Reading Response 2

3-

The 3 components I saw most were restructuring the school, providing comprehensive support for all students, and creating new professional roles.

Restructuring the School- You can see this everywhere in BPHS from the size of the school to the community outreach (and in-reach I suppose) to the scheduling. The smaller school as I said in my last post just seems like common sense. It helps kids get the attention they need and builds a strong community. The community outreach is not well utilized in public schools and I think by including that as part of your plan you allow more people to be stakeholders in the education system. Lastly by making a flexible schedule you allow students more opportunities to be independent thinkers and learners.

Providing comprehensive support for All Students- First giving each student a teacher to connect with helps. Also, by providing authentic assessment we can support students in their learnings.

Creating New Professional Roles- I think one of the thing that BPHS does best is include so many people in the educational system. They include the community members, the teachers and most importantly the students.

2-The two that I think they are trying for the hardest are

1.Developing Powerful Teaching and Learning;
2. Establishing a Comprehensive Accountability and Assessment System;
The principal at my CP1 seemed to try to be changing the way that classes were being taught by getting teachers to collaborate. He gave them set aside time to do this and instructions on how to.

The big push at my CP1 was assessment. They wanted to make sure you were testing the students on what you were teaching them. It wasn’t so much about different kinds of assessment but more on assessing fairly.

1- I think over a long period of time it is hard to keep a climate like that up.

Reading Response 1

One thing that really resonated with me in terms of the BPHS is “Are charter schools cheating?” I’ve been thinking about this a lot in all of my classes. It seems that all the schools we look at with big change are charter schools. Though some of us may get jobs in charter schools most of us are going to work within the public school system in a tradition school setting and I know that Dr. Lawler says, “know the culture, be the culture, change the culture” but none of these books have really examples of how this has work in traditional high schools.

Another thing that really struck me as brilliant is the idea of smaller schools with in a larger one. I went to a high school of only 1200 students and I really felt connected to and responsible for the culture there. That suggestion seemed like one of the easiest things to do with in a high school.

I think all the change that we’ve been looking at requires one thing overall: dedicated teachers. Teachers who are invested in the goal of the school. I’ve noticed also in my CP 2 that in order to have teachers like that you need a principal with a purpose. Teachers are more willing to work towards something if they know the principal is too.

I think a lot of what it said in chapter one was common sense. My friend Erin (who taught in charter school in NYC) said last night that the reason they do that is because a lot of the common sense has been taken out of education. For example, the idea that students will do better with personal attention. Of course they will! Wouldn’t you? I always do better when someone is pushing me.

You can see all six of the components of reform in this but I think the easiest to see is restructuring the school. I think that it’s important not to think about that as just restructuring the day or the goal but restructuring how education is.

Thoughts for later: How can I bring these thoughts to my school?

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