Toward 2025 in the Massillon City Schools
Author: O'Neill, Adrienne
Date: 2007-03-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Urban Schools,Curriculum,Instruction,Faculty Development,Educational Improvement,Elementary Schools,Middle Schools,High Schools,Educational Change,Academic Achievement

Fred Blosser, Superintendent of Massillon City Schools, asked Adrienne O'Neill, Ed.D., President of the Stark Education Partnership, to conduct a study of curriculum, instruction, and professional development in the Massillon City Schools. A white paper was requested that would contain a critical analysis of curriculum, instruction, professional development and student achievement in the Massillon City Schools as well as a suggested dashboard of indicators with short and long term suggested recommendations based upon current research of best practice. This paper presents these overall findings: (1) With a determination unique to the Massillon City Schools, and a graduation rate that exceeds the national graduation rate for urban school districts, the Massillon City Schools have an inherent capacity to be one of the best school districts in the nation; (2) The Superintendent, Executive Committee, and principals together with faculty need to create a sense of urgency in the Massillon City Schools that seeks to move the schools to excellence on state-wide indicators and to achieve curricular outcomes that reflect a new age; (3) The mission and vision of the school district are too narrow with a focus on compliance. The mission and vision need to be rethought and restated; (4) The Massillon City School District has a long list of Educational Outcome Goals (see Policy 2131 in Appendix II) and Educational Process Goals (see Policy 2132 in Appendix II). Neither the outcome or process goals contain any measures that would enable district personnel to evaluate the success of the district or the schools in meeting these goals. Revising these policies to focus on an overall, measurable goal to realize its inherent capacity to become one of the best school districts in the nation would focus district activity; (5) The curriculum needs to be matched against the revised mission, vision, educational outcomes, and educational process goals; (6) The Massillon City Schools need to complete the process of creating scope and sequence charts, curriculum and where appropriate curriculum matched to standards; (7) Administrative oversight and implementation of curriculum and instruction needs to be focused; (8) Professional development needs to have an articulated, integrated program that includes previously planned district professional development as well as site based professional development determined by principals and staff to meet identified school improvement goals and to implement the expanded mission and vision; (9) Two of the elementary schools, Smith and Whittier, invented a process for continuous improvement planning that is participatory and at the same time accounts for finding and providing supports for raising the achievement of all students. This process, under the direction of the curriculum director, was shared in January and will be replicated in all of the buildings; (10) The district and the schools need to create data dashboards that, at a glance, show how the district and the school are doing against targeted goals; (11) Data management needs to be improved; (12) The special education placement rate (21%) exceeds the national average for urban districts (16%) and needs to decrease; (13) The elementary program is superb with students excited about learning and leaders and teachers who are making sure that every child exceeds the achievement level that might be expected given the poverty levels at the schools; (14) The middle school core content instructional time needs to be increased from 180 minutes to at least 240 minutes; and (15) The high school needs to drop the general track and encourage more of the students to reach higher levels of educational achievement through dual credit (tech prep or junior and senior level courses taught by high school teachers for college credit) or advanced placement courses and in so doing, raise the college going rate (two year technical school, apprenticeships, four year schools etc.). Appended are: (1) Plan for Study, presented on November 14, 2006; (2) Selected Policies from Board of Education Policy Manual; (3) Developing Resources for Education and Athletics in Massillon (DREAM); (4) Data Book Outline; and (5) Creating a World Class Education System in Ohio. A bibliography is included. (Contains 15 charts, 10 figures, 23 tables and 31 footnotes.) [This report was written with Joseph Rochford, Adele Gelb and Kim Ross.]