From my perspective the most dramatic change in educational policy making over the last 5 or so years is the ability for all of us to review and compare student achievement and school performance. This is a fundamental change. We can use real data to understand whether or not our schools are ok, good, or great.
There are differences in opinion about the value of standardized testing. I especially like to talk with experienced teachers about this topic. They consistently tell me the content on the MCAS tests is solid. It provides an accurate indicator of student performance not unlike a doctor checking our health using blood pressure readings and taking blood tests.
I've been asking all members of our school communities to keep themselves informed. Dive in to the data at sites like schoolmatters.com, just4kids.org, or the Boston Globe's educational section.
Go ahead and become a more informed part of our school communities, educate yourself. Go ahead and compare your school to schools across the Commonwealth.
Once you dive in to this information, you will join me in being absolutely convinced that data driven site based decision making is moving Barnstable towards our goal of becoming a truly exemplary district.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Governance Workshop
On October 2nd, we held the first of 4 School Committee sponsored workshops to be focused on significant topics of educational policy. The four topics (with meetings scheduled through out the year) include governance, professional learning communities/high performance teams, technology integration, and safety/security.
For the governance workshop, we invited approximately two dozen members of the school community. Specifically, principals, board members, school council members made up the bulk of the attendees.
Although using microphones and being videotaped certainly did not create an environment that was the most conducive to give and take conversation I do believe some worthwhile feedback was provided.
From my perspective I learned or was reminded of several points.
1. In many industries risk taking and innovation have not been encouraged. Educational management is one of those industries. To improve schools we need to seriously encourage innovation and risk taking in a sustained and honest manner.
2. There is a perception that School Councils have significant limits placed upon their governance role. This is not correct. Under State Law, the only limit directly placed upon School Councils relates to collective bargaining topics. Other than that limitation, School Councils can take their governance role a long way.
3. Although budget constraints and equitable funding formulas remain as a primary concern, the month to month work done by our schools' Boards and Councils is not focused entirely on budgets. Innovation does not need to be viewed just as a big bang revolutionary effort but should be viewed by the incremental evolutionary efforts being made by so many school communities.
We appreciate everyone's efforts and involvement in this workshop.
For the governance workshop, we invited approximately two dozen members of the school community. Specifically, principals, board members, school council members made up the bulk of the attendees.
Although using microphones and being videotaped certainly did not create an environment that was the most conducive to give and take conversation I do believe some worthwhile feedback was provided.
From my perspective I learned or was reminded of several points.
1. In many industries risk taking and innovation have not been encouraged. Educational management is one of those industries. To improve schools we need to seriously encourage innovation and risk taking in a sustained and honest manner.
2. There is a perception that School Councils have significant limits placed upon their governance role. This is not correct. Under State Law, the only limit directly placed upon School Councils relates to collective bargaining topics. Other than that limitation, School Councils can take their governance role a long way.
3. Although budget constraints and equitable funding formulas remain as a primary concern, the month to month work done by our schools' Boards and Councils is not focused entirely on budgets. Innovation does not need to be viewed just as a big bang revolutionary effort but should be viewed by the incremental evolutionary efforts being made by so many school communities.
We appreciate everyone's efforts and involvement in this workshop.
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