Students must become problem solvers

Delaware’s Department of Education recently released results from new tests designed to gauge proficiency in reading, writing and math. Students in our local public schools - including Cape Henlopen, Sussex Tech and Sussex Academy - performed better than students at most other schools in the state.

But other than the middle school students at Sussex Academy who came out on top of the state, less than three quarters of the students here and statewide tested at levels considered proficient.

At high school, where students haven’t been learning according to Common Core standards, proficiency dropped off further. While 11th-graders at Tech tested relatively strong at 73 percent proficiency in reading and writing, those same students tested at 36 percent proficient in math - where most would expect a technical school’s strength to lie.

At Cape, with the largest population of local students, 39 percent tested proficient in reading and writing, while only 20 percent tested proficient in math. The Smarter Balanced testing is designed to make our students think more and enhance the sense that what they are learning has relevance to their lives.

Reading, writing and math are tools, but what good are the tools if they aren’t used to solve the daily problems of life?

The most fundamental task of our schools, if they are to keep our students engaged, is to demonstrate how the academic tools they are providing will make them practical problem solvers.

The only way to really test that effort is to ask students after they have graduated and moved on how prepared they were to either enter the world of work and begin solving problems on the job, run a household, or further their education at the college level.

Testing may help us determine whether schools have provided the fundamental tools, but it is also critical to see how our students are doing in college and on the job. That’s what will tell us how well we’re teaching them to actually use those tools.