Any further comments re the mission of school board members?
I believe that every school official has a responsibility to be tested
using every standardized test that the students take. I can't think of
any better way for the individuals responsible for managing our schools
to begin to grasp the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of
one-size-fits-all evaluation programs.
I believe that school board members and other politicians need to come
to grips with the fact that there is no quick-and-easy measure of a
school system's effectiveness. To paraphrase the old saw about the 3
most important factors in judging real estate: the 3 best ways to judge
the effectiveness of an education system are follow-up, follow-up and
follow-up. Look for the evidence that your graduates are or are not
*successfully* engaged in their next chosen level of pursuit:
traditional college, community college, business college, military,
apprenticeship, workplace hire, housewife, whatever. Maintaining a grad
network is not a casual spare-time undertaking; privates do it and
higher eds do it because they each use it as a cash cow, and each such
network more than pays for itself.
I don't believe you can manage schools in isolation from the management
of the greater community. Your school board member might do well to
examine the efforts of cities like Lansing, MI. As the overall
performance of the city's schools declined over a period of years, the
city and school leadership realized that their school problems were more
than just school problems. They realized they had to address community
problems and cultural problems behind some of the school problems. The
city government and the business community and the higher education
community and all sorts of other players in the regional community have
started to engage in an concerted effort to improve K-12 education. It
takes tremendous drive and energy to keep a program like that on track
and on schedule; time will tell.
It continues to amaze me that people aggressively campaign for school
board positions. What a thankless job, nunc, et semper, et in saecula
saeculorum!
Best wishes,
Larry
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Larry Cartwright <exit60@cablespeed.com>
Retired (June 2001) Physics Teacher
Charlotte MI 48813 USA
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Lord, preserve us from the excesses of those
who would do us harm; and preserve us from
the excesses of those who would protect us.
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This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.