Located in north-central Mississippi, ABC Elementary School is part of the XYZ County School District. While historically recognized for athletic accomplishments, XYZ County Schools have only recently gained recognition for educational accomplishments. ABC Elementary School has contributed to the growth and educational accomplishments of the district.
ABC Elementary’s average enrollment of approximately 500 students serves grades pre-K through 6. The teacher to student ratio is approximately 14:6. Demographic data for 2014-2015 school year indicates 46% female and 54% male; 66% white, 31.3% black, and 2.7% other. With over 67% of school receiving free or reduced lunch, ABC Elementary School is considered a schoolwide Title 1 school.
According to the Mississippi Assessment and Accountability Reporting System, ABC Elementary was considered an underperforming school, not meeting growth during the 2010-2011 school year, raking 100th in the state. During the 2014-2015 schoolyear, ABC’s achievement and growth model indicated significant improvement, ranking 28th in the state on a more rigorous curriculum and assessment.
Over the last few years, the focus on student achievement has produced a sense of urgency with the staff. From the top down, decisions regarding student achievement has become more specific and data driven. In order to drive these changes, assessment data from a variety of sources was gathered and continually analyzed to make important instructional decisions. Universal screener along with district curriculum assessment results were analyzed for student placement. Depending on their level of achievement, the student either received enrichment or remediation of instruction and placement in reading classes ac...
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...ost students are considered low socio-economic status, I would be certain to do as ABC did and provide training to teachers for understanding students who come from poverty. This training would do so much to help middle class teachers understand just where their impoverished students are coming from.
There is no one prescription to be applied when planning improvement for schools, only steps that should be taken. Improvement must be specifically tailored to the needs and resources of the school. Effective improvement incorporates many facets from a variety sources that are adjusted to meet the need of that particular school. Effective improvement plans are created and implemented with the hopes that once the goals are met and achievement and growth are accomplished, that it is also sustained. Effective improvement is designed to do just that…improve schools.
America’s children have found increasing difficulty with school. The curriculum in schools is claiming to be harder in higher levels, but the lack of focus and direction in the younger grades has made for decreased grade levels and lower mastery in several basic areas such as math, writing, and reading skills. Standardized test scores are at an all time low, as increasing amounts of children progress through the educational system having not at...
Thornton Fractional South High School represents a diverse school building in the South Suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We consist of a traditional 9th through 12th grade building with the exception of busing students to the District 215 Tech Center for vocational classes. We share these resources with our sister school TF North. Although we consistently outperform TFN, we are behind the state averages on both the ACT and the PSAE. On the ACT, we are below the state average on the composite score as well as on all three recorded sub-categories. We were closest to the state average in Science and the furthest in Reading. As for the PSAE test to measure those students meeting and exceeding standards, we are again behind the state average. TFS averaged 40.5% of students tested to meet or exceed standards. Meanwhile, the State of Illinois average was 53%. Currently, we are on the Academic Watch Status year 2. We were unable to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) or the Safe Harbor Target Goal for Reading and Mathematics which are the two target areas. Our goal as a school is to reach the AYP and attempt to reach and exceed the state averages on the ACT and PSAE.
Dragnea, C. (2008). The Effectiveness of Africentric (Black-Focused) Schools in Closing Student Success and Achievement Gap. Toronto: Toronto District School Board.
The running record assignment provided me with insight on how to effectively assess a student, analyzing and interpret data and consider strategies to address areas of need and/or strengths. The process of giving this assessment has allowed me to better understand and appreciate running records. I understand the value of using an assessment that evaluates a student’s reading ability. The data is vital information that influences instruction and planning.
The United States is a country known for its diversity; so when it comes to the diverse classrooms of today many would not think there would be an issue. However, many schools face a multitude of problems that affect pupil’s education. Roughly twenty-seven percent of Hispanic, Latino, and African-American students in the state of Louisiana fall within the poverty level and unfortunately do not obtain a decent quality education. In addition, only seventy-four percent of those Louisiana students go on to graduate high school (Spotlight on Poverty, 2015). The core portion of the issue concerning poverty in relation to education is due to the economy, work availability, and
Since 1995, enrollments in the urban public school system have doubled up to 62 percent in the 2010-2011 school year. Still, they received less money.
