Editor's note: Last month, more than 100 of the nation's leading teachers from both public and private schools gathered to share their knowledge and expertise at the third annual GOALS 2000 Teacher Forum. U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley spoke to conference participants. Here are excerpts from his remarks:If I have one message for you, it is simply this: improving American education will only take place when you stop being objects of reform and instead become partners in reform and leaders in reform. As teachers you need to find your public voice. You need to speak out on behalf of American education. And we need you at the table when people come together to decide the future of American education.
We have a long way to go before we can say honestly to the American people that every child in America is getting a quality education of high standards that he or she deserves. But at the same time, we need to recognize what we have achieved, learn from our mistakes, set our sights high and get on with the business of improving American education.
Let's first recognize the progress we have made. SAT scores are up, and many more students are taking the tougher courses that prepare them for college. As a result, the national scores in math and science have gone up one full grade. And many more high school graduates are going directly on to college, an increase of 13 percent since 1980.
Young people are getting the message about the importance of education. But we still have a long way to go. Parents have got to reconnect to the learning process, and every element of a community -- the business, civic, and religious leadership -- has to be part of a common effort to improve education. This is why GOALS 2000 was set up the way it was, to involve everybody. People often ask me what GOALS 2000 is all about -- why we are so committed to supporting you. And the answer I give them is simply this: GOALS 2000 is the extra money that schools never get to improve themselves in order to reach for excellence. GOALS 2000 is the start-up money that allows a school to reach out to the community so that the entire community can come together for the good of all of its children.
Whether you use these dollars to get computers into the classroom or whether you use it to get more parents involved, that's your choice. And that's what makes GOALS 2000 distinctive. It is a program that gives learning communities something they almost never have -- the opportunity to come together, to think ahead, to be creative and make those connections that will restore public trust to the progress of American education. In 1997 we will have more young people going to our schools than at any time in the history of our country -- 53 million. Demographers call this a baby boom echo. We will actually surpass the record set by some of you baby-boomers back in 1971.
So this is no time to retreat from our commitment to excellence
for all of our young people -- and I mean all of them. If ever
there was a time to have a great era of American education, it is
now. If ever there was a time to make education a national
priority for all the young people, it is now.
Entitled "Proven Strategies For Helping Disadvantaged Students: High Standards and High Expectations," the hour-long Town Meeting will air on Tuesday, December 19 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The program is closed-captioned and is simulcast in Spanish.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Madeleine Kunin will host a conversation with school officials from Signal Hill Elementary in Long Beach, California, and local community leaders who will share their successful school-wide strategies for helping disadvantaged students excel. Discussion topics will include how a challenging academic curriculum and high expectations for students can set in motion school-wide reform; how parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and business and community leaders contribute to helping all students learn; and how effective communication can help keep everyone in the school community moving forward on the same mission.
Special Note: The December Town Meeting will be taped at a national conference on how communities are reaching their education goals within the framework of the Improving America's Schools Act. Because the program will be prerecorded, no phone calls will be taken from the satellite audience. Live Satellite Town Meetings will resume next month.
The Department of Education produces the Satellite Town Meeting series in partnership with the National Alliance of Business and the Center for Workforce Preparation with support from the Bayer Foundation and The Procter and Gamble Fund.
Satellite coordinates are as follows ....
C-Band: Galaxy 4, Orbital Location 99 degrees West; Transponder 5; Horizontal Polarity; Channel 5; Downlink Frequency 3800 MHz; Audio Subcarriers 6.2 MHz (Spanish) and 6.8 MHz (English).To participate in the Satellite Town Meeting, contact your local Public Broadcasting System (PBS) member station, Chamber of Commerce, or Johnson Controls branch office and ask if your group can use the facility as a downlink site. Other possible sites are local schools, public libraries, community colleges, cable television stations, universities and technical schools, government offices, hospitals, businesses, hotels, or even private residences with satellite dishes. Call 1-800-USA-LEARN for further information or to register your participation.Ku-Band: SBS-6, Orbital Location 74 degrees West; Transponder 17; Horizontal Polarity; Channel 17; Downlink Frequency 12117 MHz; Audio Subcarriers 6.2 MHz (Spanish) and 6.8 MHz (English).
