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Running Header: THE INNER WORKINGS OF LAKEVIEW ELEMENTARY 7

The Inner workings of Lakeview Elementary

University

EDU 515

Significant Issues Impacting the Organization

Most education systems face challenges in ensuring that performance objectives are attained. With the increasing multicultural learning environments, the adoption of global-scale techniques to guarantee students emerge successful in school has been effected. For instance, Means, Padilla, and Gallagher (2010) point out to the utilization of continuous-improvement viewpoints stressing on setting of goals, measurement, and feedback loops. Whereas the Lakeview Elementary School has implemented a series of policies with their primary objective being the educational development of the students, there still exist challenges that are threatening performance. The school has a strong base of sound core values and ethical codes which acknowledge the fundamentality of education in the community as a whole. Despite all these efforts, there still exist some barriers to academic excellence. With increasing enrollments, the school faces changing needs of students. In fact, the report presents a negative picture of the status of the school’s performance indicators (KISA Overview 2010). The student performance on the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) is on the decline.

One of the major issues impacting the Lakeview Elementary School as presented on its profile and analysis is the mode of teaching. As Means, Padilla, and Gallagher (2010) argued, schools have been collecting data over a significant period. However, there has been a problem of how to utilize this data to promote school improvement. The enactment of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act 2001 was perhaps a starting point towards increasing student achievements across all socioeconomic border lines and improving low-performing schools’ results. The usefulness of data, nevertheless, exceeds mere NCLB reporting demands; advances in technology have caused schools to implement data-driven decision making procedures to resolve student achievement issues in multidimensional ways. Hence, it is vital for schools to investigate the underlying factors influencing students’ academic performance as a way of enhancing their learning abilities. After all, the Lakeview Elementary School has set out the mission to base its decisions on what is in the best interest of the students. In order to attain its objectives, teachers have to model their teaching in accordance with the multicultural classroom. There are students with different social, economic, and political backgrounds. Such factors can influence the capability of students to understand course content. Even if the teachers are highly qualified or are from different backgrounds to match the students’ characteristics, if they do not utilize the right teaching methods learning would be in vain. Additionally, with the multicultural environment, there is evidence that the learning materials and methods may not be as effective to address the diverse needs of individual students. Also, there are cognitive challenges that exist within the student population as there is the mention of groups of learners with a range of disabilities. Learning disabilities may influence how much students comprehend course content hence causing low performance. Therefore, for Lakeview Elementary School to improve performance in line with its values of ensuring equity, diversity, human growth and change, and ensure dignity and respect, it must seek ways to reconcile the shortcomings highlighted.

The other issue of concern as noted in the Lakeview Elementary School’s profile report and analysis is the students’ backgrounds. The social, economic, and political conditions from where the students come significantly affect their performance in school (Mandinach & Gummer 2013). The home environment particularly receives much attention as the family is considered the basic socialization unit and the center of the learner’s lives. Whatever goes on in the family has psychological implications on the individuals’ intellectual abilities. To reinforce this sentiment, Mandinach and Gummer (2013) argued that parental styles impact the emotional state of a student such that their attitude towards education is shaped within the family. With the associated factors of absenteeism and rates of expulsion, one can imagine that issues at home such as domestic violence or child abuse could play a big role in the performance of a student. The discipline of students goes hand in hand with their performance levels and maintaining this discipline is a partnership between teachers and parents. Also, absenteeism can be caused by poor financial backgrounds meaning that the economic condition of the family is influential of the students’ performances. Other factors relating to the students’ background are the prevalence of juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, peer pressure, and aggressive behaviors. These factors if not addressed can be hurting to the individual student and the institution as a whole.

Significance of the Issues

The issues stated above, the teaching modes and the students’ backgrounds are significant to in many ways. Above all, these factors are indicative of the transformation of schools into multicultural environments characterized by diversity of needs. Schools can only function well when they take into consideration the fact that learning is a multidimensional endeavor. While the primary objective is to impart academic knowledge, there are other equally important aims such as holistic individual development and the production of socially responsible people. Additionally, schools ought to realize that the learning environment is no longer a homogenous setting; rather, it is a heterogeneous atmosphere which requires varied approaches for better outcomes (Park, Dally, & Guerra 2013). By the time there is the mention of considering the mode of teaching, there is the recognition of the presence of various levels of student learning abilities. It, therefore, becomes essential that schools enforce policies which would ensure that respective needs of students are catered for. Every school has no other objective key to its core values, visions and missions other than academic improvement. For this to be realized, developing the right approaches which match the students’ capacities would be a crucial way to start. Such can be through provision of diverse learning resources conscious of varied levels of academic abilities of the learners.

Other than that, understanding the students’ backgrounds is useful in the incorporation of various stakeholders in the quest to achieving academic excellence. Such concerns about the economic background of students, their political values, and social principles play a major role in their learning process. The multicultural feature of the school environment demands that the learning and teaching resources have to be accommodative of an assortment of cultures. Attitudes towards subjects vary with cultures; hence school administrations should consider formulating standardized materials for learning. More so, the students’ background is significant because it helps in reconciling issues which may arise due to ideological differences. Schools have been known to have racial or ethnic concerns which sometimes generate school violence (Mandinach & Gummer 2013). The administrations, thus, can devise ways to promote cultural integration when there is accurate data on the student population. Culture shock and assimilation issues are part of the learning process as some students have to learn the language of instruction. Thus, measures to resolve such differences can be vital for the school’s efforts to unify diverse cultures towards achieving specific desired performance objectives. So to speak, teaching models and student backgrounds’ are significant in influencing structuring of policies which are intended to improve academic performance.

Data for drafting a Strategic Plan

The usefulness of data in an educational system cannot be overstated. According to Mandinach and Gummer (2013), data is important as it presents the image of the status of the school’s performance. The school’s administration is able to observe the performance trend of the past, the present, and be able to predict how it could be in future. With a clear understanding of where the school stands in performance, teachers will implement relevant policies and programs to ensure that students achieve their learning objectives. In that sense, therefore, data is critical in making instructional decisions among the teachers. A clear analysis of the student characteristics will prove vital in tailoring teaching objectives to accommodate the learning abilities of each student. So, data can be utilized in identifying the gaps which exist in the classroom so that proper interventions can be enforced. In simple terms, utilization of school data is equivalent to the nursing evidence-based practice, where decisions lie within clear knowledge of the situation. The outcome of proper documentation and analysis of data, of course, is the improvement of student academic performance. Data ensures that there is no alienation of any group or individual learner due to irrelevant teaching methods or learning materials. For Lakeview Elementary School, the missing data on the learners’ and teachers’ perspectives on the causes of poor performance should be collected using qualitative design questionnaires. This data will then be incorporated in the demographics and behavioral information so that there can be unification of the solutions for performance improvements.

References

Lakeview Community Schools - K.I.S.A Overview. Knowledge-of-instruction-students-an.lakeviewcs.esu7.org. Retrieved 6 September 2016, from http://knowledge-of-instruction-students-an.lakeviewcs.esu7.org/modules/groups/integrated_home.phtml?&gid=2142319&SID 2016

Mandinach, Ellen B., and Edith S. Gummer. "A systemic view of implementing data literacy in educator preparation." Educational Researcher 42.1 (2013): 30-37.

Means, B., Padilla, C., & Gallagher, L. Use of Education Data at the Local Level: From Accountability to Instructional Improvement. US Department of Education. 2010

Park, Vicki, Alan J. Daly, and Alison Wishard Guerra. "Strategic Framing How Leaders Craft the Meaning of Data Use for Equity and Learning." Educational Policy 27.4 (2013): 645-675.