Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 23, 1995                   TAG: 9502230052
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-7   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

PULASKI COUNTY PARENTS WANT MORE INDICATIONS OF PUPILS' PROGRESS

For one thing, parents say, the program's grading system, which offers only a ``1'' or ``2'' - designating that performance is satisfactory or needs improvement - does not tell them enough about their children's progress.

Other worries included whether children should wait to learn such basics as multipication tables until they feel like it, and the fact that some classes use no textbooks.

About 40 people attended a meeting with school officials Tuesday night at Northwood Elementary School which, with Claremont Elementary, has been trying the so-called Continuous Progress model since the 1993-94 year. The idea is to let children advance at their own speed by using more teaching flexibility.

Continuous Progress is part of an overall restructuring that's been going on in county schools for several years. It has included fewer and longer class periods at Pulaski County High School - something Pulaski Middle School Principal Roger Green said may be tried at middle schools next year - and reducing class sizes in kindergarten and the early elementary years to make sure children have a good foundation before advancing.

Robert LaBarre, a parent, suggested that the traditional letter grading gave children more incentive to work harder. Others felt the new two-grade system encouraged mediocre work to "just get by," and did not prepare children for the grading systems of higher education.

``Research has not supported that grades are an incentive for a child to do better,'' Northwood Principal Deborah Taylor said. As for parents getting information on how their children are doing, she said, ``nothing can replace conferences.''

``We've had interpretations of A, B and C that are different from teacher to teacher,'' said Superintendent Bill Asbury. ``Grades are not what learning is all about. Teaching for mastery is.''

Asbury agreed that better communication with parents on their children's progress is necessary.

``We've got to communicate with you," he said.

Asbury himself raised the question of whether a child could go through Northwood without learning the multipication tables. Taylor said children always have been able to do that, until they decide it is easier to learn the tables than to do computations by their own more complicated methods.

``I know how I was in school,'' said parent Adair White. ``How much are these kids being pushed?''

``Each child has got to decide at some point that she's got to learn that for herself,'' Taylor said. ``You can't make someone learn something.''

But another parent, David Wood, said teachers shouldn't waste their time drilling children on something that can easily be learned at home, around the supper table or elsewhere. Wood also was less critical than some about the lack of textbooks, saying he had seen a history textbook which covered the Vietnam war in a half-page and had other shortcomings.

Cecil King said it's difficult for a parent to follow his child's progress in a course without a textbook, but Asbury said there was other material that could be sent home.

``I really was a doubter last year,'' when Continuous Progress was introduced at Northwood, said teacher Mary Beth Glenn. ``This year I really have become a believer. ... It really does work better than the old-time classroom where everybody was on the same page regardless of their ability.''

Asbury said the new approach is to mix math and language and other skills in school as they are in life, rather than rigidly teaching one subject at a time. He called that ``the Industrial Age model of education, very segmented ... and it fit a different time. But it doesn't fit today.''

He said the school system has defined a detailed table of core objectives which students are to master at each level of their education. The program includes frequent assessments of their learning. ``What I want to know is where kids are when they start and where they are when they finish,'' Asbury said.