quality education

Good morning.  First a little background.  My children have attended school in TX, VA and CA (one child in HS).  I have been a public school teacher and now Im an Asst Prof CSUS.  

I teach social foundations for credential students and this is one of the questions we wrestle with.  What we mean by quality, and how we measure that quality, varies among members of society.   Although it's never an ‘either/or' perspective, for sake of time and space I would like to look at two views.  For some quality means coverage - students are exposed to a vast amount of information and skills that the they ‘learn' (memorizes).  Students are assessed by a test that measures what they remember.  Although process is valued, proponents of this framework of quality value the amount of information a student possesses.  

On the other side, are those who recognize that information and skills are important, but what is more important is how students are able to use the information and skills - application.  In this framework, students are asked to make sense of situations and problems and then use the information and skills to propose solutions to problems and/or understand the complexities of situations.  Here students begin to understand that information and skills are not important for their own sake, but because they help them to understand the complexities of situations.  In turn this enables students to begin to think through the situation, to propose solutions, to decide which solution seems appropriate for this situation, and how to follow through.  Assessing students is not as easy as providing a multiple-choice test.   Students demonstrate their knowledge and skills through performance tasks, demonstrations, research papers, projects, and as well as other items.  

For me this kind of quality education enables students to be productive members of society regardless of what kind of work they choose to follow.  They would be individuals who think well, who judge well, and who would be responsive to the needs of others.

The following link will take you to a school district's attempt to have such a plan.  

http://www.lkwash.wednet.edu/lwsd/pdf/FrmwkParentHndbk.pdf