On Saturday, May 20, the Arlington County Democratic Committee (ACDC) holds an election to endorse a candidate for Arlington School Board. The election will be held at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), 4301 Wilson Blvd., from 2 PM to 9 PM. This past Friday, I interviewed Sally Baird. As promised, here is an interview with the other candidate for the Democratic enorsement, Sharon Davis. Thanks very much to Sharon for answering my questions, and best of luck to both fine candidates!
1. Why are you running for Arlington School Board, and why should Democrats endorse you over your opponent, Sally Baird, on May 20?
I+óGé¼Gäóve spent more than 25 years as an activist working with parents, staff, and the community on many challenging issues, with the goal to improve the education and well being of Arlington+óGé¼Gäós young people. If elected, I+óGé¼Gäód bring experienced leadership with knowledge in all levels of education from preschool to college, and deep knowledge of the Arlington community and how to reach out and listen to its many segments.
[more from Sharon after the "flip"]
My legislative expertise on both the federal and state levels is important as School Boards are more and more constrained by what other legislative bodies are mandating. I+óGé¼Gäóve worked with and know our local government +óGé¼GÇ£ both county and school. I believe my qualifications are unmatched in this race, and I am ready to work with the school board members and school staff, parents and students, and the community at-large. Work is needed on the overarching issues such as declining enrollment, scarce construction dollars, resource allocation, preschool education, and increasing challenges in meeting test benchmarks under NCLB, as well as addressing how to balance our elementary students day, support teenagers more effectively, and provide the individualized attention each student needs to thrive and be successful. I believe there is much to do to ensure an outstanding 21st century education for all of our students.
2) What is the most important challenge facing the Arlington County School system, and how do you propose to deal with it if elected?
Continuing to close the achievement gap in light of declining enrollment, changing demographics, and the continual rise of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) bar. The achievement gap has narrowed over the past decade, much attributable to changes made by the school system in terms of instruction and accountability, more intentional expressions of high expectations and encouragement, and targeted resources. I believe the school system must now move to a +óGé¼+ônew level+óGé¼-¥ to further narrow and eliminate the disparities seen between test scores of white students and Black and Hispanic students. Our schools need to figure out effective ways to connect and inspire students to believe education is essential and relevant to their current and future lives. This is a challenging prospect, happening at a time when Arlington may lose school staff and resources due to decreased student enrollment, lose more of our student diversity due to housing costs, and move ever closer to the year when every student must score 100% on every standardized tests in order to meet NCLB targets. Some of the ways to deal with this is carefully examine how resources are allocated, promote programs that +óGé¼+ôconnect with kids,+óGé¼-¥ monitor assessments and support students needing help, put a bigger emphasis on how schools include parents and guardians in the educational life of their student, and remaining flexible to respond if progress isn+óGé¼Gäót being made. Each school has a role in figuring out what works with their students +óGé¼GÇ£ whether creating a middle school cohort program or finding one-on-one mentors. We need to be open to new ways of delivering education, using technology, and organizing the school day.
3) What is your view on foreign language education, especially in "strategic" languages like Chinese and Arabic? In general, at what age do you believe children should first be exposed to foreign languages?
Arlington+óGé¼Gäós school system +óGé¼GÇ£ and America +óGé¼GÇ£ needs a more comprehensive, effective program to teach foreign languages. Research shows that children learn languages better when they are young and it is important to capitalize on this physical and intellectual characteristic of children to teach foreign languages in elementary school. Arlington is currently in process to launch a pilot foreign language instruction program at the elementary level, but balancing all the instructional requirements in the day has to be worked out without compromising teacher-planning time. Some of our elementary schools already offer foreign language acquisition, such as our two partial Spanish immersion schools (Claremont and Key) and Randolph+óGé¼Gäós +óGé¼+ôInternational Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme.+óGé¼-¥ I+óGé¼Gäóm also interested in exploring programs that teach Latin at the elementary level as part of their language arts curriculum. Such early exposure will ready the brains of our students +óGé¼GÇ£ even if we focus only on those languages that use our alphabet at the elementary level +óGé¼GÇ£ to attain higher proficiency levels and learn the less-often taught languages, such as Arabic or Chinese. Some +óGé¼+ôlong distance+óGé¼-¥ learning programs are also provided +óGé¼GÇ£ including one at HB Woodlawn for Japanese. In the future, I think Arlington will adopt more technology-based methods of language instruction, and hopefully offer more +óGé¼+ôexchange student+óGé¼-¥ opportunities for our students to spend school and summer breaks immersed in another country+óGé¼Gäós language. Programmatic revamping is very likely needed to ensure our students can attain by graduation higher levels of foreign language proficiency, such as Spanish V or IV. Our goal should be proficiency in two languages by graduation +óGé¼GÇ£ English and one other language!
and move ever closer to the year when every student must score 100% on every standardized tests in order to meet NCLB targets.
There is NO such provision as every child scoring 100% on every standardized test. That is totally bogus.
What NCLB does require is that every child be rated as proficient on those tests used to measure math and readingin grades 3-8 and one time in high school (usually done in 10th grade), but the state gets to set its own proficiency level.
In the interim, each disaggregated group in each grade must be making AYP towards that goal. I will illustrate this by a slightly inaccurate example, that should help make it clear. If in 2004 the 4th grade reading was at 40% proficiency, then each succeeding year's forthgraders would have to be 6% higher to gain the additional 60% of proficiency to be at 100% in ten years:
2005 46
2006 52
2007 58
Three successive years of failing to make AYP causes punitive measures to kick in. That's 3 consecutive years of having ANY disaggregated group in ANY grade -- one such failure means the school as a whole fails to make AYP.
This is causing some states to set their proficiency levels artificially low.
Lowell, are you SURE that you recorded the statement in question accurately? If so, it shows a fundamental misconception of how NCLB functions.
GOOD LUCK SHARON!!!