In today's class, we talked about what we read in the book "Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago" by Anthony S. Bryk, Penny Bender Sebring, Elaine Allensworth, Stuart Luppescu, and John Q. Easton. Some general themes that emerged from our discussion were encouragement, change/approaches to improve schools for academic achievements, engagement of parents with their kids in and outside of schools, and also leadership. In our discussion, we discussed private and also public schools. We also discussed the Chicago Public Schools that was mentioned in the book. We also discussed how important it is to improve schools and I believe that I, as a student, agree with the fact that it is not just about improving schools so that schools can get a better rating, it is so that schools can be improved to give a quality education to their students. I believe that I agree with what is said in the book that the need is to focus on improvements in learning and not just status (Bryk, et al., pg. 32). I believe to improve the quality of schools, you first need to implement certain rules and make sure that those rules are enforced. We did discuss this in our discussion today. The reading also showed statistical data of students' attendance rating in some schools and a negative attendance rating in certain other schools. (pg. 30). We also discussed what can be done to improve schools. We discussed that in order to improve schools, we need to change and educate ourselves first. This is because if we do not change and educate ourselves first, how can we improve the school system? We also discussed how classroom instruction can be amended in order for students to be motivated to learn. We also discussed as a class how standardized testing has got much more complex. For example, most of the testing is computerized and much more complex. In today's class, we also discussed in my group how when parents send their child to a private school, they are more concerned about his or her grades rather than compared to if he or she were in a public school. For example, my parents pay out of their pocket for my education at New Jersey City University, so they are always on top of my education. They need to know all of my grades and how I am doing in my classes. If I ever fail a test or something, they ask me why I failed and get me a tutor to help me improve. This is because they are paying out of their pocket for my education. Plus, it is not only that they are paying out of their pockets for my education, but also because they want me to have a bright future. I know up until now in college, my parents did not know how or what I was doing in school. I had never told them and they mostly never asked. Even if they did, it would just be as simple of a question as "How's school going?" and I would say "Fine" and that would be it. So, today we mostly discussed how schools can improve and talked about the Chicago Public Schools and private and public schools.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Privateschool-58b5b2173df78cdcd8a980c7.jpg)
Private School vs Public School
https://www.google.com/search?q=School&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhkrOU7K7eAhUEh-AKHRr4Dd4Q_AUIDygC&biw=1366&bih=657#imgrc=uznZzmJLkNCRbM:
References
1. Bryk, A. S., Bender Sebring, P., Allensworth, E., Luppescu, S., Easton, J.Q. (2010). Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
2. https://www.google.com/search?q=School&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhkrOU7K7eAhUEh-AKHRr4Dd4Q_AUIDygC&biw=1366&bih=657#imgrc=uznZzmJLkNCRbM:
