This is the second part of a three-part commentary on the results of the Student Assessment Data in the Oshkosh School District. Part three comes up tomorrow.
Continuous Quality Improvement–better known as CQI
The Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program–better known as SAGE
Everyday Math
Team Teaching
Reading Specialists
Math Specialists
New school buildings
New Math
Chromebooks for all students
Digital Whiteboards
Referenda to fund continuing operations
That list represents some of the “education initiatives” that the Oshkosh School District has adopted in the 18-years that I have been covering schools for WOSH. Each was going to “revolutionize” the way kids learned and set us on the path to raise low test scores. Yet here we are 18-years later with test scores that show 60% of grade schoolers can’t read or write to grade level. 58% are non-proficient in math and only half understand science. Many of those programs and initiatives cost us taxpayers additional money, so you have to ask “Where is the return on my investment?”
CQI was the brainchild of former School Board President LuAnn Bird. After foisting it upon Oshkosh Schools she left to sell the idea to other districts as a “paid consultant”. SAGE was all the rage under Governor Jim Doyle–as schools were getting extra money from the state to reduce elementary school classes to less than 18 students per teacher. The only problem was, Oshkosh’s small neighborhood schools didn’t have the classroom space for additional segments–or there were only 23-kids in a grade, making the implementation of SAGE very inefficient (although the District still kept the money). That’s where the idea of Team Teaching came in–putting two teachers into larger classrooms to meet the “spirit” of SAGE. Adding reading and math specialists in every school was going to allow one-on-one intensive instruction to get everyone up to grade in both subjects.
Everyday math was going to ensure that kids knew the basics of the mathematics that they would actually use “in the real world”–but then the test numbers got worse, so they switched to the new form of math where kids don’t just learn that three plus four equals seven–but rather why three plus four equals seven. We built a new Oaklawn Elementary, completely overhauled Jefferson and Lakeside and sold off Lincoln and Sunset Elementaries–all to improve the efficiency of operations and give kids the best learning environments.
Giving kids their own laptop computers and connected whiteboards would “modernize” teaching and learning–putting the entire world at kids’ fingertips and save us so much money on textbooks and homework materials that could be poured back into instruction.
And yet, despite all of that spending, despite all of the hours spent overhauling curriculum, despite the growth in personnel–especially in areas of administration–we still less than half our kids making the grade. Is it possible that throwing more and more money at educational problems really isn’t the solution? Tomorrow, we get to the heart of who is really failing our kids here in Oshkosh.
