Our View: There are hopeful signs about the latest school
improvement plan but lingering doubts about execution
It’s rather like a rugby scrum.
Imagine trying to “move the pile” in public education – powerful forces for change against powerful resistance.
In the middle of the scrum are our children and, ultimately, the future of America. The outcomes are serious business.
In the Gilroy Unified School District, the strategy to make progress – to improve the product delivered by the schools to the society they serve – has recently been issued in the first Accountability Task Force report to the community.
Every parent should receive a copy sent home with their child by GUSD.
In many ways it’s a bold document and represents a brave-new-world approach: transparency in education. In many ways it’s the same-old, same-old: passionate platitudes tossed about without specific recommendations on how to achieve lofty, wonderful-sounding goals.
In five years, will the first Accountability Task Force report simply be another in a long line of documents to find a dusty shelf in the district office, or will it become a driving force for change, for true accountability and a testament to measurably improved classroom results?
There are some hopeful signs:
– Teachers are being recognized for ground-breaking work – and this is key, with measurable results – at board meetings. Though that seems rudimentary, it’s an exciting breakthrough. Celebrating teacher success sends positive waves through the district. Other teachers can learn from their experience, a drive to improve is established and there is recognition. Everyone who has a child in school is clear on one axiom: Improvement is all about the classroom experience. Parental support is necessary, too, but without good teaching, the likelihood of success is quickly depleted.
– Information is flowing from the Gilroy Unified School District like never before. The good, bad and the ugly are there for the asking. Our math scores are horrendous, and everyone is clear on the problem. That’s a huge first step.
– The school board is taking common sense steps. The latest and most significant: the unanimous vote that made it clear that a high school diploma must be earned by passing the state exit exam. Those who don’t cannot walk on stage for graduation. It’s an example of a clear message that hasn’t been a hallmark of GUSD.
There are also causes for concern with the accountability movement:
– Timelines for goals and clear direction on how those goals will be met are, for the most part, absent. The road map to success needs far more detail. That detail must be filled in and made available to the public. Quarterly reports to the community are an essential part of the program.
– Constant communication is a mindset that must continue to be developed. The Accountability Report must turn into the Accountability System, a way of doing business that not only has to be gospel within the district and its employees, but within the community.
– Is the process that took years to complete a first report to the community, one that can deliver and sustain a sense of critical urgency? Every day that slips by is a day lost on a child’s education, and the sense of urgency created thus far by the accountability process has not been palpable.
Lastly, and perhaps most critically, is an open question: Will the teachers union insist on taking an obstructionist stance in relation to accountability and progress? With accountability comes pressure to succeed, higher expectations, a commitment to learning new methods and collaboration.
For an accountability system to take root and succeed, the circle will have to include the entire community. But at the heart of that circle are the teachers and their willingness to change, grow, risk and take responsibility for what happens in their classrooms.