The Foundations For Life training program explains why so many businesses have become involved in the school-to-work issue and offers guidance based on the proven results of model community efforts. Topics covered include how to gain support for your plan, build interest and enthusiasm, secure outside resources, implement student work arrangements, and measure the success of your program.
Foundations For Life includes a training manual and a resource
kit. The National Alliance of Business can customize the
training program to meet the unique needs of your organization or
community. To request a free brochure describing Foundations
For Life in more detail, or to arrange for a customized training
program, contact the National Alliance of Business at 1-800-787-
2848. Note: The Foundations For Life program will be
available for distribution in January.
Flandreau, South Dakota: "America Goes Back to School" events took place during Native American Week, October 2-6, at Flandreau's Spafford Elementary School. Native American culture was featured, including food, music and Dakota language presentations. Tribal elders and family members visited classes and discussed customs, values, and ceremonial activities with the students. Spafford Elementary principal Trudie Myers worked with the school's curriculum coordinator on the program along with parent Janet Claymore Ross and local community and tribal leaders. The program was publicized widely in local newspapers.
Columbia, South Carolina: At Summit Parkway Middle School in early October, more than three hundred families braved a heavy rain to attend the opening session of Family Math Night. According to principal Jo Hecker, the Family Math program seeks to actively involve parents in the instructional program at the school and also suggests enrichment activities at home. Family members worked together on problem-solving as Ms. Hecker circulated among participants. Ms. Hecker reports that as a thirty- year veteran of public education, she was delighted at the overwhelming turnout for the school's Family Math program.
North Brunswick, New Jersey: Andrew Frank, a 1983 graduate of
North Brunswick Township High School, returned to his alma mater
to relate to students an exciting meeting he had with
presidential hopeful Bill Clinton in 1991. While visiting with
students in the social studies class of his former teacher, Mr.
Frank emphasized how he learned the importance of working hard
toward personal goals. Mr. Frank considered America Goes
Back to School to be a good way to acknowledge his former
teachers for all they had done to help him get a good start in
life. He is currently the managing director of the New York
Foreign Press Center, where he deals with more than 1,000 foreign
journalists from over 80 countries.
National Association of Elementary School Principals
The Little Things That Make a Big Difference: How to Help Your Child Succeed in School. (16-minute videotape and 18-page brochure) The video features interviews with children who discuss what their parents are doing to help them in school.
Little Beginnings: How to Start Your Child on a Lifetime of Learning (For new parents. Videotape and brochure) Activities and sound advice for parents on raising confident children who will be ready for school.
Now We're Talking: Keeping in Touch with Your Child's School (18-page brochure) Tips for how to get involved in your child's school.
National Association of Secondary School Principals
Publications with articles on family involvement in children's
learning:
The first National Education Goal states: All children in America will start school ready to learn. The new ready-to-learn television programming will help preschool and early-school children and their families and care givers to move toward realization of this goal.
The Department of Education grant will support the creation of new family and children's programming of high quality which will be interspersed with educational message breaks. The programming, available to all families through the universal access of public television, will focus on the cognitive and social development of children from diverse social, cultural, and geographical backgrounds.
This ready-to-learn series will be reinforced by educational materials written in both English and Spanish, along with community outreach workshops for children, parents, and care givers. In addition, free books will be distributed each month to children and their families at Public Broadcasting television stations around the country.
The Educational Publishing Group, a leader in providing
informational resources for parent involvement in children's
education and a member of the Family Involvement Partnership,
will produce the bilingual, bimonthly publication to complement
the ready-to-learn series. The newsletter, entitled PTV
Families, will be distributed to over 44 stations and on the
Internet beginning in January 1996. Total circulation of PTV
Families will exceed 5 million.
WELCOME NEW PARTNERS!The Family Involvement Partnership for Learning welcomes its newest members:
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The newly updated fourth edition of this guide provides information about Department programs and resources that can help schools and communities achieve their education goals. A companion booklet, An Administrator's Guide to the U.S. Department of Education, follows the same format. Both guides contain a new section on federal resources that support bringing technology into the schools.Teacher Information Packet.
