A parent asks, "What is a good school?"

From Salem public school parent Sherry Croft: 

"I think we all need to take a step back and change the conversation surrounding education here. We all want good schools, right? But what is a good school? If your answer is "high test scores" then likely you're pretty happy here in Salem. But my definition of a good school is one in which my children are challenged to think. I'm not talking the one-dimensional thinking that can be quantified on a state test, but multi-dimensional, higher-order thinking. Where instead of being given multitudes of information to digest and regurgitate, they're asked to create something. They're given a problem and asked to solve it. They're given projects that can hone other skills such as collaboration, teamwork, critical thinking geared towards real world experiences, etc. You want kids to "take ownership of their learning"??? Then make it mean something to them! I've seen very little turnarounds and very little MCAS score jumps in a year that didn't have some sort of narrowing of the curriculum behind it. So yeah, we might see test scores go up, but was there really anything meaningful behind it? I'm more concerned about what is being lost in the quest for high test scores than I am about what level school they're attending - since the levels are based on that one, single-minded thing.

We say we value diversity in this country. "The Melting Pot." We say we value creativity. We don't. If we did, we wouldn't be subjecting kids to one-size-fits-all standards of learning. We wouldn't be stigmatizing them with these test scores. I didn't receive this type of education. Likely no one commenting on this thread did. Yet we want it for our kids? It isn't progression. If anything, it's regression back to a time when public schooling was designed to create factory workers. Employees. Compliancy. Direct instruction. Rote memorization. No thank you. I'd send my kids to a level 3 school that values more than test scores and offers a well-rounded curriculum than I would a level 1 school that spends a majority of its day on drill and kill direct-instruction for one sole purpose."

How do you define a 'good school'? Does being Level 1 or Level 3 really mean what we think it means?