No Regrets

2013 is the year for educators do their best work. It is the time to move education forward with systematic and selected strategies that have been proven to work. Sadly, the predictions I made for 2012 have not materialized (See Dec. 2012 entry). Maybe it’s because I’m an idealist rather than a pragmatist. I really believed that education would wrap its head around teaching the whole child not just the literacy and numeracy slices that the Common Core serves us. I also hoped that moving towards growth models of embedded assessment would take priority over lockstep common assessments.

If anything has changed this year, it is that the Common Core assessments have moved towards more selected choice and completion and away from authentic demonstrations of learning. As budgets have constricted the design of the tests have become more streamlined and the length of the tests have been shortened. At the same time, we are relying more heavily on these tests to evaluate teacher performance and hoping that this time this test will improve our student’s problem solving skills and global competitiveness. For now, I’m taking a wait and see approach.

So, let’s look ahead to 2013 with no regrets. Let’s find the fortitude to implement proven best practices. Let’s move forward with the belief that the decisions being made and the actions being taken are the best possible for today’s students. Let’s look to 2013 as the year of the whole and balanced child.