Assigned Reading

Julia Steiny points to success at Mt. Hope High School in her Sunday ProJo column. It’s good to see teachers come together, overcome the obstacles, and work to provide what their students need. A physics teachers watching kids taking NECAPs; a literacy coach aware that writing skills in all subject areas are needed for students to succeed; a business teacher willing to incorporate writing instruction in her classroom. Each knew change was necessary.

The school created its own plan called Mt.CAP and got to work, using a professional development day to put their ideas into action.

The success of the teachers at Mt. Hope was the result of decision-making and action within the school community. Teachers determined where a problem existed, and developed a strategy to combat it.

The business teacher, Maureen Gauthier, said, “Ultimately that was the best professional development I’ve ever had, because I learned so much.”

The education bureaucrats, or educrats as they are called, need to allow for more of this site-based decision-making when it comes to professional development. Too often these bureaucrats, whether they be federal, state, or most often local administrators, think they can create the professional development systemwide. They bring in outside “experts” or teachers from other schools who are succeeding in one way or another.

In truth, the best professional development arises from those who know the kids best, the adults who teach them everyday. Principals need to have more power than any ivory tower administrator when it comes to spending professional development money at his or her school. School Improvement Teams should control the time and dollars. The results will be more like the success at Mt. Hope.

One of the most important roles of a school leader is to develop a sense of community within his or her school. Students need to feel safe and supported, and be given all that can be provided to ensure success. What of a school, then, that purposely divides its students by race when preparing for state testing?

Students at a Sacramento-area high school attended standardized test pep rallies — er, sorry…Heritage Assemblies – organized by race to pump up each ethnic group to take state tests. “Students could go to any rally they wanted,” the Sacramento Bee reports, ”but the gatherings were designated for specific races – African Americans in the gym, Pacific Islanders in the theater, Latinos in the multipurpose room.”

The paper describes a scene in the gym at Laguna Creek High School, where students gathered before a large outline of Africa on the wall. “Last year we scored the highest percentage increase of any group,” Vice Principal Hasan Abdulmalik hollered at the crowd.

A very dangerous road is being navigated at Laguna Creek High School. Isolating students by race, and creating a sense of competition between them (“Last year we scored the highest percentage increase of any group.”) could create an us vs. them mentality amongst the student body.

While a dose of competition can be healthy among students, encouraging it between races will divide the kids by their differences. Will the school next hold divided rallies based on gender? or sexual orientation? or those receiving special education services? Or any other testing demographic?

NCLB forces districts to look at test scores based on ethnicity. But school leaders should not look at individuals as black students, or Hispanic students, or white students. Rather, they should view all as students, and do whatever is necessary to educate them regardless of race.

Standardized testing does strange things to people, especially school administrators.