Editorial: The head In The Sand Approach to School Improvement
Felton Williams & Jon Meyer: The Head in the Sand Approach to School Improvement
In September 2006, the Long Beach school district learned that the amount of schools identified as “failing” by federal standards went from 10 to 17. This is a troubling indicator of the effectiveness of the Long Beach leadership. Instead of addressing this issue in public, however, the Superintendent did not even inform the school board members of this 70% increase in “Program Improvement” schools. The school board members found out from the Press-Telegram and then later from a staff person at the September 26th school board meeting.
School board members Michael Ellis and David Barton proposed a first-of-its-kind community forum involving parents, teachers and administrators for December 9th to look at the causes of these federally-designated failures and possible alternatives and solutions. Instead of embracing these ideas, the “old-guard” school board maintained their positions as obstacles to reform and voted against the community forum while praising the successes of our schools as measured by other indicators. And while our schools and their hard-working teachers and dedicated parents do deserve praise, we should be able to look for solutions where our problems are too obvious to ignore. |
m
