Raising Student Achievement in Every School for Every Student

By Sally Warner

There is one key issue facing Cincinnati Public Schools at present: raising student achievement. CPS needs effective leadership at every school and excellent teaching in every classroom so that every child can achieve at high levels.

Now that we have developed these reform structures, our challenge is to make sure they are in place in every school and in every classroom for every child. We have proven that this can work by the successes that we have had in redesigning Parham, Clifton, Bond Hill and Windsor schools, but we must now make it happen in all of our schools.

Here is how we can accomplish this goal:

by strengthening the ability of schools to perform at high levels by assisting them in their One Plan process - the school planning process that analyzes student data, sets goals and allocates resources to accomplish those goals;

by instituting a leadership training program for principals and assistant principals;

by modifying the Teacher Evaluation System to include more training so that teachers are able to reach the effective and accomplished levels;

by expanding training for diagnostic literacy testing and reading intervention models to more schools; by expanding our efforts to recruit - especially African-Americans - to come to our district as both new teachers and career-change teachers;

by opening the virtual high school and implementing the restructuring of Taft and Aiken and planning for changes at Withrow, Western Hills and Woodward; and

by continuing to intervene in low-performing schools, redesigning them when necessary.

If voters elect members to the school board committed to these goals and committed to support the reform leadership of Superintendent Steven Adamowski, we can raise student achievement and regain a sense of pride in what public education can accomplish in every school for every child.