Better schools
McCarthy, Abigail
OF SEVERAL MINDS ABIGAIL MCCARTHY BETYER SCHOOLS It takes money & standards Dn her Christmas television special this past year, singer Jessye Norman interspersed her songs with tributes...
...Nothing is as important to a school system as good teachers...
...According to William Booth in the Washington Post (November 23, 1998), the overriding concern to voters was schools—more important to them than crime, the environment, abortion rights, or the economy...
...The District's superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, has instituted a new speeded-up evaluation process of District teachers...
...Even worse, Pacific Bell found that only one in seven high school graduates had enough math and language skills to qualify as a telephone operator...
...Eight years before the guidelines were issued, all elementary and middle school students had to take the Maryland Student Performance Assessment Program—a series of tests intended to hold schools to higher standards...
...Her education had made a difference in her life, and in theirs...
...Still Gray Davis, new governor of California and a strong proponent of education, is probably right when he says "higher expectations will bring about substantial improvement...
...The District of Columbia is putting its hope for school improvement in the Stanford Achievement Test Series, Ninth Edition...
...Other states are trying varying methods of turning the schools around...
...A spate of news stories after the November election made it clear that such schools have been rare in recent years...
...and be able to use calculators, spread-sheet databases, and graphing programs, as well as algebra and geometry...
...These are the facts, topics, and skills that educators have agreed children need to learn at various stages in their school life...
...Schools today exist in a world where there is a general relaxation of standards everywhere, where television is often deleterious to students' attention spans and imaginative power, and where many students come from backgrounds with no appreciation of education...
...Some people argue that such a program was necessary to show people the importance of standards, and this may well be true...
...The resultant circumstances are dismaying to say the least...
...politics...
...Then schools will once again be places in which dedicated teachers thrive and students benefit...
...Educators now plan a follow-up with a series of examinations to test the students' grasp of these things...
...Maryland has a new list of required "content standards," something like the Virginia guidelines...
...the rest is a burden on the taxpayers...
...eliminating the poor ones is bound to help...
...Students are to take a battery of tests in math and reading in the fall and again in the spring...
...Both Jessye Norman's teachers, I suspect, and I taught in schools where strong beneficial relationships between teacher and student could develop and were made possible by the atmosphere and requirements of the school community...
...Interestingly enough, Maryland, in contrast to Virginia, seems to have gone Commonweal 9 January 29,1999 at this backwards...
...By 2004, all students will be required to pass a series of new statewide tests on this content in order to earn a diploma...
...Certainly indifference to standards helped bring about the precipitous decline in school accomplishment...
...What has happened to the schools to Commonweal 8 January 29,1999 cause such concern...
...The State Council of Higher Education is preparing a proposal to require local systems to issue a "warranty" on their graduates and to promise to pay the cost of remedial classes taken by students in college...
...One of the most heart-warming letters I received in 1998 was from the alumnae office of the college where I taught, telling me that I was a nominee for the year's award as a teacher who made a difference in the lives of students...
...This was true the length and breadth of the country—in California, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, and Texas...
...Although present-day California, once a shining example of good public education, now ranks near the bottom on education assessment tests—its fourth graders were in last place with Louisiana in reading and ranked only just above Mississippi in math—it is not alone in dismaying statistics...
...Constitution in the subject of government, be able to read and interpret information from such tools as maps in geography, as well as to understand and use fractions, decimals, percentages, and other material of this difficulty in math...
...There was a time— not so long ago—when a high school diploma was a school's assurance that its graduate was prepared to enter college or to join the work force...
...A diploma was a studenf s recommendation and a certificate of accomplishment...
...In California, half of the graduates going into the state's university system need remedial classes in math and writing, and these graduates were in the top third of their graduating class...
...By the end of high school, they should be able to analyze the roles of political parties, campaigns, and elections in U.S...
...That was clear...
...And it meant that the student had significant test scores...
...The published list is impressive...
...There is now a ninety-day probationary period after an unsatisfactory evaluation, And once dismissed, a teacher cannot return to any school in the system unless he or she wins an appeal...
...Unfortunately, this is no longer true...
...The diploma now is often no more than a record of having put in time and of being promoted from year to year without necessarily any substantive academic achievement...
...The District is also facing up to a situation all school systems face—the problem of incompetent or poorly motivated teachers...
...The winning governors and state legislators were those who pledged to make their schools better...
...Only $15 million of this amount is borne by the students and their families...
...Principals will be evaluated annually on how the students do, and students who do not do well will have to attend summer school...
...One wonders why this was not the measure of a school's effectiveness prior to imposing financial incentives like warranties...
...They, in turn, spoke of her with pride and affection and reminisced about the girl they had known...
...OF SEVERAL MINDS ABIGAIL MCCARTHY BETYER SCHOOLS It takes money & standards Dn her Christmas television special this past year, singer Jessye Norman interspersed her songs with tributes to the teachers who were influential in her life...
...Will any and all of these efforts solve the problem...
...Commonweal 10 January 29,1999...
...It is many years since I taught and to be still remembered today as such a teacher is gratifying indeed...
...evaluate the changes brought about by the end of the cold war...
...In the state of Virginia, remedial courses for students in its colleges are estimated to cost $40 million a year...
...I know how pleased they felt...
...By the end of the fifth grade, for example, they will be expected to know the components of the U.S...
...Virginia had earlier imposed guidelines for what should be taught in schools and when...
Vol. 126 • January 1999 • No. 2
