IN KENTUCKY Holly Holland Like many schools in the persistently poor Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky, Sandy Hook Elementary traditionally had to do without or had to do with somebody else's castoffs. For years, Sandy Hook and other schools in Elliott County routinely received truckloads of worn, outdated school supplies from around the country, recalls Principal Claudette Green.
"It was like other people's trash, that's what we had," says Green, a native of Sandy Hook.
Before 1990, the school's desks, globes, maps and encyclopedias were typically 25 to 30 years old. The district provided almost...
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Sample assessment items/Performance levels Holly Holland Performance event
In groups of three to five, students will decide which of five contestants won a maze contest by measuring lengths of the paths the contestants found through the maze.
Portfolio task — applications
Poll your friends to see which of the many available soft drinks is the most popular. Show your results using pictures, diagrams, graphs or any other method you think is useful. Tell what the results mean. Use your information to decide how to stock a soft drink machine.
Portfolio task — investigation
Using ads from the...
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History of Kentucky's new tests Holly Holland '90
Kentucky Education Reform Act requires that a primarily performance-based student assessment system be used in grades 4, 8 and 12 to hold schools accountable for improving the academic performance of their students.
'91-'92
Writing portfolios introduced in grades 4, 8 and 12.
Written tests with essay questions in reading, writing, science, mathematics and social studies administered in grades 4, 8 and 12.
Performance events in math, science and social studies administered to samples of students in grades 4, 8 and 12.
Results of...
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How Dallas created accountability Joseph Garcia SEP '90
The Dallas School Board appoints a Commission on Educational Excellence to study school reform ideas, and a Task Force on Facilities to draw up a $275 million bond-financed construction package. Lawyer Sandy Kress, a former county Democratic Party chairman, is named to lead the commission.
JUN '91
The commission issues its final report, which calls for a sophisticated accountability system, based largely on test scores, along with four other broad reforms. The commission says the statistical analysis should be used to rate schools, principals and...
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Board asserts new power over schools Lorraine Forte Accountability—a $5-word that simply means holding schools responsible for student achievement—has taken center stage in the Chicago Public Schools.
When the Legislature overhauled the Chicago School Reform Act last spring, it gave the new School Reform Board of Trustees more authority to hold schools accountable. (See story online in Catalyst , September 1995.) Only two months into its tenure, the board is asserting these new powers.
For one, so-called "intervention teams" from central office have begun visiting each of the 149 schools that failed to meet state...
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IN DALLAS Joseph Garcia The Oct. 10 luncheon in a Dallas Hyatt Regency ballroom was one part pep rally and one part political convention.
As college fight songs blared from loudspeakers, the guests of honor, 26 school principals, entered through a towering star and strode across a stage festooned with yellow and black balloons.
Cheering them on were Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, County Judge Lee Jackson and executives from dozens of the city's most prominent businesses.
In a speech broadcast onto huge screens flanking the stage, the governor hailed the 26 schools as "...
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A Learning Outcomes sampler Bahareh Harandi The Chicago Public Schools Learning Outcomes cover six areas: Biological and Physical Sciences, Fine Arts, Language Arts, Mathematics, Physical Development and Health, and Social Sciences. The Learning Outcomes are tied in with the state goals for learning.
These are the Learning Outcomes for Grade 4, Language Arts.
Students should be able to do the following :
Interpret, analyze, and critique the literal and non-literal messages in oral and written texts that represent different cultures.
Appraise the work of self and others and reassess one's own...
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School 'crisis' policy sparks debate Lorraine Forte "We didn't want a situation in which a school is clearly being mismanaged but the board could do nothing about it."
That's how Allen Grosboll, special assistant to Gov. Jim Edgar, explains the Legislature's decision to give the School Reform Board of Trustees the power to intervene swiftly in dysfunctional schools.
While conceding "some concern" about the speed with which the board adopted a policy on schools in "educational crisis," Grosboll argues that "ultimately, somebody must have the power to intervene."
Previous boards complained to lawmakers that they couldn'...
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New York chancellor takes over 16 schools Lorraine Forte Paul Vallas isn't the only chief executive officer intervening at sorely troubled schools.
Last month, Rudy Crew, the new chancellor of New York City's public schools, took direct control of that city's 16 most troubled schools. Some of the schools may be broken up into small schools; at others, principals and faculties could be dismissed, according to the Oct. 20 New York Times.
Board of Education President Carol Gresser supported Crew's move, saying, "This is not an adversarial action as far as I'm concerned."
The chancellor's move came after State Education...
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'Intervention' talks softly, carries big stick Debra Williams Schools with especially low test scores are being scrutinized by central office under a new law that puts the principals, teachers and local school council members at those schools in jeopardy of losing their jobs. However, principals interviewed by CATALYST say they're happy to get the attention.
Under the new law, a four-year pilot program gives the School Reform Board of Trustees power to intervene at "chronically underperforming schools." That means the Chief Executive Officer can select a new principal for a school (for no longer than two years), fire the old staff, and allow...
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'Pathways' codifies common sense Debra Williams There is no end to the changes, initiatives and programs schools could undertake to improve the education of their students. But there isn't enough time, money or people for all of them. So the challenge becomes figuring out what will make the biggest difference.
To help schools do that, Chicago's new school administration is promoting a framework for school analysis and improvement that was developed during the tenure of Supt. Argie Johnson.
Called "Pathways to Achievement," the framework aims to focus school planning in five areas that a body of research says are key to...
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A case study Debra Williams Locke Elementary School in Montclare wasn't in line for the trial run of Pathways to Achievement last year. But when staff saw the document, they liked what they saw, and used it to develop a comprehensive school improvement plan that, among other things, spells out what students need to know at each grade level.
"We looked at Pathways last February, broke the staff into five cadres or committees to address each of the five key areas and started working on our school improvement plan in April," reports Principal Myrtle Burton-Sahara.
Responding to the notion that instruction...
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Austin High School recovering after 'reform from hell' Dan Weissmann Austin High School "flunked remediation," Chief Executive Officer Paul Vallas said in mid-September as he announced the removal of Interim Principal Al Clark. In the view of most people at the school, though, it was a bungled remediation that failed Austin.
"This reform was reform from hell," says Gloria Walton, a teacher who worked all summer on plans to change the school, only to be cut from the faculty Sept. 1. And she wasn't alone; more than 15 teachers, most of whom had done program planning over the summer, were dismissed at the 11th hour, leaving a total of 14 teaching...
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Removal violates teacher rights, union delegate charges Dan Weissmann In the view of a former Chicago Teachers Union delegate to Austin High School, the removal of 15 teachers from the school on Sept. 1 is a test case of the School Reform Board's powers under school remediation.
Louis Pyster, who was Austin's union delegate until he was dismissed from the faculty Sept. 1, contends the criteria for staff dismissal and selection were arbitrary and violated teachers' contractual rights.
The school's remediation planning team recommended last May that new teachers make up a third of Austin's faculty for the 1995-96 school year. At the time,...
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What's new at Austin High Dan Weissmann Sylvan Learning Systems
SCOPE 300 students
PURPOSE Remedial math
COST $450,000
INVITED BY John West, a top aide to CEO Paul Vallas
BILLED TO Austin's Federal Title 1 budget
Based in Maryland, this for-profit company made a name for itself by setting up tutoring centers in suburban shopping malls. Two years ago, it branched out to urban school systems. This year, it is moving into 10 Chicago high schools, including Austin.
The going rate is $225,000 for a program that serves about 150 students for 72 hours each. Leaving nothing to...
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