VantagePoint

It’s time to focus on student achievement

For most of us, the school year is about to begin. Last year’s test scores are ready for analysis, and plans for the new year have been developed. Many newspapers and civic organizations are planning stories or events with a back-to-school theme. School board members and administrators, please offer to speak at service club meetings and back-to-school nights to emphasize our commitment to student achievement and stress the need for adequate funding to ensure that we can offer the education our communities want for their children.

You can also pen op-ed pieces and letters to the editor for your local newspaper celebrating the achievement of your students and announcing improvements made for the coming year. Go to the National School Boards Association’s www.centerforpubliceducation.org to complement your testimonials to local students’ successes with the accomplishments of public schools all across America. I also recommend that you schedule speaking engagements and writing campaigns during American Education Week Nov. 11-17.

It doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves and our colleagues of these successes, too. Every board meeting should include a demonstration of student learning. Our actions and policies should be directed at improving achievement for all students and closing the achievement gap. Student achievement is the focus of CSBA’s Professional Governance Standards; you can give yourself a refresher course in those at www.csba.org/pgs/default.cfm.

Student achievement was also the focus again this year of CSBA’s Curriculum Institute in Monterey. The importance of high-quality professional development in improving student achievement was stressed by Ellen Moir, executive director of the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Christopher Maricle, senior consultant at CSBA’s own Governance Institute.

Alice Parker, director of Strategic Educational Services for Sopris West Educational Services and a nationally renowned expert in special education, asked institute participants to consider what would happen if we focused our school reform efforts on the needs of students at risk. Dr. Parker presented a systemic approach to Response to Intervention. California has adopted this approach to comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. More information can be found in our IDEA Issues Brief at www.csba.org/gr/idea.pdf.

While board members do not write curriculum or deliver instruction, we do set policies and allocate resources. We need to be able to ask the right questions so we can have in place the personnel, structures and programs that support student learning. CSBA offers services that can assist boards in formulating questions and setting priorities. Governance teams whose districts are in Program Improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind Act face special challenges; fortunately, CSBA’s focus group on NCLB is examining how we can best provide the services we make available to them. Contact Dan Walden at dwalden@csba.org for more information.

Let us all pledge to engage our communities in our efforts to improve the achievement of our students. Have a great 2007-08 school year!