Program Improvement

Program Improvement (PI) is when the state comes into the school district to mandate changes. I spent all day today with state representatives going over all the downfalls of my school. It was stressful and disheartening. We needed to have, say, 1800 students pass the test, but missed our goal by fewer than ten students.

We were assessed as a district on all schools, all levels, all students, even Students With Disabilities (SWD) and English Language Learners (ELL). I value the richness that they offer, but the district is being penalised for having a high population of Migrant Ed students. They are expected to perform well in a second language. As is obvious, not even all the native English speakers perform well enough.

There are two thoughts I've heard growing out of this: "Poorly performing schools" will lead to a growing outcry for school vouchers; or teachers will be required to instruct students according to scripts. The first option will take funding away from the public schools as the vouchers will allow families to go to private schools with government assistance. Losing students, the schools will also lose money. Scripts may be one of the solutions sought to quell the failure of schools to demonstrate satisfactory annual increases in student demonstrated results.

As we went through the rubric that is used to assess district compliance with goals, it became clear that there are very few, if any, districts in the state that are functioning at a satisfactory level. This was corroborated by the state representative who was there working with us.

What will happen when we have all the districts in PI? Schools in Receivership. The state solution, a hostile takeover, will only make matters worse.