Thomas S. Stone Elementary located in Prince George’s County School District, is experiencing the implementation of a new initiative mandated by the state of Maryland called America’s Choice. The goal of America’s Choice new curriculum is crafted to make the teachers and students more accountable in raising student’s test scores in order to make AYP (Annual Yearly Progress). More than half of our students are illiterate and many don’t speak English. This research paper will explore the philosophical and psychological foundations, socioeconomic factors, curriculum design approach, curriculum development approach, aims, goals and objectives of curriculum development, the strategies used for implementation and the evaluation criteria and issues.
Introduction:
The Merriam dictionary defines initiative as: “The power or ability to begin or to follow through energetically with a plan or task.” In addition, initiative can be looked as a leading step and action or change in a school’s curriculum development and implementation. Thomas S. Stone is in the middle of a diverse community and the students are a reflection of that diversity. Our school population consist of 50% Hispanic, 45% African American, 3% Caucasian, and 2% Asian or other. Our school has been a failing school for the past 6 years according to the MSA (Maryland State Assessment) that is directly aligned to the standards of the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act. Two years ago district officials stepped in and replaced the principal and the curriculum framework in efforts to meet the testing requirements outlined by the federal government.
Socioeconomic Factors
Thomas S. Stone social factors reflect the educational deficit occurring in our nation now. “Excuses a...
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... have failed because of interpersonal insensitivity, ethnic or racial bias, or political naiveté.” 300 Many of our children failed the 2009 reading MSA because many of the questions asked dealt with farm animals or situations that these children haven’t had the experience to connect to. Our under privilege children are not considered when these evaluation tools are crafted. Manu issues result from the lack preparation and research to our diverse student’s personal background.
Conclusion
I believe that our school initiative can work if all of the components of the action plan are executed properly. Effective communication is the ingredient missing out of our recipe to increase our test scores. Based on our approaches and strategies the students will be able to acquire the skills needed to conquer any hurdle, as an educator I must believe in their progression.
As a leader candidate, I can understand the challenges and multiplicity of complications that administrators must face each day. However, I will not accept any remote possibility that the students must be affected by some flaws of the school organization. We all as leaders, must be strategic with people, time, and money to guide our students towards an academic success.
The purpose of Michael Moore’s article is to focus upon the different insights of a society and to point out all of its flaws. As a college dropout himself, he blames the education system and tells the readers about its loopholes. He blames the ills of America on it being represented by ignorant high ranking officers and blames the people for electing ignorant presidents who keep bragging about everything and end up looking stupid. On the other hand, Gatto who was a teacher for almost three decades claims the students as well as the teachers were equally bored at the s...
Specific factors cannot be attributed to a single societal cause. I am a successful student and have had a positive school experience only because aspects of my life have prepared me to succeed. Throughout the process of writing this paper, I have discovered an abundance of information about the circumstances that shape my education. The sociologist C. Wright Mills argued that it is important for people to look at the world through the lens of their sociological imaginations (Conley 4). Through the utilization of my sociological imagination in examining my own life, I have realized that aspects of life that seem normal are actually heavily impacted by social factors. To be able to understand larger patterns of society, we must first understand ourselves, our biases, and the agents that influence our lives and perspectives on a daily
America’s children have found increasing difficulty with school. The curriculum in schools is claiming to be harder in higher levels, but the lack of focus and direction in the younger grades has made for decreased grade levels and lower mastery in several basic areas such as math, writing, and reading skills. Standardized test scores are at an all time low, as increasing amounts of children progress through the educational system having not at...
“More than one million High School students fail to graduate high school each year. This not only affects the individual and his or her education but also takes a toll on society and the economy”.-Unknown. Today’s education cap affects society in many ways. Education is one key element that is needed throughout everyday life. It is needed for critical thinking, problem-solving, and great independent decision making in our lives. Without education, we wouldn’t be able to communicate with one another or make something out of ourselves. So we might ask ourselves how can we make education better for us and the future generations? In the book “Smartest Kids in the World”, Amanda Ripley gives an explanation of the difference between the education system in U.S. and in countries like Finland, Poland, and South
DEVELOPMENT & IMPLEMENTATION OF A SHARED VISION: Education leaders facilitate the development and implementation of a shared vision of learning and growth of all students, (1C) Implementing the Vision connection to my action plan. I collaborate with key stakeholders with the intention of fostering a shared vision, one that is proactive in nature. Proactive interventions, such as the development of a BIP will aid in a shared vision of learning and growth for all students regardless of ability levels. INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP: Education leaders shape a collaborative culture of teaching and learning informed by professional standards and focused on student and professional growth (2C) Supporting Teachers to Improve Practice (2D) Feedback on Instruction, directly relates to my action plan as I will engage in open collaborative conversations with teachers, administrators, and essential staff members. I will conduct informal classroom observations with the intension of providing feedback, constructing classroom materials, dispersing information. EXTERNAL CONTEXT AND POLICY Education leaders influence political, social, economic, legal and cultural contexts affecting education to improve education policies and practices (6A) Understanding and Communicating Policy correlates with my action plan. I will inform all essential members of the current legal mandates established by federal law, as safeguarding student
The greatest country in the world still has problems evenly distributing education to its youth. The articles I have read for this unit have a common theme regarding our education system. The authors illustrate to the reader about the struggles in America concerning how we obtain and education. Oppression, politics, racism, and socioeconomic status are a few examples of what is wrong with our country and its means of delivering a fair education to all Americans.
