Reforming and/or Reinventing Schools

Megan Monzo
Fundamentals of Curriculum Design
Position Paper
April 7, 2009

Reforming and/or Reinventing Schools

It is now in place that all 50 states have implemented accountability measures as a means to work on improving education quality. States use standards and tools to assess student performance with the expectation that all children can achieve a certain performance level and strategies are put in place to help build up current performance levels. They may also assist in closing the ‘achievement gap’ (www.ncsl.org). Each school must do so while following legal standards. If these standards are not met, school reform is put into action.

Data collection is a widely used in schools to help determine activity in the schools and whether or not the activities are positively influencing student achievement. This assists education professionals in figuring out what words and what may need to be modified or implemented in the curriculum and/or classroom. “Several studies have shown that it is possible to significantly raise student achievement in literacy and math in elementary school through the adoption of a variety of reforms and interventions, when they are implemented well” (Fashola and Slavin 1997, www.inmotionmagazine.com).

Each year states, districts, and schools must report how they are accountable in following laws and doing best practices in their schools. These reports are specified by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law and include assessment reports, accountability reports, and program/teacher evaluations. Accountability reports summarize reports at the individual student, classroom, school, district, and state level. Accountability report cards profiles at the school, district, and state levels that may be linked to state accountability systems; each state must submit an annual performance report the US Department of Education. Program evaluation reports summarize activities and services at the program level and describe evaluation methods and criteria including in them the results and consequences of the evaluation. (www.ccso.org)

The federal governments will annually review these reports and decide whether or not each school/district is following each of the standards. (Standards can be found on www.ccsso.org, the website for The Council of Chief State School Officers.) A mark of Pass or Fail is given to each school and becomes public information. Under accountability provisions in NCLB all public schools, districts, and states are evaluated for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) where they must meet criteria in Reading/Language Arts, Mathematics, and either Graduation Rate or Attendance Rate.

If AYP is not met for two consecutive years, that school, district, or state is subject to certain requirements, such as offering supplemental education services, offering school choice, and/or taking corrective actions. At that point, the school’s power in programming is given over to a private organization to run the school for the district and may have the school completely restructure its curriculum.

School curriculum can be restructured by rewriting the curriculum basing it off of the NCLB standards. Schools should recognize what is being expected of their curriculum and understand what they will be marked/grades on. This can help in producing objectives, activities, and evaluating/assessment that will help improve student achievement. The curriculum should incorporate research-based teaching methods and activities in the lesson plans.

Schools work to pass their annual evaluations, but sometimes need assistance in offering a curriculum that meets certain standards. This can hurt the reputation of a school as well as push some students out to other schools via school choice. However, since the standards are set to help improve student achievement it seems that following them will help keep consistency among schools and hopefully increase student achievement overall.


References

www.ccsso.org

www.inmotionmagazine.com

www.ncsl.org

www.middleweb.com