Opinion: Are education valuations changing?

Clif Smart and Hal Higdon are failures.

As presidents of Missouri State University and Ozarks Technical Community College, the men lead two of the area’s largest employers and those institutions educate tens of thousands of young minds each year. They each serve on numerous community boards, are actively engaged in the state’s legislative affairs and donate their time to community service. They’ve reached the top of the ladder within their respective institutions, but in the eyes of Missouri’s higher education funding formula, they’ve squandered their time.

In addition to metrics such as freshman retention and graduation rates, under Missouri law each institution is required to add a metric for student job placement in a field or position associated with the student’s degree.

Smart has a law degree. Higdon’s is in business and economics. Since neither was specifically trained to lead a higher education institution, under the 2014 law, they would be considered a black mark on their alma maters.  

The two presidents laughed about the situation during Springfield Business Journal’s Oct. 6 CEO Roundtable discussion, where they were joined by Nixa Public Schools Superintendent Stephen Kleinsmith and Springfield Public Schools Superintendent John Jungmann. It was a laugh of absurdity at a system that would consider two prominent members of the Springfield community a failure. But it also was a laugh of trepidation at a system that uses set metrics and standardized test scores to determine the value of an education.

Before joining SBJ three years ago, I spent the first five years of my journalism career covering education for the Christian County Headliner News. After writing more articles than I can count about new and unfunded state mandates regarding standardized testing, I set out to write an investigative piece on something I’d heard anecdotally for years: Do teachers teach to the test?

My then roommate and a middle school teacher said yes, but it was difficult to ferret out. It was an unwritten rule. High test scores mean more money for the district, so your class better perform well. My science teacher roommate frequently forewent experiments and tactile learning to focus lessons on word problems and essay questions.

“Experiments aren’t on the test,” she would say.

It’s a system Kleinsmith has worked for years to change, despite the Nixa district posting the highest test scores out of any in southwest Missouri. It’s a system that promotes test-taking skills over learning and memorization over understanding.

Starting this January, OTC is bucking the testing trend.

As standard practice at most colleges, freshmen are given an aptitude test in subjects such as English and math to determine placement. Bad test takers end up at lower levels than needed; good test takers may be placed out of their league.

Instead, OTC plans to let students enroll in the class they feel comfortable with. On the first day, students will be asked to complete a standard assignment, something indicative of that semester’s work. Turn in your English essay with misspelled words and no periods, and the teacher will ask you to move down a level. Let the student’s knowledge speak for itself.

“It could be chaos come January, but we’re going to try it,” Higdon said.

“Good for you,” Kleinsmith retorted.

Appearing later this month in the Oct. 26 issue, the CEO Roundtable was moderated by SBJ Editor Eric Olson, who asked a question that gave me pause: What’s the goal of going to college, is it more useful or more utopian?

Each man in that room advocated for a system that develops lifelong learners and education as our greatest economic development tool.

For me, college, more than any other time in my life, was about finding my place and my passions. I declared an undecided major my freshman year, much to the chagrin of my counselor. I wasn’t ready to commit to one path until I had walked them all.

Utopian? Maybe. Useful for me? Yes. I’m thankful for a system that allowed me the latitude to do so because you can’t discover yourself in a Scantron bubble.

How should the state measure the value of a good education? A little more common sense and a little less standardized format could go along way.

Is our system perfect? Not even close. But with men such as these fighting on the side of knowledge, it’s only a matter of time.

Education is too big to fail.

Springfield Business Journal Features Editor Emily Letterman can be reached at eletterman@sbj.net.