THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602280581
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
Sweeping education changes coming this August are the only way to save North Carolina's public schools, the State Board of Education chairman said in a teleconference that included Pasquotank County on Saturday.
``I believe public education is in the greatest danger that it's ever been in,'' Chairman Jay M. Robinson said during a 10-site televised forum on ``The New ABCs of Public Education.''
``There's so many people, and people in decision-making roles, that are looking for alternatives. I believe our schools are teaching more of our students better and more than we have ever taught them. But I also believe that we have to do better.''
More than 20 administrators, teachers and board of education members from the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools spent their sunny Saturday in the College of the Albemarle lecture auditorium to learn more about the New ABCs, which are transforming education in the state.
The new guidelines, presented to the General Assembly last May, focus on accountability for schools; teaching of reading, writing and math; and local control over how districts will meet education standards.
Ten pilot districts, including Elizabeth City-Pasquotank, have been working with state officials this year to work out the details of the plan. But remarks by a state panel of high-level educators speaking from a Durham hotel Saturday show that much remains to be accomplished.
The crux of the New ABCs is an expectation that students on average will achieve ``a year's worth of progress for a year's worth of school.'' The state will assess groups of students' skill levels in every school in North Carolina, and establish a growth target for each school.
When the plan takes effect in the 1996-97 school year, schools' success or failure will be based on end-of-grade scores in grades three through eight, and end-of-course tests in high school.
Schools that meet expectations will be congratulated. Those that exceed expectations will receive financial rewards. Those that fail, state officials say, will get help from Raleigh.
If help isn't enough, and if state law changes to allow it, some schools may be taken over.
``We cannot permit a school to function year after year where that school is not making reasonable progress,'' Robinson said. ``We do want authority to make whatever changes we need to make to turn that around.''
The takeover aspect of the plan has caused the most trepidation among local teachers and principals, who fear their jobs will hang on students' test scores. Robinson and other state officials worked Saturday to waylay those fears, saying drastic measures would be taken only in the most desperate situations.
``We'll be reasonable,'' Robinson said. ``But we have to insist on accountability.''
The Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools, as a pilot site for the program, have been meeting regularly with ABCs architects to make the plan as strong as possible.
``We have had a very real involvement in providing feedback,'' Superintendent Joe Peel said Saturday.
Peel's district is also a pilot for another statewide effort to create standards for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level. Educators from across the state were curious Saturday how that project would fit into the new ABCs.
Sam Houston, executive director of the so-called Standards and Accountability Commission, said from Durham Saturday that the two projects must complement each other.
``This is a plan that's a work in progress,'' Houston said, ``that will grow into something that we can all be proud of.''
Until both ABCs and the standards project are in place a few years down the road, the system won't be ideal, Peel said. ``But it'll be the best we can have.''
The sole use of multiple choice end-of-grade and end-of-course tests to judge schools' performance has officials concerned that other parts of the curriculum will be ignored.
Peel said that the State Board of Education was going in the right direction with the New ABCs, but that priorities are in jeopardy.
``This is a dramatic change from the way things have been done in the past,'' Peel said. ``It's a much more threatening thing. People, when they get scared, are going to focus and teach the test.
``We did not do anything in the last three years to prepare kids to take a multiple choice test, because we didn't think that was very important.
``Getting kids aware of how people might ask for information is something that has to be part of what you do. . . . The danger is that it could become all of what you do.''
Peel also said it is crucial to train staff members in how to meet standards, and to provide meaningful help for people who need it.
The forum concluded with a question-and-answer session. To the annoyance of some participants, the moderator in Durham didn't read any questions submitted from the College of the Albemarle.
But most local educators left the forum the same way they came to it - with ambivalence.
``I can see some positive things about it,'' one kindergarten teacher said afterward, noting the repeated commitment to teach all students in the state.
Still, officials remain anxious about what intervention policies could mean for themselves and their peers - especially principals and teachers asked to stand aside for state improvement workers.
``I'm concered about the people who might have to have an assistance team,'' a first-grade teacher said. ``Are they going to say, 'This is the end of your educational career'?'' by CNB