Children's Alliance response to Board of Education's
proposed public school standards
Alliance advocates for individual learning plans, choice
of half- and full day kindergarten, in-school physical education, phonological
testing, smaller class sizes, suicide prevention plans
January 3, 2005
New Hampshire Board of Education
c/o Mary Mayo
New Hampshire Department of Education
101 Pleasant St.
Concord, NH 03301
To Board Chairman Fred Bramante and members of the Board of Education:
On behalf of the Children's Alliance of New Hampshire and the thousands
of children and families for whom we speak, we thank you for the thoughtful
and painstaking work you have put into the proposed public school standards
and for the opportunity to comment on them.
We believe there is much in the proposed standards that will strengthen
public education in our state. Our comments and suggestions contained
in this letter are intended only to make what is already a strong proposal
even stronger.
In making your final decisions on the standards, the Children's Alliance
urges each member of the board, and of the task force working with the
board, to completely set aside issues of how much these changes will
cost and who will pay for them. As you are aware, those questions are
outside of the purview of Board of Education, whose duty is only to
adopt rules related to minimum standards.
Education in New Hampshire has suffered for the inability -- or unwillingness
-- of many to consider the questions of what students need to succeed
and what public schools should offer, apart from the vexing funding
questions. The Board of Education is uniquely positioned to address
the former questions, and powerless to address the latter. School children,
now and in years to come, rely on you to put their needs and best interests
first, and leave to other professionals and politicians issues around
financing and implementation.
We are aware there is tremendous pressure on you to take these other
issues into account. We ask you to keep in mind those citizens who are
voiceless, who do not have a professional association to represent them,
yet who will be affected for the rest of their professional and personal
lives by your decisions.
In that context, we propose some specific additions and revisions to
your proposed standards.
1. Real world learning / individual learning plans
We applaud the Board's goal of engaging every student, and recommend
that an individual leaning plan be required for every student.
Individual learning plans will provide an important measure of accountability
for something as new as real world learning. For example, learning plans
would allow educators to assess at the end of each year whether there
was a differential in students' ability to meet goals depending on whether
they did or did not engage in a "real world learning" experience
outside of school. Thus, the plans become an important tool for ensuring
the quality of out-of-school services.
We also recommend that the Board and Department of Education institute
an assessment of the students who engage in real world learning. We
recommend that this assessment include rates of access among students
from families with varying income levels. If every New Hampshire student
is to be engaged, we must ensure that students from families of means
are not the only ones benefiting from real world learning options.
2. Kindergarten
We have three concerns with this section of the standards.
First, we strongly believe the school districts must be required to
provide kindergarten, not just offer kindergarten options. Our concern
is that parents not receive kindergarten "certificates" or
"vouchers" whose value does not begin to cover the real costs
of kindergarten. In this scenario we would, again, exacerbate differences
between options available to kids from families with and without means.
Second, we believe the state should require every community to provide
both half- and full-day public kindergarten and give parents the option
of choosing what is best for their family.
The reasoning for a full-day kindergarten option is both educational
and economic.
Children who attend full-day kindergarten start grade school more ready
to learn. Studies of the effects of full-day (defined as about six hours)
kindergarten have found that students, particularly from disadvantaged
families, learn more than in half-day programs.
Studies that have tracked kindergarten students into grade school report
strikingly similar results. Kids who had attended full-day kindergartens
were better prepared to succeed in first grade. They were more independent
as learners, more engaged in the classroom and more thoughtful. They
also were more socially and emotionally prepared: working more productively
with other students, relating more positively and confidently with teachers,
and less prone to anger, blaming, withdrawal and shyness.
The economic argument is two-fold. In the short term, quality full-day
kindergarten supports the workforce. In New Hampshire, 61 percent of
two-parent families with children under age 6 depend on some combination
of family, friends and center-based care to watch their children while
they work. Those parents are more productive workers when their child
is settled into a high-quality program, rather than being shuttled from
home to a friend's house to kindergarten to day care.
In the longer term, quality full-day kindergarten supports the preparation
of tomorrow’s workforce. More than half of all new jobs created
in New Hampshire require a bachelors degree. Our state has been enormously
successful importing workers for its burgeoning high-tech industries
from other states, but must begin to grow its own high-skill workforce.
