a corner when your children come home eager to share what they’re learning—not what they’ve learned but what they’re learning, because learning is a process without end.

For our schools to succeed, we have to break out of the anti-intellectual trend that has swept America, dimming vision and aspirations. School, being a window on the universe, ought to be a place of excitement where dreams are kindled as kids discover the thrill of experiencing their minds soaring above the here and now.

At the root of it all is a shortage of vision. Every great civilization throughout history was long on vision. The Greeks, Romans, Persians, the Han Dynasty, Ancient Egypt and the Aztecs all had something going for them that kept their leaders and people from becoming slackers. They dreamed and turned their dreams into reality.

Two questions to ponder: So what’s to be done to keep our kids from succumbing to the mind-numbing influences that overshadow education? What’s to be done about a clueless rating system that lacks a basic understanding of what makes a child a student?

Comments may be addressed to: robertgraef@comcast.net