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“We needed to get the data out of the hands of the administrators and into the hands of the teachers, and down to the students.”
— Principal Tom Trujillo, Laguna-Acoma Junior-Senior High
In the past year that data-driven, hands-on philosophy — grounded in training at the University of Virginia — has translated into literal hands-on learning. As in math students graphing their own test scores to get a clear picture of their progress.
And progress they have made. In one short year Laguna-Acoma high school students who took the SBA have charted an impressive 16 percentage point increase in math proficiency — from 28.2 percent in 2011 to 44.2 percent in 2012. Reading gains have been more modest — from 36.6 percent to 39.5 percent.
The UV approach combines strategies from the business and education schools and focuses not on running a school like a business but on giving principals the leadership skills of chief executives. In practice at Laguna-Acoma, it seems to have resulted in a unified team tackling the common goal of improved student performance. And so far there’s buy-in at all levels.
Trujillo and assistant principal Gerald Horacek post charts of where they want student achievement to go. Math teacher Berna Marquez puts students’ grades in their notebooks every week and has them graph their progress. And students like senior Brent Riley say the testing at the end of each curriculum unit helps them chart their progress toward college.
Gov. Susana Martinez is directing $3.5 million be used to bring this leadership training to principals of the 319 schools the state gave “D” and “F” grades to. It is important to track their progress, just like the Laguna-Acoma students are tracking theirs.
Because CEOs and principals can agree that the bottom line in education must be adequately preparing students for the next step in their lives.
This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
