Continuing to focus on the wrong skills

While Michigan's Governor and legislative leaders work hard to entrap public school students with soon-to-be-expanded, high-stakes testing on disconnected core academic subjects such as reading and math, the real world is calling for greater levels of student learning and use of 21st century skills across all learning disciplines. Unfortunately, continuing to decrease state funding while increasing the emphasis on bubble testing will not help schools -- especially poor urban schools -- get there. That includes the latest school funding scheme ("Oxford Plan") that doesn't begin to address equitable funding or improving teaching and learning in public schools. That proposal calls for a portion of state funding to be determined based on student performance on high-stakes tests. Sadly, the skills in the chart above will not be part of those assessments.