Archived Edition: April 18, 2007 | Back to Current	Jul 31, 2010

School accreditation needs alteration
Sally Thompson

As every business owner knows, graduates of Massachusetts’ public high schools all too often lack the skills necessary to function in a modern enterprise. The valedictorians of our public high schools now rank 20th in the world when compared to the best of other industrialized countries, and 30 percent of our public school graduates who go on to college need intensive remedial work as college freshman to have any hope of doing college work.

As a longtime teacher, now retired, I can tell you that it is not the case that Williamstown students are not as intelligent, creative or ambitious as other young people in other places. I can tell you that Williamstown public school results should not be attributed to bad parenting, bad teaching, bad administration or a lack of good intentions or skill on the part of elected leadership. I can also tell you how to fix the problems of our public schools, and the fix has nothing to do with programs like “No Child Left Behind” or 3R or Vision 15.

Mount Greylock Regional is an excellent example of a school that has everything: great students, great teachers, great parents, great administrators and great public leadership. Yet Mount Greylock Regional has earned a Great Schools ranking of only six. Said differently, Mount Greylock Regional and, by extension, our Williamstown students, receive a “D” when comparisons are made with other public schools in the state. When I was a student, and later, a teacher, a “D” was not an acceptable result, regardless of the competition.

There really is only one culprit that accounts for the relative malaise from which Mount Greylock Regional and other Massachusetts’ public high schools suffer, and that is the system by which we accredit our schools. Accreditation, like a screenplay, sets the stage for the performance of a school. Once the stage is set, teachers and students report to play their restricted roles regardless of whether those roles fit well in terms of their strengths or needs. 

For the past hundred years, we have used the same accreditation method, one designed by 19th century scholars such as Vermont’s John Dewey and Massachusetts’ own William Harris. They, in turn, took as their model a Prussian military training manual. It is no accident that we use bells, whistles, klaxons, time segmentation, age grouping, marching in straight lines, neat rows and boxes we call classrooms to train America’s children.

Our Williamstown young people have grown way beyond this school model psychologically. In all other aspects of their lives, they are taught (rightly) that their individuality, their strengths, their interests, their learning styles, their skills, their creativity, etc. are important. In all environments, that is, except our schools and our prisons; even the U.S. Marines are now training soldiers to emphasize their creativity and individuality, given the new kinds of enemies and unique circumstances that modern military personnel face every day.

Until we as a society realize that no punishments, no incentives and no add-on programs such as “No Child Left Behind” (which don’t address accreditation) are going to be effective in turning schools around, we are going to remain at the bottom of the First World in terms of public high school academic accomplishment. There is, however, a solution, and that is Student-First Accreditation.

Student-First Accreditation is based on the knowledge of who the students truly are: their interests, skill levels, aptitudes, learning styles and emotional preparedness. Thereafter, students, parents, teachers, administrators, students and elected leadership can design school programs to allow every student to lead with his or her strengths.

We can do so much better for our children, and everyone will benefit. Parents, teachers and students will no longer have to be victims or heroes. Administrators and elected leadership will no longer need to erect barricades between themselves and an unhappy populace. And, best of all, our Williamstown students will have a chance to fully express their true greatness, a greatness we all know is there when we look into our children’s eyes.



Sally Thompson is a retired public high school teacher who lives in Sacramento, Calif.