“What we saw in spades tonight was that, in order to truly measure the success of our students, we’re going to have to look at the collective impact that our community has on their success as human beings,” Hand said. “Academic achievement is important, but there is so much more to student success than academic achievement.”
Our colleague David Greenburg, and others, recently organized a summit to focus support for better graduation rates in Dona Ana county. The story below covers the various rates, and the intentions and perspectives of various educators.
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Leaders-meet-to-improve-county-graduation-rates.pdf”]
This sounds reasonable, in that success for students is a community undertaking, and involves the whole person.
Hand then goes on to say this below, which sounds a bit like redefining success by lowering the standards of success, a doubtful and expedient view… if that’s what he is actually trying to say:
“As a community, we need to make sure that we are redefining success in a way that is attainable for all students,” Hand said.
Is this initiative different then the Bridge? Perhaps the “success partners” are different? I did not see a list of partners mentioned other then a reference to “it takes a village”.
I was wondering about the role of parents in this initiative. Recently, in Washington State, the teachers were on strike for a week for issues such as increased teacher pay, smaller class size, and more recess for students (social emotional learning??). Surprisingly to me, the parents presented a very strong front in support of the teachers. Considering all the disruption to parents, with finding daycare during the strike, the show of support is interesting. In NM, teacher strikes are illegal, I understand.
I remember going on strike as a teacher in Washington during the 80’s. The issues were similar to the issues today. Perhaps a strong teacher’s union also builds strong parent support for public education in a community.
Good catch Kris…it does sound a lot like the Bridge, which seems to be less prominently in the news since the former gang busters ED left for DC.
Also a good point as to what parents can turn to for support of their educational issues. In some areas there’s the PTA? Not sure if they have political impact on educational issues beyond one school at a time.
Unions fulfill multiple roles, and vary in their effectiveness for each role. In some cases their interests align with the parents, and in some cases they don’t. Perhaps parents need an organization that is fully on their side?
In the meantime unions do organize well around an issue, and in the case of the controversy over “standardized testing” here in LC, they got parents and kids out demonstrating in favor of the union’s position. Not sure if there’s a parental consensus on standardized tests in LC, but there was the appearance of agreement on opposing the tests.