President Obama's Support of Closing Schools

According to “School’s Shake-Up Is Embraced by the President” in The New York Times, a school board in Rhode Island decided to fire all of the faculty and staff of an underperforming school. Although the opinion is split whether or not this was a good decision, the shock has been that President Obama supports this decision. Teachers’ unions and national educational agencies are outraged that he would support such a bold action. Because it seems that this is quite a common experience in Baltimore with ineffective schools being shut down, restructured, all staff forced to reapply for their positions, etc., it surprises me that so many across the nation are shocked by the support of the president. This is the direction that education is headed. Schools are expected to perform. Students are expected to learn and to do well on standardized tests. The question that should be asked about this school in Rhode Island is: are the scores representative of the actual performance and learning of the students? If the scores are accurate, then action should be taken to transform that learning environment. It might be more appropriate to offer more professional development for teachers, to change up the administration, to change the curriculum or some other solution, but that is a decision that should be made looking at the needs of the individual school and situation. If the scores are not reflective of the actual learning of the students, then as a nation we may need to look at our standards and our assessments of them. It could be beneficial to consider whether our standardized tests set an appropriate bar for students to work towards. If what happened in Rhode Island becomes a common occurrence across the nation, then I feel that it is more important to know that the standard we are using to close down schools is an appropriate and accurate measurement.