Pia K. Hansen: School testing can help create expectations

A headline in Sunday’s paper caught my eye. That’s what headlines are meant to do, so that’s good. But there was something about this one that really got me thinking:

“Microsoft: Idaho schools must improve.”

Before I read the story, my first thought was: Since when has it become up to Microsoft, or any other multinational conglomerate for that matter, to determine what Idaho schools must do?

I hope our educational system hasn’t arrived at a point where it’s more important to cater to a specific business than to provide a solid, well-rounded education – not that the two are always mutually exclusive.

I’m sure executives at Microsoft mean well; after all, where would we be without all the grants for public schools that have been issued by the Gates Foundation? Pretty lost is where we’d be, at least in Washington.

What I don’t like is the implication that education decisions are no longer made by our teachers and those who administer the state’s educational system, with an added dose of input from our parents.

The Associated Press story has Bob Lokken, Microsoft’s senior director of office business application, as its main source.

Lokken sold his Boise-based high-tech company ProClarity to Microsoft in the spring, the story explains.

And now he’s become an education specialist.

OK, not so fast.

The point Lokken is trying to make is that high-tech companies like Microsoft, which are highly desirable in an economic development sense, are unlikely to relocate to areas where they can’t find a qualified work force.

And, says Lokken, Idaho is lagging behind in science and math requirements compared to many other states.

Well, Idaho can’t be too far behind Washington, where generations of high school students are biting their nails, waiting to perhaps be pardoned from the Washington Assessment of Student Learning math test by Gov. Chris Gregoire because it’s feared they can’t pass the test.

The WASL is meant to measure whether students live up to the Essential Academic Learning Requirements, which are the state’s educational goals.

If students can’t pass the WASL in math and science, they haven’t reached the state goals.

There is something wrong with an educational system that suffers from collective math and science anxiety.

One problem is that math in some cases is an elective in high school.

That’s like making reading an elective as long as you can spell your way through the food sale ads. Small wonder students can’t figure the math thing out.

It’s not like I’m a math genius, not even by a far stretch.

The first test I failed in my entire life was an entry-level math class at the University of Copenhagen, when I studied biology there in the mid-‘80s.

When I returned to college here in January of ‘95, I was surprised when I recognized most of the minimum college requirements from my high school days in Denmark.

Yes, I realize that public schools in Europe often are funded to a higher degree than they are in this country.

But I don’t think our inability to pass the WASL or cater to Microsoft’s hiring requirements is caused solely by a lack of funding.

I think it’s based on a lack of expectations, and that’s why I support testing.

A sound test is like balancing your checkbook: It gives you an idea as to where you are and what it’ll take to get to where you want to be.

As for expectations, when it comes to education, the only place they can be raised effectively is at home.