Dr. Eileen Gallagher

Congratulations on your recent election to the highest office in the land. As an educator of many years, I hope you will be making the education of our young people one of your top priorities. Our future as a country depends on the quality of education that our children receive.

The last administration placed a strong emphasis on how well students did on the standardized tests. I feel this is the wrong approach to judging the quality of education of our children. Decades ago when we were in the early stages of the industrial revolution, there was a case to be made that children needed to learn the same skills. However, what employers are looking for today, is workers who are self motivated and can think outside the box. Emphasizing standardized tests places the classroom emphasis on standardizing the education provided. I think that is the wrong way to go.

Every child is different. Each has their own strengths, weaknesses and special gifts. We should be customizing their education to emphasize their gifts and strengths while helping bring their weaknesses to a higher level of competency. If a child is gifted in Math but has problems with spelling & grammar, the current trend is to take them out of math class to give them more help in spelling & grammar. The emphasis is on getting them to meet the standards in all areas. This weakens their growth in their specialty area of math. What we will end up with is lots of adults who are competent in all areas but no one with special gifts in any area. This would be a disaster for the growth of our country. There would be no one to help us move into the future with innovative ideas.

Let’s move away from comparing children and aiming for standard scores for all. Let’s judge the growth each child has made each year from where they started the year and where they ended the year in each subject. Yes they should grow every year in every field but if they grow 18 months in Math and 6 months in grammar, that is still great progress. Unlike the standardized tests which would call this a failure in grammar, we would be emphasizing the positive and urging our children to become lifelong learners in all fields but helping them find their gifted areas where they have something important to offer the rest of us.

Please take the emphasis off standardization and move it towards creative thinking and growth. As you plan your new Department of Education, please choose educators who see the value of every child’s special gift.