Schools should be graded not just by standardized test scores, but by the number of opportunities they provide students to be creative. That’s the argument from a Massachusetts state representative and an arts advocate in today’s Boston Globe. While taking care not to diminish the value of testing individual students, the authors wonder if the incentive to teach to the tests fails to adequately prepare kids for the future. The have drafted a bill to hold schools in the Bay State accountable for the number of “creative opportunities” children are offered.
We have moved into an economy driven by ideas and innovation,” write Dan Bosley and Dan Hunter. “Are we giving students the opportunity to develop creativity—the ability to generate ideas and then to critically evaluate potential?” Bosley is chairman of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies; Hunter is executive director of the Massachusetts Advocates for the Arts, Sciences & Humanities.
“With the Creative Challenge Index, a commission—comprising legislators, and business and community leaders working with the Department of Education and education leaders—would establish an index to measure how many opportunities schools provide for students to engage in the practice of creative work — taking a project from inspiration to revision to fruition. Through the index, schools can be rewarded for creative opportunities,” write Bosley and Hunter.
Schools that provide opportunities for creative work in the arts, music, drama, and dance would rise in the Index. “So would schools that engage students in a broad range of creative activities, such as science fair projects, debate club, fashion design, filmmaking, or architecture. The Creative Challenge Index would establish incentives for schools to foster creative skills through arts education and other innovative educational opportunities.”
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