What is a school? “A school is a place where instruction is given, to individuals under college age or of college age (21 +).” (School, 2014). Who are teachers, teachers are leaders of their own individual classroom whom acquire knowledge from an institute to teach. Who are students, students are individuals who attend a school to obtain knowledge of the world surrounding them enhancing themselves of basic skills such as reading, mathematics, science, and history. So what is a School Improvement Plan? A School Improvement Plan is a plan for schools to ensure that their students are achieving, whether that being supplementary activities, additional minority in upper level courses, or even accessing more parental involvement to overall provide for better schooling.
Current interests in reducing high dropout rates and closing the achievement gap across many United States high schools have resulted in a major education reform. According to Durden (2008), with the passing of the No Child Left Behind legislation in 2002, national officials authorized the Comprehensive School Reform program to support low performing schools as they struggled to improve student achievement. As a result, a wide range of approaches have been considered to help solve this nation-wide concern. Durden (2008) discussed as a result of this national effort, an increase in implementation of comprehensive school reforms is occurring in schools serving predominantly diverse student populations in urban areas. Kemple et al., (2006) stated that while many different targeted programs and comprehensive reform strategies have been proposed as strategies to counter these problems, small learning communities (SLCs) or freshman academies have been incorporated. . Freshman academies or small learning communities (SLCs) are defined as small self-contained groups of students who take classes together from interdisciplinary teacher teams. (SLCs) have emerged as among the most common and potentially effective response. With the incorporation of small learning communities (SLCs) or freshman academies, there are other areas of importance needing change in addressing the problems of high dropout rates and the achievement gap. Important areas in need of change includes how we assess our students, preparation of America’s teachers, and development of appropriate curricular materials, policies, and practices for diverse students.
[The school where I teach is the only high school within a city school district that is located within the confines of a larger metropolitan area. The school receives Title 1 funding, with 56 % of the students being eligible for free or reduced lunches. This high school offers a variety of degree programs and coursework, such as, advanced placement coursework and exams, international baccalaureate and culinary arts certification, technical and college prep diplomas, one of the largest Air Force ROTC programs in the area, and alternative programs through which students have the ability to earn credit for the courses that they had previously failed. This school is very diverse, of the 2,291 students 46.0% are African American, 30.0% are Hispanic, 18.0% are White, 3.0% are Multiracial, and 2.0% are Asian. The area surrounding the school is just as diverse as the students that attend the school. A majority of the homes within this school district are single-family homes and can range from small-scale mansions to unmaintained older homes. There are also a large number of apartment complexes and condos in the area as well. A portion of the student population comes from outside of the district in order to participate in the high school’s international baccal...
Throughout the nation, education inequality affects many minority students that have low-income which reinforces the disparity between the rich and the poor. The amount of children that have a socioeconomic background of poverty in the United States is estimated to be 32.4 million (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2011). Since many of these children are from
Salazar Elementary school is home to 388 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Salazar Elementary has a diverse population of families which consists of the majority...
The CIP plan is separated into specific sections, and the AIT team reviews and the CIP plan to determine PD topics. The purpose of this Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) is to communicate the goals, strategies, and actions a school is taking to improve academic achievement and school climate. The plan is written to inform a variety of stakeholder audiences including, district and school leadership, family and community members, state and federal education agencies. The intention of the school’s CIP is to show progress on the level of teaching and learning of the students in the school. The school’s CIP provides an outline for examining instructional concerns in the school that has not made adequate progress in student’s achievement. Consequently, the school’s continuous improvement plan emphasizes the achievement in the core academic subjects and the strategies used to teach them, followed by professional developments to ensure that students are accomplishing
The School Enrichment Model’s identification process can be used as evidence in relation to this particular criteria. Students in this program are identified “through a variety of measures including: achievement tests, teacher
Jacobs, H. H. (1997). Mapping the big picture: Integrating curriculum and assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
When all stakeholders share similar core values and agree on the aims of education, reform efforts stand a better chance for success. Knowledge, skills, critical thinking, and citizenship are core values found at the heart of my beliefs for education. I also believe it is the aim of education to prepare students as contributing members of society. In schools where core values and education aims are revisited due to reform implementation, strategies are identified along with a plan for implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The federal government, state, districts, school leadership, teachers, students and parents all have significant responsibilities to make reform efforts a success.