The Town Meeting opened with a message that U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley delivered to the 1995 GOALS 2000 Teacher Forum in Washington, D.C., which also focused on professional development. Secretary Riley recognized the critical role that teachers play in school reform and encouraged teachers to exercise leadership towards that goal. Deputy Secretary Kunin interviewed guest panelists in their home states of Alabama and Kentucky via satellite. Award-winning teachers were joined by community partners that support their professional development initiatives.
Panelists offered practical advice for how to plan successful professional development. "Many times the very best professional development is taking the time for real sharing of our experiences. Sitting down as a group with an experienced facilitator, we learn from each other," said Pat Murray, who works with the Regional Service Center at the Kentucky Department of Education. "Teachers are beginning to appreciate the skills that their colleagues have."
Earl Hughes, the 1994 Kentucky Teacher of the Year from Union, Kentucky, suggested the kinds of activities that work well in professional development sessions. As a Kentucky Distinguished Educator, he travels the state conducting staff development programs designed to promote excellence in teaching and learning. "We do a lot with small group collaborative settings and roundtable discussions -- what I call 'teacher networking' as opposed to professional development," Hughes said. "Teachers are talking to teachers and sharing the kinds of strategies that they're using in their classrooms."
Keeping professional development focused on classroom needs is a successful strategy, according to panelists. "The closer we can bring professional development to the classroom, the more effective it will be," said Lindell Dillard, the Director of Professional Development for the Mobile County Public Schools in Alabama.
Another point of consensus in the Town Meeting was that parents, business leaders, and the broader community play important roles in supporting teachers' professional development. "In Alabama we're having to take a grass-roots approach to professional development," said Anne Jolly, the 1994 Alabama Teacher of the Year from Mobile, who also serves as executive director of the Alabama State Teacher Forum. "Teachers are taking the initiative for professional development and then finding support from businesses and community-based organizations. It's a new hope for places where you're a little short on funds."
Cathy Gassenheimer, a parent from Montgomery, Alabama, supports Anne Jolly's efforts in professional development through her work as Managing Director of the A+ Research Foundation. "When you have a practicing classroom teacher that's thinking about what teachers need in terms of professional development, I think you can better meet the needs of teachers and design an engaging course of study in which teachers will want to participate," Gassenheimer said.
Deputy Secretary Kunin noted that when businesses undergo major
change, they commit substantial resources to training, a tendency
that until now has not been shared by school districts. The hope
expressed in the November Town Meeting is that school districts
will invest in professional development as a way of ensuring the
success of overall school reform.
Editor's Note: As President Clinton and Congress work toward a plan to balance the federal budget, the guidelines agreed upon could set the limits on funding available to your schools for the next 7 years. The chart compares the funding priorities for key federal education programs in the budgets proposed by the President, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee for the 1996-97 school year -- the first year of the 7-year budget plan. Please watch this space for further updates.
1996-1997 Federal Education Budget in thousands of dollars
-----------------------------------------------
| President | | |
| Clinton's | House | Senate |
| Request | | Committee |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Raise Standards of | | | |
Achievement: GOALS | $750,000 | -0- | $310,000 |
2000 | | | |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Improve Basic Skills: | | | |
Title I Grants | $7,000,000 | $5,555,000 | $6,019,398 |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Safe and Drug-Free | | | |
Schools | $500,000 | $200,000 | $200,000 |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Bring Computers into | | | |
Classrooms: Education | $122,250 | $25,000 | $57,475 |
Technology Programs | | | |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Help Youth Move from | | | |
School to Careers (1) | $200,000 | $95,000 | $122,500 |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Javits Gifted and | | | |
Talented Education | $9,521 | $3,000 | $3,000 |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Assist Disabled Children: | | | |
IDEA State Grants | $2,772,460 | $2,684,246 | $2,684,246 |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Help Students Go To | | | (2) |
College: Pell Grants | $6,601,503 | $5,697,000 | $5,400,000 |
---------------------------|---------------|--------------|--------------|
Locally Tailored School | | | |
Settings: Charter Schools | $20,000 | $6,000 | $10,000 |
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