Schools spend too much time trying to pick out specific weaknesses and shoring them up for the next testing cycle, he says. In the process, the big picture gets lost. The Highland faculty then identify two to three priorities and make plans to sharpen their skills and knowledge during a summer work session. Last year, for example, the teachers realized their students were not critical readers. As a result, says language arts chair Diane Evans, the faculty decided to use computers to diagnose each student's reading abilities and place a much greater emphasis on reading in all subject areas.
Schools have to create their own internal assessment programs with information on every student.
Johnson principal Linda Miller constantly challenges teachers to think about standards. That, she says, is a much tougher question to answer. Every Friday, on their own time after school, teachers on the Warrior Team at Johnson Middle School meet to discuss new research, resources, and their analysis of state and national standards. They are trying to answer Miller's question about what students have learned. At the end of a unit on the Stone Age, students in social studies teacher David Puckett's class write the producers of the Hanna-Barbara television shows to point out historical inaccuracies in their cartoons.