The complexity of the world that Elmhurst Unit District 205 students will enter as citizens and workers has prompted Superintendent David Moyer and the School Board to re-imagine what student achievement could look like.
Board members heard a mid-year report Tuesday on how the district is working to prepare students for an information-based economy where change is constant.
Moyer described his philosophy behind assessing student achievement, noting that it was based on an idea that the district has a “moral imperative of raising the bar and closing the achievement gap for all students.” And, Moyer stressed, “All means all.”
There has been a shift, he said, from old ideas that the economy will have a place for students of all achievement levels to the realization that many workers will need retraining over their lifetimes in a knowledge-driven global economy.
Moyer reported that already Elmhurst students are achieving at higher levels with far fewer students falling behind — a phenomenon he described as moving “from a bell curve to a mountain curve.”
One of the principles of this new outlook is increasing student engagement in all grades. When asked to define “student engagement,” Moyer said that where teachers used to look for “on-task” behavior and compliance with instruction, now the focus is on making sure the student understands the larger objective they are learning.
Student achievement, Moyer said, will move from an emphasis on what is being taught to what is being learned. Teaching will focus less on a dissemination of facts and more on the ability to think critically, on Improving information literacy and on more timely data for teachers.
To this last point, Moyer said the challenge is to find out which practices truly have the greatest impact on student learning. To get to that, the district needs to do a meta-analysis of research, or research on the research, rather than focus on a study here or a study there.
Moyer pointed to many successes that have already been achieved, including bringing Chromebooks to all students in grades 6 to 12, increasing the number and quality of writing assignments from students in kindergarten through fifth grade, and the launching of the Middle School Task Force to study how to improve the experience for students in those grades.
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Moyer said a measure of middle school success will be when the district’s 6 to 8 program is known nationally for educational excellence.
Parents and the community can find more on the district Web site, including action plans for all parts of student engagement, at www.elmhurst205.org/Supt.
Moyer also reminded the board that the Focus 205 process, which is bringing district officials and the community together to discuss how Elmhurst schools will look in the future, will ultimately end with a more comprehensive, long-term plan for student success.
Moyer emphasized that schools needed to be wary of “nostesia,” or “nostalgic amnesia” that idealizes past practices that often left kids behind. Elmhurst, he stressed, needed to have a future-oriented mindset.
Carol Morency is a freelance reporter for the Pioneer Press.