Senior Retreat Day

I am writing this newsletter while at one of Ohio's state parks with the members of this year's senior class. We are on our annual "senior retreat," a full day of working on the final hurdle they all face for graduation: their Graduation Portfolio. The Portfolio will be presented in May, and along with their Senior Project presented later this month, it is one of the final requirements for graduation.

This is one of my favorite days of the year. Away from the building these young people have impeccable manners, thank us for the breakfast and lunch we provide, and work hard at finishing up essays that represent four years of their lives. They have brought with them the best samples of their work, ranging from class assignments to college admission tests, certificates of achievement to voter registration cards, college admission letters to recommendations written by staff and employers. Today we are having them reflect upon this collection of achievement, and prepare essays that will make their case to our staff that they are worthy of graduation.

Lifelong learners, prepared for career and/or college, active democratic citizens. Our school mission statement says that we strive to prepare every student to be these three things. In their portfolio each student must demonstrate these characteristics, and the twenty to thirty minute presentation they will give in May show us how well they can speak about and discuss their achievements.

The standards are high, the stakes are high, and the whole process is very meaningful to our students. It is a shame this can't be said of what we require of every student in our nation.

For the most part we let other things as opposed to the real work of students stand for what they have learned. Standardized measures of achievement, used both for state and federal accountability, have narrowed what counts as learning. Leading to, as Gary Lamberg, publisher of our local newspaper, The Athens Messenger, puts it in our guest editorial, "liberal education's getting a bad name." These comments only reflect what volumes of research are showing about our reliance upon standardize measures of learning.

As the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now called No Child Left Behind) remains stalled in Congress, it is time to look seriously for different ways to measure student achievement. In a recent Washington Post editorial, Jay Matthews calls for "critics of high-stakes tests is to show us what they've got. Create independent schools—charters or pilots or privates, whatever—and try out some of these alternative assessments. If they work, they will be noticed by many, including the next president."

We agree, but would add another line. It is also time for flexibility to be given to those schools that have created, with their communities, these alternative assessments. To add on the backs of students like mine—students who have earned more credits than required by state law (in core courses where all students do challenging work); completed a Senior Project; prepared and presented a Graduation Portfolio; completed internships—a standardized test upon which their graduation and our school's rating depends will drive out alternative assessments.

If we want change, if we want deep and engaging work for all of our children, we have to make room for that work. Whatever counts will be attended to—if we want something better, we need to make that count.

Other guests at the state park walk through the lodge and see my students at work. They actually gawk; you can see the wonder in their eyes. "Who are these kids, so busy at work, with no teacher lording over them and keeping track of their every move?"

As I watch them working on the high stakes portfolios and the presentations that will accompany them I think of how different this experience is than the one they had when they took our state tests. That was an experience closely monitored by teachers, which provided little or no feedback to students, and that seems to have no relation at all to success after school. Today our seniors were working on their own, getting feedback from staff, on something that they will use for the rest of their life.

I hope that someone other than the guests in the lodge is noticing.