Does your child attend a Program Improvement school?
Because of No Child Left Behind my son’s school is in program improvement due to low test scores for 5 years in a row.
I’m a member of the PTA so I hear about the reasoning behind our low test scores, but it’s really not surprise because our school has a lot of immigrants, mainly from Mexico. We are a farming town. The tests require that even children who are just learning how to speak english be able to read and write at the same level as children who’ve been speaking english their whole life.
I really like my son’s school and the principle’s approach that she takes. She hasn’t just thrown her hands up, she honestly thinks that we can help these struggling kids and up the test scores. Our school isn’t the only one in PI school in our town, more than half the schools are and you can pretty much tell by where the school who aren’t are located in much more affluent neighborhoods.
My son is in kindergarten and he attends school from 8:35-2:35. The whole day kindergarten is also a result of the need for higher test scores (even though they don’t take the tests until 2nd grade) I’ve noticed that all the work he brings home is strictly academic, nothing like art projects or anything that looks like they just get free time. Everything is about reading, writing or math. Everything.
I was talking to my husband about this last night and he thinks that we’re lucky that our son is in school at this time when the focus is so much on the academic aspect as well as test scores. I somewhat agree, somewhat don’t. When I was in elementary is was a lot about expressing ourselves and not learning like our parents did. Do you think the tables have completely turned? Do you think this is more beneficial? I really hope that all this focus will benefit my son in the long run but it’s just weird I guess to think that the school doesn’t do anything fun during school hours. Their “harvest party” is to celebrate everything they’ve learned so far and has nothing to do with the Halloween holiday. Also something I think is weird, they can’t just have a party, it’s still about learning.
I know I should be glad that they’re so focus on my sons education but I really know it’s more about test scores.
What’s your opinion, and I’d really like to know if anyone else’s kids attend a program improvement school because this isn’t just a problem in California, this is happening in schools all across the country.