Rhyme and reason

Rhyme and reason

At the risk of dating himself, this editorial writer remembers when school children learned a simple rhyme: “Good, better, best. Never let it rest, until your good is better and your better is the best.”

Not exactly Shakespeare, but it did two things. It reinforced a grammar lesson about the irregular adjective good and its comparative and superlative forms, better and best. And it taught a valuable life’s lesson about striving for improvement and excellence, about not being content, even with good.

Within that context, it was disheartening to read a story last week reporting on the anticipated rankings of area school districts on the annual report cards issued by the Ohio Department of Education. In short, it doesn’t appear that there will be many changes among the districts that have been labeled excellent, effective, continuous improvement and academic watch. And a lot of people seem to be comfortable with that.

The only small comfort that can be taken is that no area districts are in the lowest possible category, academic emergency.

We don’t want to be unrealistic. Every district is not going to be excellent. This isn’t Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average. But the evaluation process provides school districts with identifiable goals that can be met to climb the ladder toward excellence. And it is the job of administrators and educators to meet those goals — with the help of conscientious parents.

When those goals aren’t met, every segment of the educational community should be demanding to know why.

Because, as every school child is told at some point in his or her life, good isn’t good enough. And that has never been more true than now.