DETROIT, MI -- Michigan's teacher of the year railed against standardized testing while emphasizing that teachers should be respected during a speech in front of a crowd of education and business sector officials Tuesday.
Melody Arabo
At the Governor's Education Summit and Governor's Economic Summit, held together for the first time at the Renaissance Center earlier this week, Melody Arabo won over the crowd with a rousing speech. Arabo is the 2014-15 Michigan teacher of the year and teaches third grade at Keith Elementary School in the Walled Lake Consolidated School District.
During her speech, Arabo gave a list of qualities that employers want from employees, nearly all of which were intrinsic human qualities and not facts that are taught in school. She said the private sector is telling educators that they want well-rounded people, but those in charge of education policy have yet to figure out how to measure those qualities.
"If these are our goals for kids, how do we measure them?" she asked. "How do we test qualities like human innovation on a multiple choice test? We can't. Do we even need to?"
She added that some students "don't do well on standardized tests because they don't have standardized minds. Why should any mind be standard?"
State Superintendent Mike Flanagan agreed with Arabo's assessment and said he worried that promising teachers will be driven away from the profesion.
Flanagan's daughter is a teacher in the first years of her career and he said he has gotten calls from her asking what the decision makers in state government are thinking when new teacher evaluation processes are unveiled.
"I support the idea teachers should be evaluated on student growth," Flanagan said, "but I don't think there's an evaluation that's fair yet."
He said many teachers don't feel respected by the public, and he worries that might keep the best and brightest away from teaching Michigan's kids.
If that happens, and prospective teachers end up in other fields instead of educating children, it could mean dire things for Michigan schools, he said.
"If we can't get the best into teaching, that's it. It's all over," he said.
During her year as Michigan's teacher of the year, Arabo said she wanted to emphasize that teachers should have a voice outside of the classroom in forming strategies for improving education.
As part of being Teacher of the Year, Arabo meets policymakers and goes to Michigan State Board of Education meetings and collaborates with educators across the state in talking about education. She said she wants every teacher to have the same opportunities as her.
She added that many classroom teachers feel isolated from important policy conversations in Lansing because people far from the classroom are making decisions.
"We know which strategies work best, we just need the chance to share," she said.
She said many teachers aren't given chances to be leaders in their schools, or are unaware of how they can become leaders. A 13-year veteran of Keith Elementary School, Arabo said she spent the first years of her tenure focused on improving her teaching skills for her students and working on her classroom.
In her fourth year, her principal asked her to participate in a leadership program where she could receive more professional development and bring it back to the school for other teachers. She said she would have never thought of herself as a leader without that intervention.
All teachers should get that opportunity, she said.
"That opportunity had me wanting more, to grow more and to learn more and to do more," she said. "it lit a fire that got me to where I am today and it took somebody else to show me that."
Kyle Feldscher is the Capitol education and MSU reporter for MLive Media Group. Reach him via email at kylefeldscher@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter at @Kyle_Feldscher. Read more stories here.