Connect Education's proposal for improving public schools and student achievement

¶ … Public Education

The foundation of the business called "Connect Education" is the purpose of this formal proposal. It will be written in response to questions and conflicts that have arisen in regards to public education. This proposal outlines solutions to said problems which will provide advantages for both the educators and families.

Letter of Transmittal/Memo

To whom it may concern,

There are a wide variety of both state and federal legislation that focuses on public education. The goal of the company, Connect Education, is to direct their efforts on the vital points of legislation such as BTE, NCLB, as well as the Master Plan. Having No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a large task and requires the backing of an entire community. According to the Hartford County, it requires high levels of commitment as well as effective planning and organization to increase the performance of our public schools (Hartford County, 2007).

The most important obstacle, funding, has already been taken care of and Connect Education is ready to execute their plans. Furthermore, there was a set of four goals created by the education board that is consistent with everything in this proposal (Harford County, 2007). Providing professional support and development for schools, teachers, as well as, the student and their families are the main items of this formal proposal. Other important points are the increased salaries for educators, a revisit to the special education program, and the creation of new schools.

Table of Contents

1) Executive Summary

2) Introduction

3) Building High School

4) Teacher Support/Development

5) Meeting the Needs and Program Requirements

6) Conclusion

Executive Summary

- Our country is falling behind internationally when it comes to educated students. Our standards are not up to par and the K-12 schools are performing very poorly.

- Even though our government has had procedures and goals in place for over 6 years in order to fix these problems, they are not improving. There have been no improvements over the last few years. In fact, many school districts have fallen even further behind. According to Kirsch, our students are placing close to last when it comes to testing in the math and sciences fields (Kirsch).

- It is easy to lay the blame on the students, their families, or their communities. However, that will not create solutions and it has been proven that such problems are not the root cause of our school system failing.

- Kirsch has provided numerous examples of success stories that show that our conflict with the education system can be resolved. There is cause for hope even though there are limits to what we can do. With enough work, we can create a chain of successful change in which one story will feed off another. Eventually, success will be the norm.

- Doing the same thing over and over will not yield different results. Again, Kirsch is the one that brings up the important point of change in policy. It is also important to note that our children are not lab rats. Adopting unproven policy to test its effectiveness is wrong and harms the students who are already struggling.

- Our legislators know what needs to be done and it is time to stop beating around the bush. We can have a successful policy in our country as there are successful practices in many places across the world. It should be our goal to discover the best and most effective practices around in order to adopt them domestically. Kirsch educates us in his paper about a program called America's Choice that has already achieved this. It was created by researching what made some of the best international schools tick, and has since been adopted in America with astonishing results. Pass rates for national exams in schools with this program are through the roof (Kirsch).

A New Secondary School

Preparing students for college is the main goal of Connect Education since the importance of a degree in today's world is incredibly vital. The reform sought by the company will manifest itself in its new high school they are seeking to build. NEWSWEEK creates a ranked list of high schools in America by judging the schools ability to prepare students for college. This is done by focusing on courses such as Advanced Placement or Concurrent enrollment classes that offer college credit (Matthews 2005). These courses are often rigorous and require the student to work a lot harder than for their normal classes. These courses are graded and college credit is awarded based on the standardized testing at the end of the school year. While testing is a controversial practice in the education system, NEWSWEEK stands by it. According to Matthews, there is no better way to truly determine a school's effectiveness in preparing students for higher education than testing (Matthews 2005).

The following is a list of some of the Advanced Placement courses to be offered:

-Advanced Placement, English Literature

-Advanced Placement, U.S. History

-Advanced Placement, Physics

-Advanced Placement, English Language Composition

-Advanced Placement, Biology

Modern high school is easier than it ever has been before. Most students report having less than 6 hours a week of work to complete in order to stay on top of their classes (Matthews, 2005). This new high school created by Connect Education would seek to change that and create an environment in which students truly learn the values of hard work. The goal is to create good and strong study habits in order to prepare students to learn. The course load provided by Connect Education would lead to a vast increase in the homework load and cause students to spend more hours at home studying. Furthermore, resources will be provided for those seeking to improve skills such as writing.

Following one year the high school will be re-evaluated to determine progress and decide the proper course for the future.

Teacher Support/Development

The presence of a qualified and properly trained teacher is vital for success in the classroom. Because of this fact, a large scale revamp of college funding and teaching programs is recommended. Universities should prioritize their teaching programs and make available large amounts of financial aid for those seeking to become educators, and especially so when these teachers are willing to work in risk zones. Creativity and diversity should be main focal points in any teacher education program (Leikin, 2006). Also, to increase the effectiveness of teachers, they should live within the school district, they should have access to programs that allow them flexibility in teaching, and teachers should have access to scholarly research and grant funds. Students should also have access to organizations other than the normal extracurricular activities because these often unify the student body and promotes high academic performance (Improving Quality of Education)

School administration must pick up the mantle of leadership and truly believe that they have an impact on the schools culture. Also, every employee of the district should uphold the highest standards and seek to meet the goals set by the district (Improving Quality of Education). Some schools get by simply through creating diluted courses in math and science that does not have nearly the same quality of content as they should. Often this is done to avoid putting forth the effort required to educate the students who struggle with the normal classes. This kind of behavior is destructive and will cause harm to both district funding as well as the students' futures. All classes and staff should be of the highest quality and caliber (Lewis, 2006).

Meeting the Needs and Program Requirements

All things previously discussed have costs that will be met through Connect Educations fundraising programs. The proceeds will all go towards the local school systems and fund the academic materials required such as: programs, athletics, books, resources, and other needs.

The first goal of Connect Education is to improve students' academic performance by 20% by the end of the first 6-month period. To ensure that proper procedures are met and that the company is on track with its goals, there will be teacher evaluations as well as progress and evaluation reports on a weekly basis.

Conclusion

Connect Education is a proposed company seeking to aid the public school system in increasing academic performance of students, to prepare students for further education in college, and also to seek improvements in our educators (Writer Thoughts). Expansion to the creation of new extracurricular activities will be considered after the first implementation of the program. Students don't only need to be educated, they need a quality education.