Measure Your Child’s School On More Than Just Test Scores

[N'Zinga Shani]

An integral part of a school's success in parental involvement and the home environment from which students come.  Even in the worst performing schools there are students (regardless of how few) who are doing well academically.  This is because in those schools there are students whose parents provide a supportive environment and a stable structure that enable their children to thrive and succeed academically. 

Yes, schools need to have in place all the factors that engage, encourage, promote and support the best in children, and schools need committed and dedicated teachers. However, if most children are not in a supportive and stable environment for at least 12 out of the 24 hours in each day they will be less successful.

One of the things all schools can do is to imbue children with a love of learning and the knowledge that -- regardless of their present circumstances -- they can learn and they can succeed.  Of course, that can be accomplished more successfully if the children see successful people around them and in their community. 

The Effect Of Parental Involvement On Academic Achievement http://www.teachthought.com/learning/the-effect-of-parental-involve...

Involvement allows parents to monitor school and classroom activities, and to coordinate their efforts with teachers to encourage acceptable classroom behavior and ensure that the child completes schoolwork.[6] Teachers of students with highly involved parents tend to give greater attention to those students, and they are more likely to identify at earlier stages problems that might inhibit student learning.[7] Parental involvement in school, and positive parent-teacher interactions, have also been found to positively affect teachers’ self-perception and job satisfaction.[8] -

Research shows that students perform better in school if their fathers as well as their mothers are involved, regardless of whether the father lives with the student or not.[9],[10] 

In this OneWorld program students talk about academic success and student responsibility: http://youtu.be/mPlqfo53XeY  Importance of Education in Molding Successful Lives

Grading schools based on test scores is all the rage these days. (CT Mirror)

"But today, with the release of Your School, The Connecticut Mirror is providing a broad collection of additional measures parents can use to judge their child's school. 

Here are a few data categories Your School provides:

• How much experience do teachers have, and how do their salaries compare with those in other districts?
• How many days are teachers absent?
• What is the student-to-counselor ratio?
• How much time do students spend taking art or music courses?
• What's the average class size?
• How often are students disciplined?

The entry for each school shows how it compares to similar schools, as determined by size, socioeconomic factors, and student needs.

The state's accountability system relied solely on test scores for years. In 2012, the state began including high school graduation rates, and state officials hope to further expand the factors on which they measure schools by next school year.

"It's appropriate to try and look at other indicators to get a more complete picture," said Ajit Gopalakrishnan, the leader of the State Department of Education's performance office.

The department plans to ask the U.S. Department of Education in March, as part of its request for a waiver under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, to include additional, non-test-based measures.

Those measures include student access to high-level courses, such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and dual-enrollment college courses.

"We need to get many more of our students exposed to more challenging courses," Gopalakrishnan said, pointing out that participation is what will be measured, not how students do on the course exams.

Another measure will be how many students are chronically absent, and how well the school is doing to bring that rate down. Other measures include how many students go on to enroll in college or other post-secondary programs, how much access students have to art courses, and how students do on physical fitness assessments, already given to students in various grades."

(Read the complete article in the CT Mirror linked here)

http://ctmirror.org/2015/02/27/now-measure-your-childs-school-on-mo...