It’s time to seek middle ground in education reform

Last year was a challenging and controversial time for education.

We had Common Core’s rocky reception. There were heated debates over standardized testing, the handling of sexual assaults, and issues involving race and gender identity on campus. Questions surrounding how to better prepare students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) loomed large, as did push-me-pull-you agonizing over the role of technology versus traditional teaching methods.

Locally, we had the added distractions of the continued fallout from Corona del Mar High School’s notorious cheating scandal, which called into sharp relief the broader issues of who’s to blame for students’ misbehavior, and how to best handle discipline. And, of course, we were witness to the lawsuit against Newport-Mesa Unified by a former administrator who accused top district officials of submitting improper records to the state, a case that demonstrated — if nothing else — that deep divisions persist within the management of our schools.

I’m no doubt leaving some important topics out, but you get the picture. With so much contentiousness and polarizing ideology swirling around, it’s hard not to feel that our entire system of education is perilously off-kilter. That’s why I’m proposing a new theme for 2016 — balance.

I’m not suggesting that we all need to start swimming in synchronicity all the time. Education benefits from robust debate and a healthy, open airing of opinions, ideas, and grievances. That shouldn’t change.

But what’s needed at this point in time is a lot less accusatory rhetoric and hysterical reactions, and far more seeking of a stabilizing, common-sense-driven middle ground.

Take Common Core. The basic goal of the new K-12 educational standards is sound: To move the education dial away from rote memorization and toward analysis and conceptual understanding.

Hardly anyone would take issue with that objective, but right from the start Common Core was beset by angry opposition that painted it as a federal takeover of education, while on the other side we’ve seen unrealistic proponents who over-promised on results while rushing implementation.

The whole proposition to add depth and complexity to education is close to devolving into a failed experiment because one side was so intransigent it wouldn’t even consider giving the reforms a chance, while the other side was so giddily optimistic that — in some cases — expensive new curriculum was purchased without proper vetting and then turned out to be terrible.

Yet it’s not too late to find a healthy balance with Common Core if we jettison the backbiting and the defensiveness. Mistakes have been made, but let’s focus our efforts on what we’ve learned about what’s working — and what’s not working — and find a way to move forward together. Most important in this next phase is to seek the input of teachers, and to give them the support they need. No reform can be successful without teachers playing a leading role.

In other areas as well, balance is sorely needed. And there are a few hopeful signs.

For instance, we’ve seen some movement to back away from the test-centric culture that has dominated education for so long. Amid the news clutter at the end of 2015, scant attention was paid last month when a bipartisan replacement to the hugely controversial No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law. The new Every Student Succeeds Act, instead of using the punitive model of NCLB, gives states more authority to deal with schools that underperform on standardized tests.

It’s critical that we not end things there. Going forward, we still have to find a better means of identifying the sources of problems at struggling schools, and effective ways to help them improve. Saying goodbye to an unpopular law is the easy part. Joining together to fix what remains broken is extremely difficult. But it’s necessary.

So too is a cooperative effort to find a suitable balance in issues ranging from school discipline to the handling of concerns involving race, gender, and free speech on campus.

Last year we saw some acrimonious exchanges relating to these issues. Students who complained about so-called “micro-aggressions” — everyday insults and slights to minorities and other groups — and those who asked for “trigger warnings” on upsetting material were subjected to scathing criticism and accused of trampling on the First Amendment.

Yes, some of these students went too far, treading dangerously close to advocating censorship and dulling scholarship. On the other hand, some critics’ responses were little more than knee-jerk demagoguery, painting today’s youth as entitled brats and college campuses as swamplands of political correctness.

Instead of flame-throwing from their self-appointed corners, can’t everyone just take a breath and listen to the other side? There is plenty of room for cooperation, compromise and coordination, if we just ratchet down the noise and engage in a thoughtful discussion about some students’ concerns and how best to address them.

In other areas — school disciplinary policies come to mind — we are seeing scales tipping in a new direction, away from the bludgeon of “zero tolerance” policies toward more nuanced responses that try to address the reasons behind student misbehavior. There’s risk in this, of course, if we tip too far toward an overly lax disciplinary environment.

But at least we’re seeing an attempt at balance. In this and other issues, that’s always a welcome sign.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.