Welcome to EDL 522. I hope you have a good experience during this class and you learn a little bit about the principalship and how imperative it is for you, as a principal, is to hire effective, competent teachers.
One topic in particular that I found interesting was our conversation about how schools determine their graduation rates. I had always just assumed that all schools simply divided incoming freshman by graduating seniors during a four year period. I was kind of blown away that some districts determine this rate using a longer period of time. I suppose it is most important to just have children successfully graduating regardless of how long it takes. However, uneven statistical practices like this really make for skewed data which then becomes unclear to the public. This inconsistency is definitely a good reminder that simply reading data is not enough. One really needs to investigate it.
I am surprised that increasing teacher pay for new teachers does not have a correlation to increased student achievement. It seems to me that if a school had higher pay for teachers at the beginning of their careers they would be able to attract better teachers.
When we began to identify the data on the IIRC, I thought it was interesting to note that the correlation between low income and high achieving schools in the state of Illinois wasn't dependent on the amount of money a district had. It is good to see that some of the poorer districts are excelling. These districts are where it is most important that high achievement is taking place.
Yesterday was an interesting class due to your stories that correlated with topics that will be the focus of 522.
I personally enjoyed the discussion about the unions b/c I am currently part of the negotiations committee with our upcoming contract after the 09-10 school year. We have a very weak union, and I always love to hear storied that demonstrate the power of a union, and the flaws of ours.
The highly qualified discussion hits at home for me b/c we are now a self-contained building (5-6) after being departamentalized for years. We have looked at numerous options to stay departamentalized, but that woudl require getting rid of a handful of teachers. We currently have 10 regular education teachers and 3 special education teachers. Only 3 of our staff would be able to stay on board if we went back to the old way.
When it comes to personnel issues, I always find it interesting to think of the possibilities of our building and the impact it would have on the kids.
Professor Lloyd Kilmer stressed in his summer 505 course the importance of data collection, citing many works of Doug Reeves. One of my elementary schools is very far along in the RtI process and makes frequent use of data collection, so its importance and use is clear to me. I wondered if this point would be emphasized in other EDL classes. I see already that data collection matters in 522.
While being in the educational leadership program were are always hearing about responsibilities that we are going to have to embrace to be successful. Occasionally, there are topics brought up that I never would have that about. Today was definitely one of those days. I had never really considered just how much time would have to be spent on observing teachers that are not tenured. I don't think I ever would have considered actually creating a schedule to make sure I got to all necessary teachers without being rushed. It kind of makes me wonder about all the other wise little tricks of being an organized administrator I never would think of.
I have enjoyed this class so far because you have brought up the fact that there is no black and white and that you may not always get it right. Being from a small community it has been interesting to here about some of the problems that the urban school districts face.
When thinking about merging two elementary schools and putting it all together on a future wheel really gave me a new perspective into school mergers. It was surprising how many major areas there were to consider and how many critical issues that were spin offs of the major areas. I have been involved in three situations where one elementary building was closed and absorbed into another but I viewed it from the eyes of a parent, a community member, and a teacher.I never realized how much the administration and board members had to consider when making the decisions.
10 comments:
One topic in particular that I found interesting was our conversation about how schools determine their graduation rates. I had always just assumed that all schools simply divided incoming freshman by graduating seniors during a four year period. I was kind of blown away that some districts determine this rate using a longer period of time. I suppose it is most important to just have children successfully graduating regardless of how long it takes. However, uneven statistical practices like this really make for skewed data which then becomes unclear to the public. This inconsistency is definitely a good reminder that simply reading data is not enough. One really needs to investigate it.
I am surprised that increasing teacher pay for new teachers does not have a correlation to increased student achievement. It seems to me that if a school had higher pay for teachers at the beginning of their careers they would be able to attract better teachers.
When we began to identify the data on the IIRC, I thought it was interesting to note that the correlation between low income and high achieving schools in the state of Illinois wasn't dependent on the amount of money a district had. It is good to see that some of the poorer districts are excelling. These districts are where it is most important that high achievement is taking place.
Yesterday was an interesting class due to your stories that correlated with topics that will be the focus of 522.
I personally enjoyed the discussion about the unions b/c I am currently part of the negotiations committee with our upcoming contract after the 09-10 school year. We have a very weak union, and I always love to hear storied that demonstrate the power of a union, and the flaws of ours.
The highly qualified discussion hits at home for me b/c we are now a self-contained building (5-6) after being departamentalized for years. We have looked at numerous options to stay departamentalized, but that woudl require getting rid of a handful of teachers. We currently have 10 regular education teachers and 3 special education teachers. Only 3 of our staff would be able to stay on board if we went back to the old way.
When it comes to personnel issues, I always find it interesting to think of the possibilities of our building and the impact it would have on the kids.
Professor Lloyd Kilmer stressed in his summer 505 course the importance of data collection, citing many works of Doug Reeves. One of my elementary schools is very far along in the RtI process and makes frequent use of data collection, so its importance and use is clear to me. I wondered if this point would be emphasized in other EDL classes. I see already that data collection matters in 522.
While being in the educational leadership program were are always hearing about responsibilities that we are going to have to embrace to be successful. Occasionally, there are topics brought up that I never would have that about. Today was definitely one of those days. I had never really considered just how much time would have to be spent on observing teachers that are not tenured. I don't think I ever would have considered actually creating a schedule to make sure I got to all necessary teachers without being rushed. It kind of makes me wonder about all the other wise little tricks of being an organized administrator I never would think of.
I have enjoyed this class so far because you have brought up the fact that there is no black and white and that you may not always get it right. Being from a small community it has been interesting to here about some of the problems that the urban school districts face.
When thinking about merging two elementary schools and putting it all together on a future wheel really gave me a new perspective into school mergers. It was surprising how many major areas there were to consider and how many critical issues that were spin offs of the major areas. I have been involved in three situations where one elementary building was closed and absorbed into another but I viewed it from the eyes of a parent, a community member, and a teacher.I never realized how much the administration and board members had to consider when making the decisions.
Post a Comment