High-Quality Elementary Education What Ingredients Go Into

High-Quality Elementary Education

What ingredients go into a high quality education for elementary school children -- and what does the literature reveal? What has been the impact of "No Child Left Behind" in terms of achieving that seemingly unachievable goal? These and other issues are covered in this paper.

Improving Elementary School Quality: Social-Emotional / Character Development

A research study in the peer-reviewed Journal of School Health reveals that a school-wide program involving a "social-emotional and character development education program" can "significantly improve" the quality of the education experience for elementary school children (Snyder, 2012, 11). The program, called "Positive Action," was conducted involving 20 elementary schools in Hawaii -- racially and ethnically diverse schools -- between the 2002-2003 school years and 2005-2006 school years.

In brief, the six-unit Positive Action (PA) program utilized in Hawaii involved 140 sessions -- lasting 15 to 20 minutes each -- per elementary grade per academic year (Snyder, 13). The total time for the PA lessons over the school year was about 35 hours, Snyder reports. The units that were presented include: a) "self-concept"; b) "physical and intellectual actions"; c) "social-emotional actions for managing oneself responsibly"; d) "getting along with others"; e) "being honest with yourself and others"; and f) "continuous self-improvement" (Snyder, 13).

The "control schools" used in this research did not embrace the PA program; after one year, the PA schools "outperformed control schools" (Snyder, 16). As to Hawaii's "school quality survey" (SQS) goals: "…teacher, parent, and student reports indicated that PA schools had significantly higher SQC scores…" in comparison to the control schools (Snyder, 16). The PA program "consistently outperformed the control schools" on "nearly all 9 indicators of school quality" (Snyder, 18).

In Laura Berk's text, the author delved into behavioral theories such as Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development. It appears that the PA program discussed in this paper follows along closely with Piaget's theory. That is because a child's development in the "concrete operational stage" -- roughly the elementary school age -- is pivotal in terms of brain development. Piaget believed that at this age a child has the awareness that actions can be reversed, and given the PA emphasis on "managing oneself responsibly" the Piaget theory links up very effectively.

Meanwhile the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) -- according to Cal State Fullerton professor Hamid Tavakolian -- has "…set the bar too high" by insisting on judging academic achievement through "high stakes tests" (Tavakolian, 2012, 72). Because NCLB was designed to make sure that "…eventually 100% of students…" show they have achieved proficiency in high stakes standardized tests, it was lauded as a strategy to assure across the board learning in American public schools. However, the "pressure to raise the percentage of every student" has given schools "less incentive to work hard to keep low scoring students in their programs" (Tavakolian, 72). The professor believes this pressure might be causing low-scoring students to "drop out altogether" (72).

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing (NCFOT) reports that high stakes testing puts "…narrow, flawed instruments at the center of education" and leads to teachers "teaching to the exams" all in the name of "accountability." When teachers teach "to the test" it fails to contribute to meaningful learning, according to NCFOT. Research surveys that polled 4,200 teachers' opinions (The Boston College Study) revealed that "…a substantial majority…believed the testing caused them to teach in ways that contradicted their views of sound instruction" (NCFOT).