To the issue of time vs. mastery, this is meant to be an intellectual construct and not something to be taken too literally or to its extreme. There would be too many practical problems taking this to its logical extreme anyway (e.g. it would be hard to image the state paying us to teach students– and it would hard to imagine students wanting to stay — until they were in their teens or 20s if they hadn’t yet mastered a specific subject). But rather this construct is a good starting point to ask ourselves how have we been limiting the ability for students to learn because we have made time the primary limiting factor for everything. Even if we can’t do the exact opposite, how can we approximate the notion of making time a non-issue? That could relate to how we structure the school day, what aspects of “inverted learning” we adopt, and how we truly differentiate learning. I agree that motivation would be a big issue, but one can argue it’s already the biggest issue, as our current time-based teaching structure may be inherently de-motivating for many kids (the proverbial “watching the clock”), because the time alloted for a subject is often too little (frustration) or too much (boredom) depending on the child and the topic. For many (albeit not all) kids, self-directed projects may be more inherently motivating. But I certainly agree that a mastery-based approach required more “ownership” by both the student and his/her parents, which has both its opportunities and challenges and should cause us to think hard about how to implement any changes.

As to the quote about the distance between policy makers and the student, note this was referring to elected officials and not meant to suggest that individual teachers should have free reign to teach whatever they want, whenever they want without any sort of standards, etc. The quote was about perspective and accountability in politics. One of the biggest lessons you learn as a school board member is that every community is so different and based on a wide variety of factors unique to that district (not the least of which is the student population itself, the parent population, as well as the nature of the broader community). I agree that there is a place for broader-based policy makers, but on net, there is so much less flexibility at the local level than there should be. Individual school districts should be able to approach learning in the way that works for their students, and then be accountable to both their individual community as well as a broader-policy making body that holds them accountable to a set of standards (and provides the appropriate support, etc.). Right now it is almost universally agreed that our system has far less flexibility in it than is needed while at the same time we are held to almost bizarre (and certainly outdated) standards (see my post on “The Most Important Unimportant Number”). This country has certainly had a history of “out of touch” decisions being made on a state and national scale (and I refer to both the Republican “No Child Left Behind” and the Democratic “Race To The Top” as examples). Our elected representatives at these levels of government have demonstrated a lack of true understanding of the issues and certainly there is no accountability to the people on the ground. In many ways, school board service is actually the purest form of our republic — just the fact that you’re able to comment on this blog (and I’m responding) is a perfect example of how a locally elected official can understand his/her job unlike any state or federally elected representative.

Your article contains the following:
“One of my favorite comments he made was that the further a policy maker is from the students he/she is making policy about, the stupider the decision is. This is very consistent with a growing trend of understanding that giving local school board more resources and more flexibility as actually a big part of the solution.”
I don’t, in general, agree with this assertion. I’ve heard it taken to the extreme by some teachers (even some in SCSD) that claim that they know better than anyone else how to teach “their students”. I call this the “God complex”. Of course taken to the other extreme where there is a top person (or group) that specifies all of the details also is an example of the “God complex”. I believe that the optimal outcome is achieved when the appropriate decision making is done by the group that has the best view of the problems and understanding and control over the resources that would be used to address the problems. So, I believe that making over simplifications doesn’t really make much progress in improving performance.
Given your experience and interactions with other school boards and their members, I’m guessing that you have seen a wide range of competence.
One of the issues in the Republican presidential debates is on terminating the department of education. I certainly don’t believe that the US department of ed should make all of the policies for every school in the US. However, I also don’t believe that each local school district should each individually create all components of their policies. Doing so would be a big duplication without the expertise, resources, broad-view, and time-outlook of a state or national organization.
In summary, if the case is that too many of the details for policy have been made at high level, then yes those portions need to be pushed down to a lower level. But, in general, all portions of policies need to be made at different and appropriate levels to reduce duplication, afford the use experts, increase consistency so that staff and students can move from one district to another with little disruption.

Regards,
David

In the past, I was a certified Scuba instructor. The classes to teach students to safely scuba dive required them to master a prescribed set of skills, and demonstrate understanding of information and knowledge needed to safely plan and to do scuba dives. There are many other examples of adult training where the endpoint is mastery, and there are no grades to indicate how long it took to reach mastery, and if you achieved higher than master. At TL there is an example of mastery, which is maroon trunks. To get the maroon trunks, you have to demonstrate a set of physical performances, such as running 1 mile in less than a prescribed time, doing at least a prescribed number of situps in 1 minute, etc. It doesn’t matter if you can meet all of the requirements on the first day of school, or your time in the mile is much lower than the prescribed time, etc. However, much of school doesn’t currently work this way.
There is one important difference that I’d like to point out between adult training and a mastery based approach for students in elementary and high school. That difference is motivation. In the scuba classes I taught, the students were asked why they were taking the class. There were many reasons. However, with just a few exceptions, the students had to pay for the class and make time in their life to go to the classes. This demonstrated that they were highly self motivated. I’m not sure that most elementary and high school students will be self motivated without the school and school district providing a continuing program on motivation for the students and their parents. I believe that great teachers help their students to become self motivated, and so changing from a time-based approach to a mastery-based approach will not be the cure for education unless a motivation component is added to the mix.

Regards,
David