Uinta County School District #1
Weekly Newsletter-April 2018, Vol. 20
PLC AT WORK
ESSA: An Opportunity for American Education
Educators are familiar with the reform strategies that have swept over them since the passage of NCLB—launching test-based accountability that ensured every public school would eventually be designated as failing, increasing the availability of vouchers so students could abandon public schools, taking steps to make it easier to fire educators and replace them with people who have no background in education, insisting on teacher evaluation based on standardized test scores, reconstituting schools, closing schools, and providing merit pay. All of this was done to promote the goals of ensuring American schools become the highest-performing schools in the world and improving the achievement of poor and minority students.
After fifteen years of experience with these punitive strategies, it is fair to ask, “How has that worked for us?” In my recent book, (2015), I make the case that the reforms have failed. I am not alone in arriving at this conclusion. The National Center for Education and the Economy concluded: “There is no evidence that it [the reform agenda] is contributing anything to improved student performance, much less the improved performance of the very low-income and minority students for which it was in the first instance created” (Tucker 2014). The National Education Policy Center wrote, “A sober and honest look at the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act reveals a broad consensus among researchers that this system is at best ineffective and at worst counter-productive” (Weiner and Mathis 2015). The number of American students scoring below proficient on the international PISA exam has remained flat for more than a decade (Sparks 2016), and other indicators of student achievement were rising faster in the decade before NCLB than the decade after its passage (FairTest 2015). Not a single state came anywhere near the goals established by NCLB, and none of the highestperforming nations in the world were using any of the reform strategies being imposed upon American public schools.
Based on this overwhelming evidence of failure to come close to achieving the intended purposes of these initiatives, it would seem apparent that now that states and districts are no longer bound by the provisions of NCLB and RTTT, they would pursue new approaches to improving their schools. History, however, warns that this logic may not apply.
2016 Solution Tree Press, by Rick DuFour
~BIRTHDAYS~
3rd-Julie Badura, Caitlyn Morrow
4th-Doug Rigby
5th-Cheryl Cranford, Jowell Deru
6th-Paula Cox, Vicky Kennedy, Molly Pedroza-Castillo
7th-Dawnell Saxton, Delia Hansen
8th-Gar Powell
9th-Celeste Hatch
11th-Helen Hutchinson, Vickie Ehlers
12th-Bryce Strampe
13th-Steve Peterson
14th-Juanita Cendejas
15th-Lisa Platt
16th-Beth Barker
18th-Victoria Kasper
20th-Gary Barker, Keith Fry
22nd-Natalie Green
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
UCSD#1 Administration
Cheri Dunford, Supt., Board Exec. Assistant Ext. 1021
Dr. Joseph Ingalls, Assistant Superintendent K-5 Ext. 1026
Doug Rigby, Assistant Superintendent 6-12 Ext. 1025
Alicia Johnson, Instructional Services Admin. Asst. Ext. 1024
Kristine Hayduk, Human Resources Ext. 1023
Matt Williams, SPED Director Ext. 1040
Shannon Arellanes, SPED Admin. Asst. Ext. 1041
Bubba O'Neill, Activities Director Ext. 1060
Dauna Bruce, Activities Admin. Asst. Ext. 1061
John Williams, Business Director, Ext. 1030
Jaraun Dennis, Facilities Director, Ext. 1075
Email: ajohnson@uinta1.com
Website: uinta1.com
Location: 537 10th Street, Evanston, WY, USA
Phone: 3077897571
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Uinta-County-School-District-1-Pathway-to-Excellence-480272945367024/
Twitter: @ucsd1