LOOK OUT! YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM IS SHOWING.

There IS a placebo effect. When you believe the outcome will be a certain way, very often that belief is self-reinforcing…

BELIEF #1
It appears that the top brass in this district see the fact that Pleasantdale is more socio-economically diverse than neighboring districts (e.g. 7.4% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch or needing LEP, Limited English Proficiency, services) as a problem instead of an opportunity. Indeed it’s been used as a reason why Pleasantdale can never expect to perform quite as well as say, Western Springs or Highlands.

If you cling to that belief and want to continue to use that ‘problem’ as an excuse, then of course you are not going to wholeheartedly pursue changes that would disturb that belief system – such as Preschool for All and Full-day kindergarten. Over and over, early childhood education has proven to be the equalizer for this problem in other districts. In fact, districts with fewer eligible students (by percent of enrollment) like Highlands have applied for and received Preschool for All grants. But, here in Pleasantdale we like to cling to our crutch (oh, excuse me - beliefs).

Look folks, it’s true most people in this district can afford pre-school and full-day kindergarten for their children if that’s what they want. So why should we care? Let’s remember this is PUBLIC EDUCATION. Those children who did not receive the advantages of early childhood education are going to be learning in the same classroom as those who did. Every time a 1st grade teacher has to take time to help those that are behind is less time to teach and enrich all children. If we want high-quality rigorous educational outcomes for our children, then by the very nature of our PUBLIC EDUCATION system, we must care about those outcomes for all children in the district. And as a community we cannot simply pay lip service – we must take action. April 7th is a chance to take action – take the time to VOTE! Busy on April 7th? Vote now at early polling.

BELIEF #2
HEY, here’s another belief that, in my opinion, ought to go away…’when a child reaches fifth grade and is still not a proficient reader there’s not much the school can do about it’. Yes, a few years ago, right out in an open Board meeting that statement was made by district leadership.

Nevertheless, when pushed to do something about a problem that you believe ‘there’s not much the school can do about’, it makes an odd sort of sense that you would choose to implement a program like ‘Reading Workshop’. This program attempts to address comprehension without first addressing fluency. And thus, does not effectively help many of the non-proficient readers enrolled in it. SEE, ‘there’s not much the school can do about it’ – becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let’s step away from beliefs for a minute…and look at the results by the numbers. Generally, a score of 35% indicates a child is a year behind his peers, a score of 50% is average. Let’s reasonably define the cut off for proficient readers in the middle of that percentage range or scoring at least 43%. Then check out page 6 of this report by the district: remembering that the scores are averages (some scored below and some students scored above the grade level score) of all students in reading workshop and many of these students have been in the workshop for more than a year.
(http://www.d107.org/media/Administration/Fall%20Testing%20Report-2008.pdf )

If you’d like a better handle on how many are not proficient – go to pages 18-27…. of the report link above. Now go up the 2008 scores (vertical scale or Y-axis) and count the dots (students) below the 43% percentile. While you’re at it – count the dots on the Math score pages, too.

If it doesn’t make feel like we’ve still got a long way to go - put a face of a student you know on each dot. Then go VOTE – vote for change.