Sunday, April 15, 2012

As a parent, are you happy with the recent NewsJournal reports?

The week before Spring Break, there were a series of articles in the News Journal about education reform in our state.  I also attended the Thursday night panel discussion at the University of DE that was a part of that series as well.

I'd really like to hear from other parents on this one, as I felt like the articles and the panel discussion were NOTHING NEW.  There was no forward-thinking, aggressive plans for change.  It was just more of the same, only packaged slightly differently, but the content wasn't moving the bar for all students.

And here are a couple of points that really concerned me:

1.)  IF all public schools had the type of parent engagement and support that Charter Schools have .... well, we wouldn't need charter schools because the landscape and results of public schools would be so different and the bar would be set higher for ALL --- not just a select few.

2.) Charter schools cater to the top and/or the bottom.  Either financially, academically or socio-economically, they have a different playing field from public schools.  They don't serve the middle and they don't service a broad spectrum of different student needs and concerns like public schools.  Therefore they are very niche-oriented and thus can develop very specific and measurable results.  Public schools have to serve every student that walks through their doors, regardless!  Comparing charter schools and standard public schools are not apples-to-apples.

3.)  Similar to students, families come in a variety of shapes, sizes and backgrounds.  The examples given by the panel of the parent were specific to Title 1 funding and its requirements.  Again not a clear picture of the full spectrum of what it means to successfully execute "family engagement".  Parents make the difference in "moving the bar higher" as it is typically our passion and our outside perspective that demands more of our administrators, our teachers in the classrooms and the academic curriculum being set.  The internal, educational jargon doesn't move us -- the dynamics of a school building, constant inviting atmosphere of a school and the classrooms along with specific results in our students' school work home, the activities in the school building and the ease of 2-way communication that shows RESULTS are what parents measure.

Many of us who attended the Thursday discussion thought there was going to be more focus on RttT results from the first year and a half.  Nothing of the sort.  RttT wasn't even mentioned nor was the testing assessment "fiasco" that we are currently experiencing.  DCAS for now until the $25 million from RttT runs out and then they are already talking about moving to Smarter Balanced Assessment.  No wonder parents are cynical when it comes to testing assessment of any kind in this state!  How do I know as a parent that my children are getting a proper education??  We're not even sure what our educational leaders are even measuring with their testing and WHY?

We as parents need more direct and basic information from our school buildings and our districts as to what is going on NOW and on-going developments. Families with students in high school can't wait two to four years more for curriculum and testing assessment enhancements to be fully implemented before they "engage" families.  We need to be a part of the conversation at the table NOW while it's being developed.  And those of us who are able to lend more time because we are more financially stable in these rough times, need to find ways to get the parent voice heard for ALL -- loud and strong because I'm not sure if the educational system will be able to do it without us based on these recent news pieces.

So that was my take after a week or so of review....what was yours?  Really like to have a strong discussion here if we can.  So not holding back please.