schoolboardblogger hutch153's blog

More potentially good news on the policy front…

Governor Rendell's misguided proposal for Graduate Competency Assessments began several years ago with his attendance at an educational conference hosted by Achieve, Inc. It was at this conference that Rendell committed the Commonwealth - without consultation with other educational policy leaders, or the state legislature - to requiring ten subject area exit exams as a condition for a high school diploma.

In the interim, Achieve has thought about this issue a little more deeply. The result is a recently published policy agenda, entitled “Measures that Matter”, which I will summarize here.

In my opinion, Achieve has some good things to say around “aligning high school standards with the demands of college and career”; recommending that colleges and employers be more specific about what students need to know in order to be successful. But I will focus on what the report says about assessments.

Not many education policy details came out over the course of the recent election campaign, but I am encouraged by President-elect Obama's obvious commitment to early childhood education, and especially, by the quality of the people who will be advising him. One well-respected education reformer is Linda Darling-Hammond, who chaired the committee that eventually resulted in the selection of Arne Duncan to be the new Secretary of Education.

As it happens, at Monday's board meeting we received copies of an article from the December Phi Delta Kappan, authored by the same Darling-Hammond. It addressed the fact that while the quality of public education in this country has been largely stagnant for the last generation, many other countries have significantly improved. Her article talked about what these countries are doing differently.

An important difference lies is the nature of student assessment: “whereas U. S. tests rely primarily on multiple-choice items that evaluate recall and recognition of discrete facts, most high-achieving countries rely largely on open-ended items that require students to analyze, apply knowledge and write extensively.”

During Monday's discussion of the District Wide Master Facilities Plan (in particular, the Community Dialogue that was held November 6th), several board members commented on the added value that comes from personally attending the community meetings, as opposed to simply responding to the on-line questionaire . (Although everyone is certainly encouraged to do that, here: the deadline is 8 a.m., Thursday, Nov.13th.)

I'm also posting this on the PIF blog, because it goes to the heart of the Public Issues Forum philosophy: it is in hearing the perspective of citizens who see the issue differently - and understanding why they see it differently - that is the foundation for finding the common ground on difficult and sometimes contentious community problems.

As was also mentioned during the board discussion, when people sit down and talk face-to-face, and feel that their voice has been heard, they tend to be less defensive of their own position, and therefore, more open-minded.

I have long believed that voting - although clearly important - is only a small part of citizenship. Part of being a citizen is “being there”, interacting with other citizens.

As I wrote last week, I was impressed by a session at the PSBA conference that described one way to give elementary school children a sense of ownership in their education. Those of us who participated in the recent board visit to Park Forest Elementary heard several examples of how citizenship skills and a sense of civic engagement are being developed in our local students.

One PSBA session that I did get to attend was a combined presentation of Quaker Valley and Penn Traffic school districts on "Hiring the Best" teachers.

These districts recently implemented a process for hiring teachers that contains the standard "paper" and "personal" phases (resume, references, interview, etc.), with the interview questions constructed around James Strong’s "Six Qualities of Effective Teachers".

What they did differently was to put in place a "performance" component. The performance phase - where the candidate is given a week to prepare a lesson plan around a particular concept and deliver it to a group of students of the appropriate grade level - struck me as an idea that has potential. Read more »