Office of Planning and Service Coordination
Regional Needs Assessment 1999
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Summary of Findings and Implications for the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's Work
State-led initiatives to move Northwest schools toward standards-based instruction, and shifting demographics appear to have had a substantial influence on educator concerns as shown in results of the 1999 Regional Needs Assessment Educator Survey. Four broad areas of concern emerged from the survey data:
- Developing a standards-based instructional program
- Engaging all students in learning
- Creating a supportive and challenging learning environment
- Ensuring support for the instructional program.
The type of help that educators said would be of greatest benefit for addressing these concerns were assistance with identifying promising practices, developing models or solutions, and training. Superintendents, principals, teachers and school board members all indicated that these were their most important technical assistance needs.
Developing a standards-based instructional program. Educators are focusing their energies on responding to state requirements for implementing a standards-based instructional program. Many who have progressed in this effort are finding that adopting a standards-based approach has helped their schools organize their work and focus their instructional program in a way that is beneficial to student learning. The public is concerned, however, that the student performance standards that states have adopted are not appropriate to all students.
Educators, especially administrators, say their area of greatest need for technical assistance is aligning their instructional program with standards. They want help with strategies for using developmentally appropriate instruction in a standards-based environment. They want help developing assessments that demonstrate performance, as well as help developing effective systems for tracking student performance over time, using a variety of measures. Educators are interested also in models for integrating the core skills of reading, writing, math computation, and technology use across the curriculum.
Engaging all students in learning. This area of concern ranked high for all educator groups. The biggest issue, especially for principals and middle school educators and those in large districts, is finding effective instructional strategies for students who are not succeeding. Given the growing diversity of students, the problems of at-risk students are growing increasingly complex, and so must the strategies to deal with them.
Educators want help in learning how to recognize early, students who are not succeeding and to counsel them appropriately, match them with educational alternatives appropriate to their learning styles, and use alternative instructional strategies. They want to create a climate for learning that promotes personal responsibility and provides support for each student's needs. They also want to find ways to foster more family support for their children's efforts to learn.
Creating a supportive and challenging learning environment. Educators recognize that what goes on in a child's life outside the classroom can be just as beneficial or detrimental to learning as what goes on inside the classroom. They know their schools must be prepared to support and enhance experiences, both inside and outside the classrooms, that can contribute to a child's learning.
Developing a school and classroom environment that is safe, supportive and productive is a high priority for educators. They want schools that have clear rules for behavior, positive and effective discipline policies, and opportunities for students to develop effective social skills, including conflict management. They know that positive and frequent interaction between teachers and students is important to learning.
When asked what factor contributed most to positive student performance in their schools, educators, especially school board members, ranked having committed quality staff as number the number one factor. Teachers said they want more and better professional development to help kids achieve to high standards. The public agrees that more training and classroom support would benefit student learning, but they also say that more supervision, evaluation, and the weeding out of poor teachers would do a lot to help improve teaching and learning.
Survey responses indicate that teachers believe family support for student learning is crucial to a child's success in school. The public agrees. Public survey respondents said that lack of family involvement was the thing that interferes most with students trying to do their best in school. Most parents do participate at some level, in their child's school, primarily by attending parent/teacher conferences. Poor families, however, were much less likely to participate in school activities beyond attending parent/teacher conferences. Survey results show that the public believes that community schools should serve as a hub for family support services, which could engage parent's more actively in their children's academic and social lives.
Educators also said that they need to find ways to strengthen community understanding and support for public education. This task is becoming increasingly difficult, as fewer and fewer households have school-age children. People without children in the household participate much less in school activities. Given the rapidly increasing pool of energetic seniors and retirees, strategies such as the AmeriCorps and NWREL's America Reads Program should be expanded and promoted to engage these adults in supporting children's learning.
Ensuring support for the instructional program. The expression of concern about adequate funding for education has been consistent on three educator surveys conducted over the past six years. When surveyed on this issue, the public also expressed concerns about the adequacy of funding for schools. However, this concern is generally not reflected in voting results. Parents, the legislature, and the public keep asking our schools to do more: more and better curriculum and instruction; more accountability; more technology; more parent involvement; more student and family support services, and on and on. Educators have repeatedly said they need more time and people to give the public what it says it wants from schools. But time and people cost money, and extra money has become very scarce for most schools in the Northwest.
The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) can do little to increase school budgets, but it can do much to facilitate schools' efforts to identify best practice models for curriculum, instruction, family involvement, and school climate, among others. Identifying and sharing practices that have been field-tested for effectiveness and efficiency can save schools time and money, and ensure a higher probability of improved learning. But best practices are not likely to be successfully adopted unless educators have the time they need to work collaboratively to select them, learn how to use them, put them into practice, and assess their effectiveness. Consequently, schools also need assistance with helping the public understand how important funding adequate time for training, collaboration, and reflection is to the improvement of instructional programs.
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