The American Education System has been a core component to the development of generations since it became a public system in the 1870s. Since then more rules, higher expectations for some, and even lower expectations for others have been added to the original structure. In recent years, many debates have surfaced over whether the American education system is failing. Too few they believe the American Education System is on the right track. Most researchers however have shown statistics that it is in fact slowly declining as new acts and regimens are added. It has been on a downward spiral for years and citizens have been watching it happen, the lack of government funding, acts like the No Child Left behind Act, focus in the wrong places, and the curriculum set up is acting as a deterrent for success.
Something I have always known since I was a little kid is that the educational system in this country is a complete fraud. American schools claim to live by the ideal of No Child Left Behind, but millions of students get cast aside each and every year. In schools these days, it is obvious which students are the elite—those that are raised up and motivated to go to college—and the ordinary student— those that are somewhat ignored throughout their schooling and are lucky if they even earn a GED. As a recent graduate of high school, and a product of this country’s educational system, I have had the opportunity to develop my own opinions regarding the myth of education in our society. Based upon my observations going through the school system, and the various arguments posed by several authors in “Rereading America”, I strongly believe that schooling in this society caters solely to students in the elite category while ostracizing students that do not live up to the elitist ideal.
Furthermore, Chapter 15 begins to explain educational inequality. In the United States, education is available but not to every child in the same way. Different social-classes means different schools, instructions, criteria, rates, and times. In addition to class differences, races and ethnics unfortunately play a role in educational achievement. For example, in general, African Americans, Latino/a’s, and Native Americans usually do worse in school than white or Asian American students
There are platitudes of issues and elements that pertain to the educational process as well as curriculum development that are addressed on a routine basis. As many researchers have discussed, and administrators and teachers alike have grown to understand, if this current educational model/system is to produce creative, productive, active, and technologically savvy students-citizens the worst actions are perhaps having no actions at all (Stansbury, 2013). In addition to the grandiose mistakes of becoming stagnant (progress), educators and administrators are faced with increasing demands at the highest levels; this of course is making reference to both federal and state legislation such as No Child Left Behind, perhaps the most groundbreaking legislation to date. These rigorous demands are curriculum based, creating definitive and innovative opportunities for educators, especially those in positions to promote and formulate new curriculum models as well as propose the implementation of a new curricula into the system, to better prepare students within their educational system/process exactly what the demands of a 21st century requires. These demands are in reference to an article written by Richard Long titled Career Success Demands Strong 21st Century Literacy Skills. Long states several skills that will be required if American students are to play catch –up with the rest of the world as well as perhaps attain their position at the top of the upper echelon of world educational rankings (Long, 2010).
The CIP plan is separated into specific sections, and the AIT team reviews and the CIP plan to determine PD topics. The purpose of this Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) is to communicate the goals, strategies, and actions a school is taking to improve academic achievement and school climate. The plan is written to inform a variety of stakeholder audiences including, district and school leadership, family and community members, state and federal education agencies. The intention of the school’s CIP is to show progress on the level of teaching and learning of the students in the school. The school’s CIP provides an outline for examining instructional concerns in the school that has not made adequate progress in student’s achievement. Consequently, the school’s continuous improvement plan emphasizes the achievement in the core academic subjects and the strategies used to teach them, followed by professional developments to ensure that students are accomplishing
On the other hand, the social goals of the United States school system was to ensure the all “members of a society are given equal chances to pursue wealth and enter any occupation or social...
This emphasis on thoughtful evaluation has kept Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction a relevant, trusted companion for over sixty years. And with school districts across the nation working feverishly to align their curriculum with Common Core standards, Tyler's straightforward recommendations are sound and effective tools for educators working to create a curriculum that integrates national objectives with their students' needs. In essence, Tyler’s Rationale is represented by the four-step sequence of identifying objectives, selecting the means for the attainment or achievement of these objectives that is through educational or teaching-learning experiences provided for students, organizing these educational or teaching-learning experiences, and evaluating the outcomes or what have students attained or achieved. Tyler suggested when developing curriculum, objectives data should be gathered from three sources, namely; the learner, society, and subject matter.
When all stakeholders share similar core values and agree on the aims of education, reform efforts stand a better chance for success. Knowledge, skills, critical thinking, and citizenship are core values found at the heart of my beliefs for education. I also believe it is the aim of education to prepare students as contributing members of society. In schools where core values and education aims are revisited due to reform implementation, strategies are identified along with a plan for implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The federal government, state, districts, school leadership, teachers, students and parents all have significant responsibilities to make reform efforts a success.