The Union Leader recently reported on the schools in New Hampshire that are “in need” of extra support.
The state Department of Education has identified 23 schools across New Hampshire — including three in Manchester and one in Nashua — in need of extra support to help students succeed.
The schools, identified as Comprehensive Support and Improvement Schools, include Beech Street Elementary, Henry Wilson Elementary, and West High in Manchester, along with Dr. Norman W. Crisp Elementary in Nashua.
Comprehensive Support and Improvement Schools are designated once every three years — as required by law — as schools that are showing the greatest challenges with academic achievement and student performance.
CSI schools are defined as the lowest-performing 5% of all schools in the state receiving federal Title I, Part A funds, as well as all high schools in the state with a four-year graduation rate less than 67%, regardless of Title I status.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, a Title I school is one “enrolling at least 40% of children from low-income families.”
Schools are reviewed under the Every Student Succeeds Act, a law signed by President Obama in 2015 that succeeded No Child Left Behind.
Under NCLB, passed in 2001, schools were expected to reach 100% proficiency by 2014 – a standard considered too high for almost every school in the U.S.
ESSA instead asked states to set “reasonable” and ambitious” goals.
By 2025, New Hampshire’s ESSA plan expects 74% of students in the Granite State to score proficient in English, and nearly 54% to score proficient in math.
It also anticipates a graduation rate of nearly 94%.
ESSA requires states to calculate and release the list of public schools identified for CSI every three years.
The data represents elementary and middle school performance in academic achievement, growth, progress toward English language proficiency, and equity.
Key indicators for high schools include academic achievement, graduation rates, progress toward English language proficiency and college and career readiness.
“The New Hampshire Department of Education will be providing ongoing reviews, technical assistance and monitoring to support improvement efforts within each CSI school, and help aid with continued progress. These schools will develop improvement plans that ensure effective learning strategies are being implemented,” Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said in a statement.
In accordance with ESSA, a total of $3.44 million in federal funds was reserved by the state Education Department from its $49,193,724 Title I allocation to provide direct funding and support for improvement programming to identified schools.
In response to having three city schools appear on the list, Manchester Superintendent of Schools Jenn Gillis said the district’s goal is “student growth and achievement,” and as such they’ll respond to the designations “as a team.”
“We take this as an opportunity to re-examine the systems that support both student growth and staff development not just at the identified schools, but across the district,” Gillis said.
Read more here.
With the influx of changes to the education model that shifted focus away from liberal arts to workforce development model, academics has become less of a focus. This began with the dumbed down Common Core/Next Generation Science Standards. Since then schools have implemented competencies that oftentimes are not based on academic outcomes, along with social and emotional learning, Critical Race Theory, and Gender ideology. This paradigm shift has taken root in many of our classrooms throughout the country. What has been the outcome? The national test scores have plummeted.
Some of that can be attributed to the school closures, but many of the Catholic schooled children have not suffered in the same way. And while some private and religious schools have fallen victim to the fads in education that abandoned their main task of academic excellence, we can see that this change has hurt public schooled children the most.
Manchester continues to flounder because those in charge of the district cannot seem to acknowledge that going back to the basics would help their students. Year after year, they follow the same failed education fads, and their students suffer from it.
Manchester is made up of a diverse population of children, so they certainly have more challenges than some of the other districts in the state. But when you offer your students dumbed down curriculum, and shift focus away from learning a rich academic foundation, when do you admit that basic math is better than Common Core math? When do you acknowledge that learning basic grammar and science helps with their literacy.
Stop relying upon the state standards which we all know are failing our children. Elevate the curriculum as so many parents have asked for in local school board meetings. I know, I’ve attended many in the past.
If you wont do your job, these kids will go somewhere else.
