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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Are You A VIP?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I missed Gov. Sonny Perdue’s speech at the annual “Eggs & Issues” breakfast this morning because of an untimely dental appointment. So I’m just catching up on details of his latest plan to improve education in Georgia: the Very Important Parent (VIP, for short) Recruiter program.
According to press materials, the $14.25 million program would place a “VIP recruiter” in 551 poorly attended elementary, middle and high schools throughout the state. Basically, the recruiter would be a parent liaison tasked with making the least-involved moms and dads more active in their child’s schooling — including, presumably, getting the children to school.
The recruiter would help parents navigate the public education system, foster relationships between parents and teachers, provide learning resources to use at home and track the family’s progress, among other duties.
Perdue considers this an essential new component to his oft-touted Graduation Coach program. And he hopes it also will help decrease middle and high school drop out rates.
“Education remains my top priority, and focusing on critical involvement by parents and guardians is the next vital step in ensuring student success,” Perdue said in a news release. “The VIP Recruiter Program will help parents take a vested interest in their child’s education and remain involved throughout their child’s academic career.”
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Keeping Score On Education In Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Remember a while back I told you about all the new information the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement has been putting out lately?
Well, now they’ve got a new data tool on their Web site — the Education Scoreboard — that provides all kinds of measures on Georgia’s educational system, from Pre-K to higher education, in one spot.
The governor, who I’m told wanted a simple way for parents to see how Georgia’s public education system is doing, is expected to unveil the electronic scorecard during a speech this morning.
Now some of the data, such the state’s high school graduation rate (72.3 percent), you’ve probably seen before. And other information — including test scores for minorities, special education or low-income students — you won’t find here.
But there are some statistics that haven’t been readily accessible until now. Did you know, for instance, that just 64 percent of the state’s ninth-graders passed the literature end-of-course exam last year and were able to advance to 10th grade?
What’s really cool is that you can look at the data for your child’s school or all of the schools at a given level (elementary, middle or high) in your local school system and compare the information to state figures. In the future, GOSA hopes to expand the capability to allow parents to view multiple campuses side by side.
Jennifer Rippner, GOSA’s executive director, and her staff have been working on the project since September with the help of IT folks at the state Department of Education.
“Our whole goal is to make the data easy to read and available,” Rippner told me. “And the governor’s not scared if the data looks bad.”
So what do you say? Should we score one for Georgia or not?
UPDATE: I thought you’d like to hear what else the governor’s office has to say about the scoreboard, which is being promoted today along with a few other legislative priorities. Here’s a quote from the one-page backgrounder provided to reporters:
“Just as a scoreboard in an athletic competition provides fans with an at-a-glance status report, the Education Scoreboard provides stakeholders with meaningful, concise and transparent data on the status of educational quality and progress in Georgia. To date, there has not been a sole source available to education stakeholders that clearly reports the quality of Georgia’s education system. Instead, stakeholders have been forced to visit multiple sites to piece together an understanding of the system. The Education Scoreboard will fill this gap and report the ‘bottom line’ of education in Georgia.”
