Gary McCready’s Board of Education Press Release as submitted to
the Leader on 3/17/2005, with
italicized notations.
The heart of any school district is the curriculum it
develops, and
To access the “
http://education.state.nj.us/rc/rc04/
The easiest way to access the data is via “county/district”; please
note that it is not easy to access data from last year, unless you want to
review the excel or access data provided
The currently open position of Assistant
Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction leads a team of curriculum
supervisors who collectively oversee what is taught at all grade levels. The
position is also responsible for designing training programs for current and
new teachers, showing our teachers how to implement
The position has already been hard to fill, with the original vacancy
announced in December. It has now been advertised for the second time.
Ask almost any teacher how he or she has implemented differentiation, and they will be able to give you several examples how the same lesson can be taught at several levels to better match the diverse abilities and interests of the students. At back to school nights, I’ve seen great examples of differentiation at work, with most developed by the teachers themselves.
A good, but somewhat detailed example of “differentiated instruction”
can be found at
http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_diffinstruc.html
But presently, there is no way to easily share those lesson plans across the district; the Board can enable such sharing through policies using existing technology.
Although there are district “network shares” and email addresses, I
don’t believe they are used in an organized fashion to share ideas throughout the
district. Curriculum supervisors should encourage teachers to transmit ideas,
and choose examples to transmit themselves, throughout the district.
Students at
If you examine the “report card” above for districts that are similar
to
I would like the Board to examine that issue, as other similar
districts have a greater percentage of students taking those exams. Other areas I would like the Board to review
include starting an International Baccalaureate program at Westfield High, the
implementation of the Gifted and Talented 6th grade class at
The International Baccalaureate program was originally developed to
allow children of diplomats to attend schools that taught a common curriculum.
It has developed for many schools in the
http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/MarshallHS/academics/ib/faq.htm
http://www.ibo.org/ibo/index.cfm
The Gifted and Talented program started a few years ago has been slow
to startup due to a variety of personnel changes and new curriculum being
implemented. However, the upcoming sixth grade class has gotten pushback from Northside parents who do not want to have to send their
children Edison to get the benefits of the current program. I believe a more
focused, advanced “magnet” program would attract more of the parents, and also
solve the increasing enrollment disparity between Edison and Roosevelt. One
possibility is the middle school version of the IB program above.
I doubt anyone, including current board members, would discount the
need for a K-8 science supervisor. It just needs to be prioritized for the next
budget.
My understanding of the current curriculum related issues before the Board, and experience in designing and implementing technology courses as a corporate instructor will enable me, Gary McCready, to be an effective Board of Education member from day one. Please visit my web site at www.mccready.com for more background on the above topics.
Please feel free to forward this to whomever in