|
 |
School leaders pitch reform ideas
|
| By: ADAM NORTHAM, DAILY LEADER Staff Writer |
October 16, 2009 |
|
 |
Photo By ADAM NORTHAM
District 92 Rep. Becky Currie (from left) discusses education reforms Thursday with Brookhaven School District Superintendent Lea Barrett, South Pike School District Superintendent Dr. Bill Gunnell, Lincoln County School District Superintendent Terry Brister and Mississippi Association of School Superintendents Executive Director Dr. Sam Bounds. MASS is working with the Legislature to eliminate state testing, offer differentiating diplomas and fully fund education in 2010.
|
The elimination of state testing is just one of a handful of education reforms supported by superintendents statewide for the 2010 legislative session, and the administrators say they have enough backing in the House and Senate to draft legislation next year.
|
Southwest Mississippi members of the Mississippi Association of School Superintendents met with a handful of regional legislators Thursday morning at Rusty's to discuss a legislative agenda that, if approved, would see the end of high-stakes testing, a shortened school calendar year and a shift in education emphasis that would allow students multiple graduation options - or exit points - more in the spirit of a community college.
Brookhaven's Dr. Sam Bounds, executive director of MASS, said the targeted education reforms were created with feedback from teachers and school administrators and would improve education, save money and improve teacher pay and retention.
"I've talked to several senators and representatives, and we have a commitment from several to draft legislation and get these things done," he said.
One of the major priorities MASS is urging in education reform is the establishment of differentiated diplomas, which would allow high school students multiple options for graduation beyond academic diplomas. The shift would create multiple curriculum and career training choices for students, like in a college setting.
Bounds said the current diploma requirement is forcing college readiness on students when not all students are college bound, and those standards are resulting in high dropout rates. He pointed out the current system forces students into courses with ever-increasing difficulty when many of those classes, like Algebra II, will never be used in many students' professional lives.
"I do not believe Mississippi has a dropout problem, I believe we have a push-out problem," he said. "Mississippi is getting slammed because we only have one exit point for high school seniors. We are forcing our kids to jump a bar that says, 'You must be ready for college.' We need to be preparing our kids for life."
North Pike School District Superintendent Dr. Ben Cox said the goal of differentiating diplomas would be perceived as lowering academic standards, but he countered that requiring non-college-bound students to advance into such rigorous academic courses has already lowered the standards of the courses, not the students.
"If this system stays in place, we will have students who make a D in Algebra and Geometry who are forced to take advanced math, because they can't go backward," he said. "When we require every student to take Geometry, that lowers our standard for Geometry. Most people don't need Geometry after school."
Bounds pointed out that Georgia offers six different diplomas; North Carolina offers one diploma and three "outs," or graduation alternatives; and Arkansas and Tennessee offer three outs each. All four southern states outrank Mississippi nationally in education.
Just as having only one diploma limits students' options, so does the requirement of high-stakes testing.
Bounds said the rigorous annual state testing mandated under the federal No Child Left Behind laws are an inadequate measuring stick for success in education, and abolishing those and other standardized tests would allow teachers more time for traditional teaching, as well as saving money in education.
Bounds proposed that Mississippi follow the example set by Alabama, which recently discontinued high school graduation examinations and replaced them with specific end-of-course tests. The Alabama Board of Education also required all high school juniors to take the ACT college entrance exam.
"How are you going to fatten the hog if you're constantly weighing him?" Bounds alluded. "We've got to give our teachers a chance to be successful if we're going to teach these kids."
Bounds said the preparation and issuance of state tests require 23 of the school year's 180 days, and cost between $16-$20 million annually.
Without mandatory state testing, the school year could be shortened to 165-170 days, he said, with spare days being halved between professional development and training and extra holidays for teachers, which the association hopes will help improve teacher retention. Mississippi still has a problem with losing qualified teachers to other states, he said.
Local superintendents who weighed in on the discussion were united behind the abolishment of high-stakes testing and a shortened school year.
"It's not proven that the number of days accomplishes anything - it has no correlation," said Lincoln County School District Superintendent Terry Brister, a member of the MASS board of directors.
Franklin County School District Superintendent Dr. Grady Fleming said state tests are basically meaningless to those who take them, as the results can't be applied to the students.
"We spend all this time on tests, but we don't get the results until the middle of the summer and then it's too late to do anything with the data," he complained.
MASS' legislative agenda also insists upon other, less-sweeping changes.
Its top priority is the full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the primary funding method for school districts. The group is also requesting the program be spared from potential cuts to the state budget.
Bounds said 20 to 27 school districts could face closure if more cuts are enacted.
"MAEP is the lifeblood of education in Mississippi," he said. "When MAEP is cut, the districts that need it the most are the ones that suffer the worst."
MASS also wants to change the wording in mandatory publications of tax increase to eliminate confusion when districts are not requesting increased millage, restoration of funding to the state building and teacher supply funds, recalculating MAEP based on enrollment rather than average daily attendance and providing state funding for pre-kindergarten programs, pending economic recovery.
|
|
©The Daily Leader 2009
|
|
|
