Swickard: Getting worse before getting better, if ever

Commentary by Michael Swickard, Ph.D. - Try the Swickard Test in your community. Take two elementary schools, the one rated the very best and the one rated the very worse and switch entire staffs between the schools. Move the teachers, counselors, librarians, administrators, janitors and cafeteria workers entirely one school to the other. Then we will get an honest look at the staff and administrative effect. One day the school staff is either on the exemplary or the poop list. Then they are at the other school. In three years the effect of the staff will be seen, which is largely not that much. The best school will still be best and the worst school will still be worst. But educators will not try the Swickard Test because they instinctively know the outcome. The problem then shows that spending the lion’s share of your time getting more administration in the worst school is of no use. More administration and more tests and more fads does nothing to change the best to the worst or the worst to the best. Education after the Swickard Test has to admit that the differentiator of success in the schools does not happen to be in the professional staff.  Read column

Swickard: Getting worse before getting better, if ever