Can you name what the scientific research says are the two most important factors affecting student achievement? If you answered teacher quality and effective management of teaching time, you get an A+.
New Haven Public School’s science supervisor, Richard Therrien, was reviewing that basic lesson with BOE board members Monday night. His presentation on effective use of the six hours and 15 minutes a day that teachers have with K‑8 kids was part of the presentation to the board of the New Haven Public School’s District Improvement Plan for 2008 to 2011.
The other three main arrows in the BOE’s quiver to hit its goals over the next three years are even further use of the already extensive data teams at all levels from district to school to grade; cultivation and mentoring of even higher quality principals; and early and robust intervention, at the K to second grade level, for kids who require literacy interventions.
Said Trish D’Amore, the NHPS’s literacy supervisor, “Of all kids who fall behind in reading in the first grade, only 13percent ever catch up.” The intervention will include a wide variety of reading programs, but, likely most importantly, tutors assigned to all kids who need one.
The District Improvement Plan, which has evolved over a year, was led by the system’s data management teams. It was presented and accepted in Hartford, at the State Board of Education, in September.
Its roll-out is in effect happening already and building on the data teams and other of the broad range of initiatives going on in the NHPS. According to teachers union president David Cicarella, this last year was the best ever for recruitment, with the year beginning with no vacancies, even in the hard-to-fill math, science, and bilingual slots.
“Accountability is big and ongoing,” said Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Imma Canelli, “in part because what is monitored is implemented.”
So what are the five goals or priorities of the system over the next three years? One of the nearest and dearest to her heart, Canelli said, is reducing the achievement gap. By 2011, the system is now committed to having an achievement gap no larger than 10 percent between white students and their black and Hispanic colleagues. The measure for this will be scoring “proficient” or greater on the annual CMT in math, reading writing, and science.
The NHPS has its work cut out. According to educational think tank ConnCan’s just released research (click here) “Connecticut’s poor and minority student’s math skills are equivalent to the developing world.”
The system has made measured improvements in many schools that were at risk, and steady, if small improvement in many others, some in fits and starts. Nevertheless, the system is committed, per these new goals, to promising as another priority, for students from third to tenth grade to increase scores significantly: by 20 percentage points over 2007 levels in math, reading, writing, and science, again measured by the annual CMT and CAPT tests.
A third priority by 2011 is that 90 percwent of pre-kindergarteners will be proficient in the various pre-literacy assessments.
The fourth priority deals with mastery of “social skills for success in life and school.” This speaks, in part, to a 50 per cent reduction in suspensions by 2011 for middle schoolers; and an habitual truancy rate for high schoolers of no more than five per cent.
Finally, getting kids college and work-force ready will be enhanced: to reduce drop-out rates to no more than 10 percent, all academically at risk eight to tenth graders will be targeted for early intervention in the first marking period; the system’s committed to increasing overall senior SAT scores by 10 percent over 2007; and 35 percent more than in 2007 will have completed a course that carries college credit.
What ever happened to "Bold Goals". This seems like another set of promises that will go unfullfilled.