Children who love to read and learn at age 5 are more likely to stay
in school, graduate high school, and succeed as learners for the rest
of their lives.
Third, we ask for a requirement for phonological testing, preferably
in kindergarten.
Individuals who have a specific reading disability, or who are likely
to develop one, have difficulty with a capability called phonological
awareness. The term refers to the ability to decompose speech into constituent
sounds. A student with phonological processing problems has difficulties
attaching speech sounds to letters and letter combinations. If a beginning
reader cannot attach sounds to letters, they cannot "sound out"
words to identify them.
For example, a beginning reader who has difficulty in attaching speech
sounds to letters and letter combinations would have difficulty attaching
a sound to the letter "d" in the word "dog." That
child would have even greater difficulty in sounding out the entire
word and then repeating the sounds rapidly so that the word could be
identified.
Phonological testing is a critical early screening tool, because very
young children who have difficulty with phonological awareness are at
risk for developing reading problems. Tests of phonological awareness
skills in kindergarten and first grade predict with 95% accuracy students
who have difficulties learning to read.
3. Class size
We applaud the Board for recognizing that class size is related to learning,
and for proposing lowering maximum class sizes. However, we believe
that based on the literature on this issue, the proposed class sizes
are still too high, particularly in the elementary school grades. We
urge you to adopt maximum class sizes of 17 from kindergarten through
grade 6 and 20 in grade 7 through high school.
Although we understand that most class size studies are less than conclusive,
we ask the Board to consider Tennessee's Project Student/Teacher Achievement
Ratio (STAR) Project, generally considered the best in the field. STAR
tracked students who participated in three K-3 class sizes (13-17 students,
22-25, 22-25 with an aide), and found that those 10th-graders who had
participated in small classes had maintained academic achievement advantages
over their peers who attended regular or regular/aide STAR classes.
Over the years, students from small classes were less likely to fail
a grade level or be suspended than their peers who were in regular and
regular/aide classes. Small-class students were also achieving better
grades in their high school courses and to be taking more advanced courses
than students from the other two cohorts.
The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies report, "Smaller
Classes Score Higher" (Sept. 2003) summarized recent research on
the effects of class-size reduction: "One reported difference in
smaller classes is increased student attentiveness and on-task behavior.
Other benefits include fewer behavioral disruptions, less time spent
on student discipline and more on teaching, greater individual attention,
more student discussion, even greater self-esteem and cognitive growth
in the early grades."
We suggest that smaller class sizes would further all of the Board of
Education's goals.
4. Physical education
Knowing that in New Hampshire 22% of school-age boys and 17% of girls
are overweight and another 20% are at risk for overweight, we are very
concerned with shifting the physical education requirement toward physical
"fitness." Fitness is but one element of physical education
instruction. We believe school-based physical education, including daily
physical education on the elementary school level, should be required
in public schools.
Eight years ago, the national Centers for Disease Control issued "Guidelines
for School and Community Programs to Promote Lifelong Physical Activity
Among Young People." Its first recommendation, that schools promote
"enjoyable, lifelong physical activity among young people,"
called for a requirement of comprehensive, daily physical education
for students in kindergarten through grade 12.
The report noted that three in 10 schools exempted students from physical
education if the students participated in other activities, including
cheerleading and interscholastic sports. "Substitution of these
programs for physical education reduces students' opportunities to develop
knowledge, attitudes, motor skills, behavioral skills, and confidence
related to physical activity," the report said.
5. Suicide prevention protocols
We recommend that the Board incorporate into the standards those sections
of the state Department of Health and Human Services' State Plan for
Suicide Prevention that relate to public schools. The plan became public
on Nov. 18, 2004.
The plan's recommendations include:
-- Adopting school-based programs endorsed
by the Evidence Based Practice Registry of the Suicide Prevention Resource
Center
-- Providing in-service training and continuing education that includes
suicide risk assessment and intervention, and
-- Increasing the number of school personnel who have received training
in appropriate responses to inquiries from media professionals concerning
suicide and suicidal events.
Again, we thank you for your diligence in crafting school standards.
Please contact us if you have questions about any of our recommendations.
Sincerely,
Ellen Shemitz
President
Steve Varnum
Public Policy Director
