Dr. David Hopson
As I outlined in the last column, the district is looking forward to setting new “performance indicators” for students. By now, most people are overly familiar with the many arguments, both for and against, high stakes standardized testing such as MCAS. With the significant push from the upper echelons of business leaders and state/national level politicians, many states have revamped educator evaluations to link them with the results of high stakes student tests.
Massachusetts is one of those states and our Commission of Education is chairing one of the national committees designing new standardized assessments to take the place of many states’ versions of MCAS. Despite the efforts of many, and the huge amount of resources, most don’t see the new tests being significantly different, or improved, from the existing assessment tools. As a district that has always valued educating the whole child, having staff support students in their individual needs, and creating a positive and nurturing environment, evaluating the district’s performance on a high stakes, standardized test of only three subjects (English, mathematics, and science) seems to be inconsistent with the district’s goals.
To that end, the state has given us the opportunity to use other measures (i.e., standardized district assessments, observations, etc.) to evaluate educators, although the measure of a school or district’s success will still essentially rest on a standardized, written test. (Of course, the state continues to measure compliance with countless regulations through a variety of measures.) Thus the difficult part is balancing what we want to see our students master (and it appears that this is much more than the 3-R’s) with what the state/federal government requires, and to do so in a fashion that makes sense, provides an accurate measure of student success, is applicable across all staff members rather than just the teachers of English, mathematics, and science, and is fairly easy to understand and explain so that you don’t need a thick manual to decipher the results (as we now have for the new MCAS scoring rubric for schools).
Just as with projects around the house that seem to morph from a simple 15 minute fix to an hours-long project, I see the process of developing appropriate assessments for items like “collaboration” being more difficult than it would first appear. That’s just one of many reasons to get input from as many people as possible in developing and refining what we’ll be using to measure student success as we move forward. While the state has provided some consistent measures using MCAS scores for academic performance, we’ll still need to go beyond standardized, written state tests to measure student success in areas such as the arts, physical education, good citizenship, sports, and many other student activities.
I hope most people recognize that school today is much different from even just a few years ago. I’m told that the work now being done in kindergarten is closer to work that may have been done in second grade many years ago. Of course, that doesn’t even include the proliferation of electronic devices, new ways to interact, and the fact that the knowledge base is expanding ever more rapidly. We’re also in a period of seeming disconnects. At the national level, we’re hearing about ever-stronger efforts to get children prepared to go into 4-year colleges; at the same time, we hear of more college students having huge school debts and being dramatically over-qualified for the only jobs they seem to be able to get after graduation. How we as a country align the many disparities in preparing students for the real world, and continue to recognize that the world of tomorrow is likely to be much more different than we expect, are both likely to be key components of successfully moving forward as a functional society. While we can’t necessary impact events at the national level, we can each have an important impact on the local level, provided we are willing to participate for the good of the whole rather than the immediate needs of the few.
Gateway Education Foundation elects Board of Directors
HUNTINGTON – The Gateway Education Foundation elected its first Board of Directors at its July meeting. Nine individuals were elected to the Board to serve one, two or three year terms to ensure a continuity of experienced members over time. Length of terms was determined by a random drawing at the meeting.
Elected to a one-year term were Christine Bresnahan, Melissa McCaul and Dawne Piers-Gamble. All three are teachers in the Gateway District and are parents of past, current or future students.
Elected to a two-year term were Mike Crochiere, Joe Ryan and Shirley Winer. All three served on the planning committee for the foundation, and Winer is a member of the Gateway Regional School Committee. Ryan is an Investment Advisor for the Wealth Technology Group at United Bank. Winer was also elected president, and Crochiere was elected treasurer of the Board.
Three-year terms went to Jim Kronholm (School Committee member), Peter Langmore (a member of a previous foundation for Gateway) and Wendy Long, the district grant writer who was also elected Clerk of the foundation.
Superintendent David Hopson serves as an Ex Officio member of the Board.
All of the Board members have ties to both the school district and its member communities.
In its first meeting for business, the Board approved additional expenditures from the Robert Shipman Memorial Fund, to benefit the Gateway Performing Arts Center. The Board also formed working groups to set up a fund granting process to support classroom and school projects, to plan several upcoming fundraisers, and to work on membership protocols. More information will be out later this summer on their progress.
To date, the Gateway Education Foundation has raised over $8400 to benefit the classrooms and schools of the Gateway Regional School District.
Anyone wishing to make a tax-deductible donation may send a check made payable to the Gateway Education Foundation to Wendy Long, 12 Littleville Rd., Huntington, MA 01050.
