Billings Public Schools has been going through a worthwhile strategic planning exercise for almost a year now. School districts do need something like a "5 year plan" that helps everyone involved with the school district focus energy and funds towards worthwhile goals.
There was a work session held tonight to let the school district administration to present general goal areas to the school board. Academic Achievement was one of the areas discussed and this is the area I am most interested in.
From my perspective, there is a lack of equity in academics within the elementary schools. Students have a better chance of getting a good education if they attend Arrowhead Elementary, than they do if they attend Beartooth Elementary, which has a higher proportion of students from low income families. I think it is reasonable for parents to expect that their children will get the education they are capable of earning, regardless of what elementary school their children are assigned to in the school district.
Unfortunately, how good of education my children will get from Billings Public Schools depends on which elementary school they attend. The educational model used in Title 1 schools holds average to good students back, because the staff of the school are directed to focus on students far below grade level. Nor to principals want students far behind to feel bad about being far behind. The result is one of my children falling below grade level after spending 7 years in a Title 1 elementary school.
I feel bad for 3-6 grade teachers that are given a group of students with a large range in ability and are expected to give them all a good education. This is simply not possible under the model mandated on them. Requiring students to do homework at home is frowned upon. Teachers are not allowed to give grades to students based on academic achievement, but instead to "encourage" students.
I know if the teachers of one of my children given her the grades she has earned based on academics, we would have met with her teachers and develop a plan to get her above grade level. But this didn't happen, likely because we would quickly realize that the leadership of the school didn't want students progressing as their ability allows. That will make the low effort students feel bad about themselves.
Thanks to the NCLB act, standardized test scores helped me figure out that there is a huge academic problem in my children's Title 1 elementary school. We put our trust in an elementary school to educate our children to at least grade level (if not higher), but we were betrayed.
Let's go back to the school board meeting tonight. The serious issue I discovered in my children's elementary school was not even listed as a goal under "Academic Achievement" header. None of the areas they are trying to address would have impacted my daughter in any significant way.
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