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Size
| Investing in reorganizing schools to create a personalized learning environment is essential for child-centered education reform. Large, impersonal schools and large classes, fragmented schedules for children and teachers, and random assignments of students to teachers cause many children to withdraw mentally and physically from learning. Teachers feel isolated from their students, their families and other teachers. Research clearly indicates that smaller schools, smaller classes, and educational programs that take into account students' individual needs produce lasting benefits (Houston Chronicle, 9/21/94; Miller, 1996; and Lee, Smith & Croninger, 1996). Schools in this initiative must organize all dimensions of their size -- structure, resources, space and time -- so that teachers can know each child well and use this knowledge to set high academic expectations for each child and shape his or her education to achieve those goals. When children are known well at school, they can no longer be invisible, passive observers, and teachers are better able to help students take responsibility for their own learning. |
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Isolation
| The second focus of this initiative will be to help schools break down the isolation within the school, between schools, and between schools and families and community. Faculty, staff, and administrators will be engaged in a lively collaboration relevant to the world children come from and the adult world they are moving toward. Parents will be valued as equal partners, and their participation must be solicited and fostered. The broader community will be invited into the life of the school, and those in the school -- including students -- will be encouraged to go out to serve the community as well. This initiative will help engender in the community smarter, more patient support for reforming schools through an investment in community learning centered on children. Parent education, leadership development, policy conferences focused specifically on how policies affect or could affect children's learning, and a variety of programs that create a deeper understanding of children's learning and of the ways schools can be organized to foster a richly productive education for all children will be provided. In addition, the initiative will invite others in the community to develop programs of community learning and action on behalf of children. The initiative views The Houston A+ Challenge as an opportunity for the greater Houston community to rethink how it provides education and other services to children to truly meet their needs. |
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Teacher Learning
| An academically rich environment begins with teachers who are deeply knowledgeable about their subjects, about children's development and a wide range of effective strategies for teaching in content areas. According to "Public Policy and School Reform: A Research Summary by the Consortium for Policy and Research in Education (1996) schools' reform and reorganization efforts make little difference to children unless they include a comprehensive program for teachers' learning. Therefore, this reform will confront directly the role of the teacher as key to the education of the children. Where there are strengths among the teachers, these need to be made visible and made the building blocks of the reform effort. Where there are weaknesses, they need to be addressed, with a generous and concentrated investment in teacher learning. This initiative will commit significant financial and informational resources to teacher learning, to strengthen their knowledge of children and their subjects, of the children's cultures, and to restructuring the work setting to include more planning time, professional development, and teacher networking. It will create ways for knowledgeable teachers to become leaders in school change within their schools and across the metropolitan reform effort. |
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