ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180033
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
The Pulaski County school system will redesign its curricula in English, history and social science, mathematics and science in the coming months.
Next fall, new health, physical education, music, art and foreign language curricula will be added, Associate Superintendent Phyllis Bishop told the School Board Tuesday.
She said the county would use the new standards of learning imposed by the state Board of Education on all localities as a starting point, but would expand and improve on those for a curriculum designed specifically for Pulaski County.
"The state Board of Education has taken an important step in writing the standards of learning ... but they are minimal," she said. "We need to go beyond the minimum. ... What I want to see is 100 percent collaboration on the part of teachers," she said. "A guide that is written by someone else will not serve local needs."
She said it will be the teachers who set clear, measurable and rigorous academic standards.
"It's going to be long term. It's not something that's going to happen immediately, because we want to make it ours. We want teachers involved every step of the way."
The first step is to evaluate where curricula are now, she said, and improve them on a performance-based level rather than simply content-based. "Any program poorly taught is worse than no program at all," she said, which is why teachers must buy into whatever is developed.
One reason for the effort is concern over student scores in the Literacy Passport testing. "Also, at the high school level, we've talked about the need for an exit test," she said, to make sure students have mastered previous material before moving on.
"It is a major task," Bishop said. "But it can be done ... and I think it will have a major impact in the classroom."
"This is one of the best things I've seen," School Board member Rhea Saltz said. "This makes sense."
Jeff Bain, another member, asked if the school system was going to be willing to hold back students when they have not shown mastery of a certain level of study. "Parents ought to know that it is going to take some children longer," member Beth Nelson said.
In this program, children learn as they move from one stage to another and barriers to learning are identified, Superintendent Bill Asbury said. Previously, he said, "we send them back for a dose of the same medicine that didn't help them the first time."
Curriculum standards will be uniform throughout the county, Bishop said. "We have to know that, when the fifth-graders go from eight different schools to the [two] middle schools, they know the same stuff."
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