A back-to-school assignment for school board members |
On Board Online • August 20, 2012
By John King Jr.
Commissioner of Education
This school year, your schools will be undergoing major changes, including implementation of the Common Core standards, a move to more challenging assessments, and, of course, rigorous teacher and principal evaluations that support professional growth.
To make sure all of these changes get implemented efficiently and effectively, everyone involved in school governance and administration has a crucial role to play.
Principals must make certain that their teachers are aware of the instructional shifts called for by the Common Core and integrate those shifts in their instruction. They must have a laser-like focus on teaching and learning and must build a culture of reflection and continuous improvement in their schools. Additionally, principals must spend as much time as possible in classrooms to collect evidence and artifacts that will drive improvements in teacher planning and practice.
Superintendents also have new responsibilities this year to ensure successful implementation of the reforms. First and foremost, they must build principals’ capacity, provide them with support, and hold them accountable for implementing the Common Core, data-driven instruction, and evidence-based observation of teachers in the classroom.
And, of course, school board members have a critical role to play, too. To ensure the state’s education reform plan is successful, here are things we need your school board to do this year:
- Get to know the Common Core by watching the professional development video series on www.engageny.org and complete the post-video activities to internalize the information presented in the videos.
- Educate the community on the changes that will be coming to your schools.
- Adopt policies that support a focus on college- and career-readiness.
- Engage in regular conversations with your superintendent about how the Common Core and data-driven instruction will be implemented in your district.
- Protect human capital investments through professional development.
- Evaluate your superintendent based on multiple measures, including student achievement, and teacher/leader effectiveness.
- Focus discussion at board meetings on student achievement, and teaching and learning.
I know that the enormity of your task is compounded by the ongoing fiscal and programmatic challenges you’ve been facing for years now – the loss of state aid an exhaustion of reserve funds, the impact of the tax cap funding inequities, the loss of student learning opportunities, the loss of quality teachers and support staff and so many other challenges. The Regents, the State Education Department and I are here to help in every way we can, with regard to both implementation of the reform agenda and coping with the fiscal and programmatic obstacles you face.
We will, for example, begin to provide useful curriculum models, offer resources and tools to support your district’s work with teacher and leader evaluations, and provide ongoing training through our Network Team Institute. At the same time, we will again advocate for greater equity in state aid funding and look to help you eliminate unnecessary and burdensome mandates that get in the way of your core responsibilities.
Our goal is college- and career-readiness for every student. Everything we do – teacher evaluations, Common Core, data-driven instruction – must get us closer to that goal. It’s difficult work in a difficult environment. But there simply is no work that’s more important. So let’s get it done.