EDITORIAL from the JoongAng Daily on Feb. 20)

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Improving our schools

It appears that the results of last October???s national academic assessment
test, taken by elementary, middle and high school students, will bring many
changes to schools. City and provincial education authorities have devised
measures to improve academic performance levels in their districts.

The publicizing of the results led to competition between different regions and
schools. It was a welcome opportunity to revive public education.
However, there are also worries that short-sighted policies designed to give
accomplishments visibility could cause negative side effects. To eliminate such
concerns, government measures should be refined in a consistent and systemic
manner.
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education laid out plans to evaluate principals
and vice principals based on the academic progress of their school. It is
justifiable to link the results of the national assessment test to personnel
decisions in order to encourage schools and officials to make efforts to improve
academic performance.
The problem is that if the efforts are viewed as evaluating principals solely
based on students??? academic performance, these measures are unlikely to win the
support of schools. To properly evaluate officials responsible for the quality of
education at their school, there need to be careful consideration of the use of
various evaluation methods and criteria as well as academic performance.
Local education offices came up with a variety of plans to improve performance
levels, among them short-sighted policies to raise grades that would not be
effective.
Rhetoric such as "making the percentage of underachieving students zero" is
laudable, but what is more important are consistent programs and systems to
improve academic performance.
The systems should be designed to improve the caliber of struggling students but
also all other students. School officials need to be cautious not to sacrifice
efforts to develop students??? creativity and diversify education in the name of
upgrading academic performance.
Teachers should stand at the center of the shift to bring hope back to schools.
No matter how good they are, government policies would be in vain if teachers do
not change.
The atmosphere at schools needs to change in a way that encourages teachers to be
more passionate about teaching. This is why an evaluation system for teachers
should not be delayed.
(END)