The Suburban News

9/26/2007

By DAVID J. CROSS

Columbus City Schools Superintendent Gene Harris recently highlighted her plan to improve students’ tests scores, including a possible required summer reading program.

At the Wednesday, Sept. 19 Columbus Board of Education meeting, Harris noted that, overall, the district has improved on a majority of its standardized test scores.

This year, the district received a rating of “continuous improvement,” the equivalent of a C grade, on its state report card, and meet five of 30 benchmarks.

She said the administration has reviewed the report card and will be implementing new plans to raise scores.

“You can see there is improvement across the board,” Harris told board members.

“I believe we can say we are making reasonable progress.”

Harris’ presentation tackled five core classes — reading, writing, math, science and social studies. Students in third through eighth grades, plus 10th grade, are tested in these areas.

To improve scores, Harris said Columbus students need to improve their vocabularies by reading.

Though no plan has been implement, Harris said she wants to create a summer reading program to force students to read outside of school.

“It’s really going to take a huge community effort around literacy to move our kids forward,” Harris said.

One of the changes made in the district was limiting the number of classes taught by a teacher, to allow more instructors to specialize in a specific area. This includes teachers in reading, math, social studies and science.

The plan also calls for smaller math classes — a 15-to-1 student-teacher ratio — in the fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade classes.

Harris said the district’s problem areas were social studies and science.

According to the report, the district made progress in both areas when comparing the 2005-06 school year and the 2006-07 school year. However, the test scores for 10th grade student taking social studies exams dipped slightly.

Board member Betty Drummond said many students have difficulty adjusting to high school from junior high and the lower score could be an indicator of this.

Not all board member were happy with the report.

Board member Stephanie Groce agreed that the district did make progress but said the report might imply the district is doing better than it actually is.

“I’m a little uncomfortable having an overall average,” Groce said.

“I do believe to be fair to the data we can certainly say we improved in 20 areas but declined in five.”

Harris’ report fell into the board’s new system of “policy governance.” Through the policy the district administration is charged with providing “reasonable interpretations” of its duties as they relate to the goals and parameters set by the board.

Administrators then must provide reports showing how they are monitoring their work and keeping in compliance with the board’s policies.

“It’s really going to take a huge community effort around literacy to move our kids forward.”