Worth it? There should be a caveat with every new program: Does it work?

There is a certain amount of comfort that goes along with new measuring sticks in schools -- especially those that give the illusion that they prove student competency and that they force teacher accountability.

So that's why you see pronouncements about ideas like graduation projects and more testing. They make the public feel like they have a standard by which to gauge the effectiveness of the schools their children attend.

But the problem is, sometimes those measuring sticks do nothing except add busy work that takes away from what really matters -- time in the classroom.

The more we muck up education with artificial measurements and bureaucratic mumbo jumbo -- and the more paperwork we pile on teachers and administrators -- the less time educators have to actually teach the students what they need to know to make it.

So the county board of education should look very, very carefully at the graduation project decision. Is the requirement really giving students skills they need and aren't or can't get in the regular classroom?

Likely, not.

If a student is a senior and has not mastered the concepts of basic research and presentation, he or she has not been paying attention. And if the board finds that there have not been enough opportunities for students to practice these skills, then the place to add that practice is in the classroom.

What we don't need is another distraction from the reading, writing and arithmetic that are so critical to a student's future -- or another task that further subdivides teachers' time and takes them away from the instruction that students need.

Same thing with the bevy of tests and mounds of bureaucratic instructions that force paperwork by the ton and keep teachers from giving the extra time some students need.

Want students to have more practice exploring their future possibilities? How about a club or an activity they can participate in voluntarily?

Want to judge the effectiveness of senior projects? Look at them carefully and ask those who have been asked to mentor the students as they complete the assignment for their opinions.

Sometimes it is really about the basics.

And that is what should be top priority.

Published in Editorials on December 4, 2013 12:00 PM