Greater Opportunities for All Students
Once students master basic skills, they have many opportunities to advance their education in Montgomery County. The next step is to improve access to all those opportunities so that more students may participate and achieve at high levels. All students should have the ability to move into accelerated courses and programs as they become developmentally and academically prepared. MCPS should use smaller class sizes, reading initiatives, middle school reform, and other programs to help all students prepare for accelerated and enriched instruction when and how they are most able to benefit from it.
Increasing the Number of Students Graduating from High School
Today, a high school education is just the beginning. To lead productive, quality lives, children must not only graduate from high school but be prepared to pursue post-secondary education. That makes it all the more alarming that each year many students do not graduate. We need to redouble our efforts to engage students and, when necessary, construct new pathways for completing high school.
Academic Performance in High School
We must be more attuned to two alarming trends that affect graduation rates. One is the increase in the number of high school students who have less than a 2.0 average grade (GPA). Students with less than a 2.0 are not learning the content and are also academically ineligible to participate in many extra-curricular activities such as sports, drama, and other valuable enrichments. In fourteen high schools last year, the percentage of ninth-grade students who were ineligible ranged from almost one-third to almost one-half (30 to 47.7 percent) by the end of the third quarter. Ineligibility rates are highest among minority students. The second trend is poor attendance in classes that can lead to loss of credit. National research shows that failure in one or more classes in ninth grade is a strong indicator of dropout risk. We must increase our energies to reverse these trends.
Reaching More Families
All parents want their children to have a quality education. Schools should better capitalize on this natural alliance. We need to address barriers to family involvement relating to cultural beliefs, language, personal experiences with schools, work, and family commitments with more diverse communication methods and by teaching parents how to seek the help their children need.
Diversity in Action
Embracing diversity and celebrating the rich cultural heritage of students and their families, teachers, and staff helps prepare our children for life in a global community. The informal education children receive from being in a school with peers of different backgrounds can be just as instructive as the formal curriculum, and we in Montgomery County are fortunate to be able to offer our children a more richly diverse community than anyone imagined twenty years ago. Our goal must be to instill in students an ability to feel comfortable with difference so that they can be successful in a diverse world.
Health and Developmental Support
Early education about nutrition and exercise helps children lead healthy lives into adulthood. Broadly speaking, however, “health” encompasses a greater range of issues than is normally taught in nutrition and exercise programs. We must go beyond these traditional topics and take into account the commercial and social messages influencing children today and begin to facilitate discussion of such issues as depression, bullying, and disabilities. Counselors need to be able to develop relationships with students and outreach coordinators must be charged with engaging all members of the community to create supportive communities.
Support of Teachers
Teachers are being asked to do something they were never asked to do before: educate all students to high levels. These new demands mean teaching is becoming one of the exciting professions in the country, but also stressful in the way any pioneer profession is stressful. We must ensure that our teachers are not asked simply to do more but that they are helped to be more effective. In part this means using technology and analysis to increase teachers’ efficacy, not their workload. We must also ensure that our teachers have access to the best expertise there is in how to help all students learn to high levels. Moreover, we need to be careful to not needlessly rush implementation of new initiatives but allow sufficient time to review the goals of any new programs to prepare for the best implementation.