As our superintendent Dr. David Aderhold quoted Benjamin Disraeli in his letter to the community: “Change is inevitable, Change is constant,” I wish to quote Benjamin Disraeli as well as reply: “seeing much, suffering much, and studying much are the three pillars of learning.”
In his long letter, Dr. Aderhold expressed his vision on education and defended his decisions on many changes that are deteriorating the WW-P school district. The fundamental reason for the change, as he explained, is the stress and pressure among students. So his solution is easy: no more exams, no more grades, and no more gifted programs. Students have less to learn and less motivation to learn, so they will be stress-free and happy. Such a solution reminds me of an old joke: a patient with a painful hand went to see a doctor, the doctor said, this is easy, just get rid of your hand and your problem is resolved.
We as parents certainly wish our children to be happy all the time. But the reality is not always what we expect. Stress and pressure are just components of growing up. Students need to learn to handle stress and pressure because they will have to face them when they grow up. If we think the stress is beyond a reasonable level, well, isn’t our school supposed to make studying interesting, to encourage students on fun and diversified learning?
Also questionable is the conclusion of “too much stress.” In Dr. Aderhold’s letter, page 5 Table 1 shows roughly 80 percent of middle school students are not often stressed. The stress level for high school students is indeed high: 70 percent of high school students are stressed always or most of the time. But obviously, such stress is due to the pressure of college admissions.
Regardless of whether we want it or not, our students will have to compete against hundreds and thousands students from other school districts for college admissions. Unless Dr. Aderhold can eliminate the SAT exam, or somehow guarantees our students can attend the colleges they want, I don’t see how our superintendent’s “change” can actually help.
As part of Dr. Aderhold’s changes, there are no more midterm and final exams for high school. I don’t know how this will prepare students for college and going into society. As far as I know, many colleges still have midterm and final exams, and you still need to take exams for many professional licenses and certificates.
With his changes, our students may have less stress temporarily for skipping midterm and final exams, for quitting many school programs, but are likely to have more stress in the long term when they become less competent in achieving their life goals.
Our children and students have become subjects of experiments to test Dr. Aderhold’s “vision.” Dr. Aderhold’s “changes” have eliminated so many school programs and reduced diversity. The bar of quality education is actually lowered, though his actual job should be to improve it. There are so many so sudden changes that are merely based on his “vision,” and even worse, are effective immediately, no phase-in, no communication with parents, no plans to evaluate the outcome. So if his vision fails, it will be our school district, our children, and our students who pay the price. The consequence may not be obvious immediately, but when we see it in two to three years, it will be too late to make any remediation.
The WW-P school district has a track record of success. We have many successful school programs. It is fine to have adjustments, but not like these “changes” Dr. Aderhold imposed on us. If these “changes” are so good, why didn’t Dr. Aderhold do any of these when he was the deputy superintendent? It took much effort from many dedicated teachers and students to build up the WW-P school district now, which we are very proud of. But to undermine it will be much easier.
Change is inevitable, change is constant, but change is not always good. Maybe our superintendent really needs to open his ears to different voices and open his heart to different opinions. This is so important because our school district, our children, our students are bearing the consequences.
Sophia Xu
Plainsboro
Instrumental
