Avon Lake City School District

Bob Scott

Superintendent

Avon Lake City School District

Opponent Testimony H.B. 597

Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedic play by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599 and is generally considered one of Shakespeare's best comedies because it combines elements of robust hilarity with more serious meditations on honor, shame, and court politics.

In the title:

Ado is defined as “fuss or trouble.”

Nothingin Shakespeare’s time was defined as“gossip, rumors, and eavesdropping.”

"I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light………

- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 5.1

Educators are always in need of a few laughs at the start of the school year. As the doors to our buildings open to receive thousands of students this fall our responsibility to our kids, parents, and our community has never weighed heavier. All schools, the many, many good ones, and the ones that struggle, face a task that is as special as it is daunting.

In my school district a few more than 3,800 kids and young men and women have started this school year in 14 grades (Pre- Kindergarten to 12th grade) and 7 buildings. My great staff has made sure that students are bussed to school and home, come to safe, clean buildings, have a healthy lunch, and have appropriate schedules from self-contained kindergarten rooms to high school schedules that not only made sure that Ohio graduation requirements are met but also that students who need AP classes, dual credit or honors classes had them. Add onto the day students with individual education plans, students who are homeless, do not have English as their first language, are being or have been abused, don’t have enough to eat, come from broken homes, and on and on…….and the responsibility of educating students is ponderous before the first academic textbook is cracked.

“Knowledge Is Power.”

Sir Francis Bacon

This statement is as true today as it was when it was spoken, over 500 years ago. What has changed is what is considered “knowledge” and what is considered “learning.”

In Sir Francis Bacon’s day it took over 100 years for mankind to double knowledge. Today we double knowledge in less than 10 years and that span narrows every year. Today our elementary students are more “learned” than the majority of the adults in Bacon’s time when few could read or write. This did not change until after the industrial revolution. What does all of this mean?

Education is a never ending cycle of new students and new knowledge. As educators we are preparing students to be able to enter the work force and to be active citizens. The Class of 2027 starts Kindergarten this year. The world they will graduate into will be very different than the world is today.

Being employable and an active citizen does require a base set of skills and knowledge, but in 2014 and in the future being employable requires thinking skills beyond memorization and regurgitation. The job you train for today may not be in existence 5 years from now or it may be very different because of new knowledge. As knowledge increases we must have a population that can adapt.

What we do know:

Teachers are the KEY! They must have solid initial training, but more importantly they must have excellent ongoing training.

• Student needs change from day to day, concept to concept, subject to subject, class to class, etc., etc., etc. Teachers must be able to add to their knowledge and instructional practice base so they can meet all students’ needs every day. (Next semester and/or next year the students will change classes, change grade levels, or be mixed by ability, gender and age; teachers must be ready to meet the challenge immediately, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year – we have no time to waste.)

A standard never taught anyone anything. Standards are not inherently bad or inherently good. They are an umbrella under which to work or a backbone to use for support in aligning learning. Used correctly they can be a powerful instructional tool for teachers, schools and school districts.

Students have never been more successful because they took a standardized test (they actually may be less successful because of the time and effort wasted preparing for and taking the test and the inappropriate use of the data collected by the test).

The current hearings on the new Common Core Standards is yet another example of time and energy being wasted for reasons that have nothing to do with learning and the academic success of all of the students in Ohio.

• Leave the standards alone! The shift to the Common Core Standards has been made. Another set of standards will not make a difference, and will waste the time, energy, and resources used by staff, schools, school districts, and the State to get to this point. We can move forward under the current standards to ensure that all students get the education they need for success in our current economy and society.

***New standards and more standardized testing will not close the achievement gap we see between students across the State.

One of my dreams as an educator is that the legislature will come together to create a bipartisan plan for education that allows outstanding schools to move forward unshackled while truly working on the issues that block some communities and their schools from consistent long-term success for all students!! (I have never heard of a business plan that would force successful divisionsin a companyto make changes to their practices that hurts their success because another division was unsuccessful. The company would make changes to the underperforming division, using the successful divisions as their model.)

Much Ado About Nothing, though interspersed with darker moments, is a joyful comedy and has a happy ending….multiple marriages and no deaths……..

The hearings currently going on about the Common Core are truly Much Ado About Nothing. I hope that we come to our senses in time for the HAPPY ENDING!!