While the district struggles with the controversy over the superintendent search process, more bad news emerges from the State. Our report card was released and we have again failed to educate 49% of our children. As well, only 36% of our schools are meeting expectations.
Who is responsible for this failure, everyone. Parents, students, teachers, administrators, the superintendent, School Board members, and the community.
Education is a serious business that we are not taking seriously. We concentrate on the business end of education while totally neglecting the research surrounding highly effective educational practices.
As a community, we continue to vote into office those who repeatedly make inefficient and ineffective decisions regarding our system of education. The most inefficient and ineffective decision the Board makes is the superintendent they hire to lead the district. These superintendents have yet to increase the graduation rate much above 50% for more than two decades.
Administrators are responsible for the culture and success of individual schools and yet only 36% of our schools seem to have adequate leadership. And, since it is the responsibility of the administrator to determine teacher competency through evaluation, where does that leave our students?
In all the finger pointing, no one seems to want to hold students accountable for their lack of success. It doesn’t matter if they do their homework or not. It doesn’t matter if they show proficiency at grade level or not. It doesn’t matter if they behave themselves or even pass a test. Students get pushed along at the elementary level until they hit the Seventh grade wall and are no longer passed on.
The most powerful piece in this puzzle, parents, is the least culpable. Being an effective parent is a learned behavior and because we are failing to teach our children how to be successful human beings, we also fail to teach them how to be successful parents. This is the vicious cycle that continues to enslave us to the failure of our system of education.
Accountability at every level is the only way to break the cycle.
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