Atlanta Public Schools’ Superintendent, Dr. Beverly Hall was recently awarded as the Superintendent of the year by the American Association of School Administrators. Her award came largely in part because over the last decade she has managed to increase graduation rates, standardized test scores, and she is credited with transforming the school system into one of the best urban school districts in the nation.
I am a former employee of APS and I was able to benefit from the extensive professional development that teachers were required to attend. I learned more in APS than I have in any college classroom and I loved every minute of my experience there.
However, our Superintendent is also responsible for lowering standards in individual classrooms in order to boost students self esteem. APS eliminated the “D” grade from the grading scale and during my time there teachers were pressured to assign students higher grades than they actually deserved. No “D” means higher overall GPA’s and greater acceptance into Universities based on GPA in a combination with other factors.
When I read stories like this, I can’t help but wonder if the increased graduation rates, standardized test scores, and other gains are actually long lasting achievements of if they’re simply short term gains that came as a result of a quick fix mentality. Only time will tell.
Being that I didn’t leave highschool that long ago, I wasn’t challenged at all. The curriculum was mundane and we wasted a lot of time preparing for testings instead of learning. When I went to college, I felt ill-prepared and confused. For me, I felt that the system was about making numbers and percentages, than truly making it about the student learning and utilizing knowledge.
In some African countries people go to school right through life because they believe you never stop learning. I hate to sound like a pessimist but this country has it ass backwards when it comes to the educational system. A one size fits all mentality can not work in a country so diverse.