As the Experts See It . . .

In the past, philosophers argued that you could tell a lot about the state of society by looking at its prisons, at the manner in which a society treated those who violated its laws. Today, it is more apt to measure the state of society by looking at its schools and at the manner in which a community provides for those who will become the bone and sinew of our economy and our democracy. The Times has done the community a great service in shining a bright light on the conditions of education in California and, in so doing, issuing a wake-up call to all of us who care about the future.

The schools are not OK. The reasons, as we have learned again this week, are complex and varied, as complex and varied as the communities in which teachers work and the conditions in which students struggle to find their way through childhood and adolescence into adulthood.

The remedies are equally complex: better professional development for teachers, more resources for classrooms, enriched after-school opportunities, greater parental support for education and an emphasis on basic skills, especially in reading. None of this is surprising, and we should pursue all of these avenues and more.

What is surprising is the startling complacency generated in a system lacking strong external accountability. Bold and positive experiments, like the Ten Schools Program, go unevaluated; college prep courses get watered down; parents regard schools, in general, as failures but their own schools as successes; we tolerate vast numbers of underprepared teachers in classrooms that need to have the best prepared. How could we let this happen? These are all examples of a system that measures itself on effort and not on effect.

For example, take college prep courses. We look at the numbers of students in college prep, we look at the numbers of college prep courses. Both are on the rise, and we feel good. We should. But if the effect of these courses is still to underprepare students for college work, or to leave them unprepared for the world of work, then we should support efforts, even demand them, aimed at solving the problem. We must look beyond the effort to the effect, and we must be clear-eyed about our assessments. We can solve any problem we know; it’s those we don’t see or don’t understand that will sink us.

In conversation after conversation this week, I have heard a common refrain: “I had no idea that it was this bad.” That’s just the point: Teachers, parents, educators, policymakers should have a means of knowing and of understanding the effects of our work in education as well as our efforts.

Our unwillingness to focus on results is double-edged. On the one hand, without an understanding of the problems in education, remedies are not possible because too many believe they are not needed. This is especially true of those remedies that cost money. On the other hand, when results are finally discovered, rage and blame overwhelm good policymaking. This, in turn, leads to quick fixes that are neither quick nor fixes and to rapid swings between one reform tactic and another that leave us all dazed and confused.

We can blame and point accusing fingers without understanding that we are all responsible for the state of the schools.

This is our final exam; let’s not blow it or blow it off.

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Theodore R. Mitchell is UCLA’s vice chancellor for external affairs and dean of the Graduate School of Education and Information Systems.