District Administration - April 2006 - (Page 54)

NCLB SPECIAL REPORT i ng as a team, the teachers here Minter recalls. She said that this took more collective responsibility school was about to be taken over and The Rural Dilemma and they felt like their load was asked me to turn the school around. W hen The Dodson Mont. lightened. Everybody is invested and T hat turnaround was a task made School District which consists aiming for a goal. more challenging by the large size of a single K-12 school of 100 At weekly meetings with Minter, of the school 820 mostly African- students, 80 percent of whom each grade-level team brings the latest A mer ica n or Hispanic students and are Native American received assessment data on student perfor- by the pervasive poverty surround- low 8th grade reading scores on ma nce. We have to bare our souls i ng it. That school is in a very poor the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, with each other, says Minter. We community. Even the trees are dead, Superintendent Rod Simpson all talk about what made a group of says Ben Feldman the accountability started a campaign befitting a children understand the `main idea' in officer for the Baltimore City Schools. much larger school. one class. Then they'll all observe that But the Paca has become the Holy W hat followed in this rural teacher, learn from her, and maybe Grail of schools trying to make AYP. Montana district was an $8,000 have her come into their classrooms. Feldman notes that 52 percent of all investment in new books to T he same approach applies to Baltimore schools are still in Needs update the school's library. Paca's students. Let's say I have a Improvement. The librarian also began offer- model class doing a terrific job of It was not the best place to be, ing classes for older children, talking about books, Minter explains. agrees Minter. There was a dismal as well as reading aloud to the Children from other classes will go climate. She recalls blackened ceil- younger ones. into that room to see other `student i ng tiles indicative of poor ventila- English classes required more experts' model book talk. There's no t ion and stained carpets. But the book reports. There were drills limit to our human resources. As the heavy lifting came with changing on negotiating multiple-choice student target percentages get higher the human landscape. When folks questions on reading compre- and higher, we need to work smart. walked in the door, they needed to hension tests. The school wrote In 2004-05, the percentage of all know that change had taken place. a Reading First grant. A news- Paca students who achieved reading It had to smack them in the face, let ter to parents reinforced the proficiency on the Maryland School Minter says. ways parents could supervise Assessment had jumped to 63 from She required uniforms color- reading at home. 31.4 two years earlier. Math percent- coded by grade level so she and other We didn't just want stu- ages increased even more dramati- Paca staff could tell where the stu- dents to pass the test, Simpson ca lly, to 65.5 from 24.4. dent s belonged as well as a change in emphasizes. We wanted high- Neit her has Minter feared to teacher attitudes. We were not going achieving learning. Dodson's immerse most of Paca's special educa- to accept `It's the children's fault,' students did not disappoint, and t ion students in regular classrooms. says Minter. They had to know that 75% of the next year's 8th grade More recently, she started an after- these students had the ability to learn. class achieved proficiency in school program aimed at helping They would blame the children and reading all because two addi- Spanish-speaking ESL students better their parents. So I had to transform tional students met the standard. integrate into the school's English the culture the beliefs, the expecta- If you have a class with curriculum. And the test results tions, and the habits. just a few kids and two score argue that Minter is onto something. Minter also replaced a dozen of lower, that will skew the AYP In reading, 73.3 percent of the the school's 78 teachers. Those that results, Simpson observes. It's Hispanic students reached profi- could not be a part of the vision left, a problem with smaller schools. cienc y on the 2005 MSA compared she says. I didn't have to ask. So And it's one of the problems to 25 percent a year earlier. Over the there are no weak links on our team. that the National Rural Educa- past two years, the percentages of Tea m has become the catch- tion Association underscored in special ed students meeting standard word and overarching theme at a 2004 position paper on NCLB. in reading have risen to 63 from 8.1. Paca. I don't think it's about pro- The NREA also pointed to the In math, the percentages of special ed g ra m s. It's about getting teachers difficulty of getting highly quali- students increased to 66 compared more concerned about students' fied teachers to relocate to rural to 8.1. learning, Minter insists. The big- areas and the deficit in per pupil In fact, Paca's newfound academic gest thing I did was to create profes- funding many rural schools face. success has made Minter concerned siona l learning communities. Work- 54 April 2006 District Administration backfrombrinkNEW.w.indd 54 3/20/06 10:53:49 AM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - April 2006

Contents
Editor's Letter
Letters
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Measuring Value
Budget Talk
Underfunded
Are Your Schools Competitive?
Back from the Brink
Rigorous Expectations
Getting Connected
How to Get Your Bond Passed
The Online Edge/Odvard Egil Dyrli
Speaking Out/Gary Stager
Research Corner
Problem/Solution
Leadership Books
New Products
By the Numbers

District Administration - April 2006