Accreditation
April 19th, 2007Is it a bad sign when bad news offers hope?
My school didn’t manage to do as well hoped for on the NEASC assessment.
For background, high schools are accredited with various organizations that guarantee that a diploma from the school actually means something. Being accredited tells colleges that high schools actually taught and delivered a quality education, that we didn’t grant an “A” based on attendance and the number of apples the kids leave on the desk.
We didn’t pass it—in fact fell a notch. We’ve been “on warning” for the last ten years, and now we’re “on probation” for the next two. We have three main areas of concern.
| 1. Instruction | ||
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a. limited strategies employed by teachers to engage students actively in learning b. few opportunities for students to engage in higher order thinking and problem solving c. limited use of feedback from students, parents, and peers to improve instruction d. few opportunities for teachers to collaborate and discuss instructional strategies e. the absence of a formal mentoring program for new teachers f. a teacher evaluation system which is limited in its ability to influence improvement in teaching and learning g. a crowded and tired facility which does not adequately support teaching and learning |
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I think I’ve written about most of these.1 The first two are problems of instruction, and require the third and fourth to be in place. Teachers in the building do what they’ve always done because they don’t see what else than can do. It’s not a lack of will—usually—but a lack of training and growth opportunities. We need to provide more chances to team teach—I’ve learned more by watching fellow teachers instruct their classes than I could have ever guessed.
The formal mentoring system and the poor evaluation model were things I wanted to discuss in more detail later. I think what we expect from department heads needs to radically change. Suffice to say, there’s no way that one visit per year—or even the three or four required by the Danielson model. Department heads should be in the classroom far more than they are—but as partners.
More on that later. For now, this is all relatively easy stuff to solve—we just need to make up our minds to do so.
| 2. School Resources for Learning | ||
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a. an inadequate health office facility which does not include sufficient space, handicapped accessibility, confidentiality and privacy to meet student needs b. a Life Skills facility which does not include adequate handicapped accessible bathroom facilities to meet student needs c. a lack of print and non-print materials in the library/media center communication issues between special education and regular education and the high school and the middle school which compromise the delivery of support services for some students d. the unavailability of a nurse at the high school during lunch periods e. a library which is often unavailable for student use in order to accommodate testing, group presentations, and general meetings |
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This is the point where I can’t help but smirk. None of this is something that anyone in the building has the slightest control over, and it can only be solved with more funding from the community. For as long as I can remember—twenty years—the school has been begging for more funding, and now the district’s only high school will fail accreditation if it doesn’t happen.
The third points are similar
| 3. Community Resources for Learning | ||
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a. lack of funding to continue successful programs, such as Virtual High School, which were originally funded through grants b. a crowded, over-extended and tired facility which does not meet the needs of students and teachers c. excessive sharing of classrooms by teachers which causes loss of instructional time d. inadequate storage space throughout the school e. unsatisfactory air quality f. science classrooms which do not meet OSHA standards and which prevent teachers from fully implementing the science curriculum g. plumbing and electrical concerns in the modular classrooms, laboratories and gymnasium areas h. the presence of two temporary modular facilities which now exceed 15 years in age i. the absence of a plan to fully address significant facility concerns, due to lack of funding by voters, despite the interest on the part of the facilities planning committee to develop such a plan j. lack of funding to support appropriate maintenance, repair and replacement of the infrastructure |
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I think my previous comments hold.
As bleak as this is, I’m pleased that it isn’t us. Oh sure, there are issues with the instruction in the building—if there weren’t, I’d be disappointed. We should be held to high standards, and there are always ways to make us all better. Now we have some focus, some guidelines, and though I don’t like that we successfully hoodwinked the evaluators2, at least we have some identifiable goals that we can push towards accomplishing.
The scary part is what will happen if the public doesn’t care at all. What happens if even this is not enough to get a budget passed that would sufficiently provide for the school? Can a community really let its school district sink that low?
I hope I don’t find out.
2 One of the points we were commended on was “a standardized comprehensive curriculum guide format that clearly outlines connections to the academic expectations.” I can’t say for other departments, but at least for mine, it’s a lie. When we created those documents, we split up as individuals, followed the prescribed format, and wrote down what we did in our classroom which then served as the standard for every other teacher. There’s been no follow-up to see that anyone is actually following the guides, and there’s been no move to common assessment, let alone the common development of material of goals.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Unfortunately, I saw an example of one perspective on the funding crisis as displayed on a bumper sticker just yesterday. I think it has to be one of the most depressing bumper stickers I have ever read in my life. “It takes a school to bankrupt a village.”
When people start seeing schools as valuable, then they will start paying for them. How can we convince people that future jobs/citizens/taxpayers (however you want to spin it) are more valuable when they’re educated?
April 19th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
The merchandise in question leads to a Free State linked website. New Hampshire was picked as the lucky recipient of the Free State project, so we’ve seen an upswing in “no taxes for anything at all.”
April 21st, 2007 at 9:08 am
Sometimes it disgusts me how short sighted people can be. I mean when/if the school isn’t accredited they’ll be up shit creek without a paddle and… look at that there goes the canoe.
They complain about property tax. Well guess what you don’t have a sales tax which added up at the end of the year would be a hefty sum.
The image of scrooge with the ghost comes to mind, you know when he shows him “Ignorance” as the little child.
As far as your first concern about the lacking of a new perspective on teaching. Why not a teacher exchange program. I know I most likely wouldn’t work but hey it would be fun.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
[...] I reported here, my school is in danger of losing its accreditation with the NEASC and most of that is due to [...]
August 4th, 2007 at 11:27 am
[...] I look around at the teachers who are from schools like St. Johnsbury—where the tuition is $30,000 a year—and listen to the way they talk, with the same fear their kids won’t get into college—the same worry that there are only so many places for college and the largest number of graduating students in history coming up.4 That pressure has made the college admissions games only about numbers. There are so many great kids that it no longer matters if there’s a kid with great character but average grades. It becomes reduced to the transcript—a transcript which falls even further in value if the school fails AYP or is not accredited. [...]