How to refocus our school

15 Apr

15Apr

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its global rankings of student performance in math, reading, and science, based on the Program for International Student Assessment, (PISA) which is an exam given worldwide every three years to assess 15-year-olds in 72 countries.

Over the last several years a trend has appeared in their data. The last several PISA scores reveal that in terms of education success in math, reading and science, the United States is far from No. 1. We have suffered an 11-point drop in math scores, leaving it 35th in that subject and 20 points below the OECD average. The country’s students scored just above average in reading and science. (oecd ,2015)

This may seem complicated and is fraught with inherent self interest groups that distract from the above. As parents, we need to find some starting place to set our educational ship back on its right course. Below are few suggestions for where we can start in ISD 181.

Address overcrowding: Statistics show that 14 percent of US schools exceed capacity. Overcrowding our classrooms, have shown to be less effective. Teachers are spread thin, leading to students not getting personalized attention they require. Students lose interest in schooling, which plants a seed of “school has nothing to offer me”. Lastly, teachers have increased stress leading to being less effective as there is less resources to spread around.

At the board level we can avoid this by developing master planning that refuses to tolerate even a slight overcrowded classroom. This should be ongoing as our community changes in size. We need to enlist and educate our state legislature about expanding schools’ capacities.

Put classroom-running and curriculum-building decisions in the hands of the community:

School boards who are aware of this pattern can push for a move away from standardized control (state and federal) and toward community-based mechanisms, such as community-minded school boards, that have the power and authority to make decisions about how their students are educated and what they are educated in. This would include everything from textbooks to curriculum.

Involve parents in their children’s education where possible will contribute to a student’s achievement. People coming together with coherent messages for policy makers about the curriculum changes they’d like to see in their education systems can only benefit students. Multiple studies show parental involvement increases student success.

Raise standards for teachers:

I need to be crystal clear; I am not stating that our current teachers are substandard. Studies have found that underqualified teachers are tied to poor outcomes for students. The good news is that this is one of the most straightforward areas where our school board can have an impact.

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind in 2015, has had the opposite effect. ESSA eliminated the “Highly Qualified Teacher” provision from the previous law, meaning that there is less involvement in teacher licensing and evaluation. The National Education Organization states that these changes were intended to promote alternative teacher education programs, but these don’t adequately prepare teachers to enter the classroom.

By working with our school administrator, we need to raise the bar for hiring teachers to ensure that educators are truly prepared for their jobs.

Along with this, we need to care for our teachers well being by protecting teacher prep periods, reduce the number of meetings required, collaborate with decision making and lastly show up and tell out teachers we support them.

With these initial steps in mind, lawmakers and their constituents can start to move together in the direction of change.

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/pisa-2015-results.htm

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Edit your Blog articles from the Pages tab by clicking the edit button.

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