Despite Common Core and more testing, reading and math scores haven’t budged in a decade” (National Assessment of Educational Progress).

“Specifically, 35% of fourth graders were proficient in reading in 2019, slightly down from 37% in 2017 and barely up from 33% of such students considered proficient a decade ago in 2009.

“About 34% of eighth graders were proficient in reading this year, a drop from 36% in 2017 and only a tiny bit better than 32% in 2009.”

Comparatively, New York state students are considered not doing that poorly if they score around the 40% or 50% levels of proficiency, in spite of spending annually $22,366 per pupil, the highest annual expenditure in the nation.

Standardized tests reflect what so-called experts consider important knowledge. They claim to measure the amount of Common Core information remembered after instruction. Educators may agree or disagree with the legitimacy of the Common Core, but a fundamental problem lies with elevated learning standards that are developmentally inappropriate.

Unfortunately, we are no closer to effectively addressing these problems than we were 10 and more years ago.

Public schools are facing many related and immediate challenges that must be addressed, like bullying, mental health, incompetency, critical thinking, etc. Long-range problems will require setting in motion a comprehensive approach to systemic solutions.

Realizing these new year’s resolutions could occur within the existing system with tangible benefits, provided they are sanctioned with a commitment from the decision makers.

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1. The first resolution would address standardized testing, requiring a basic understanding of the role of systems thinking, especially individual systems design as a process of learning and systems analysis as a strategy for assessment and evaluation of learning outcomes.

Systems design is a process of integrating life’s experiences, reducing information overload. That process addresses critical 21st-century needs and those of lifelong learning.

The Constructive Assessment, Recordkeeping and Evaluation System (CARES) is a student-maintained, computerized record of individual experiences, organized to develop systems thinking by those who are developmentally capable of logic, indicating what and when experiences occurred, how they are related and what meaning existed at the time of the experience, including any refinements as inquiry proceeds. The record features developmentally appropriate language expressed authentically in verbal and non-verbal forms by each learner (Arnold).

CARES is an extensive computerized diary of experiences, easily accessed and massaged. It travels with learners, available for entries in or outside of school, utilizing the principles of systems design and systems analysis.

Cognitively less-mature students who are pre-logical or just beginning to be logical will also accumulate a record of their daily experiences, but maintained by adults until the record can be taken over by the learners when they become logical.

All learners experience their surroundings and express their responses in verbal and non-verbal language, drawings and actions. These products would be scanned or otherwise entered into computer memory. There are apps such as Scannables that can assist in that process.

The CARES model is applicable with all disciplines of the pre-K-12 general education programs of the public school. It can be installed with available equipment.

CARES will not only assist individuals in their processes of learning, but it will help each find and retain meaning in their lives and free teachers to facilitate student-centered learning.

Installation requires a commitment to understand the system and its requirements for implementation.

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2. The second resolution involves implementation of a modified version of David Ausubel’s concept of an “advance organizer.” At the beginning of each subject of study, students who are developmentally ready would construct, store and maintain in the computer a model (an advance organizer) that initially attempts to represent what is perceived to be involved in a course of study about to be engaged. This might begin with a review of the chapters of texts. Students would refine and elaborate their model and insert into their record detailed information about their evolving experiences.

A model is a representation of any subject of inquiry constructed by learners, made up of parts that form a system. Some models look like the subject of inquiry, some are expressed in symbols that do not resemble the subject’s appearance, and some models are analogies that can either look like the subject or are expressed in symbols.

Model building aids individuals in keeping their eye on the whole chessboard, for the bearing of one set of ideas on another (Whitehead), a process involving the construction of a synthesis among parts that form systems, necessary for critical evaluation and critical thinking (Bloom).

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3. The third resolution involves scheduling that minimizes compartmentalized and departmentalized instruction. That can occur by combining learning time into blocks of time, enabling sustained discussion, discipline-based in-depth inquiry, group-based problem solving and conflict resolving social interaction among learners.

Blocks of time will ensure engagement with developmentally sensitive methods and materials of the disciplines of general education, involving systems design activities that connect with the insights of those whose work has been recorded and stored in modern data banks and libraries.

These changes can begin immediately with positive impact on the lives of learners and their teacher-facilitators, and on standardized test scores. Sustained improvements will require long-range plans for systemic changes.

Robert L. Arnold lives in Willsboro and is a professor emeritus of education at SUNY Plattsburgh.