South Dakota educator shares school success story with Congress
March 23, 2005
Washington, DC.— South
Dakota educator Kathy Johannsen recently met with a bipartisan coalition
of Congressional leaders concerned with rural education to carry
a simple, but important message: rural schools like hers in Alcester-Hudson
can and do improve, especially when they receive the right kind of
outside support.
“We came from a school in the year 2000
that felt they were doing a good job to a school that knows it is
one of the top schools in the state of South Dakota in 2005,” Johannsen
told the 30-plus Congress members and staffers who had gathered for
a meeting of the House and Senate Rural Education Caucus.
Johannsen, elementary coordinator in Alcester-Hudson
Elementary School, explained that after three years of intensive
work with consultants from Mid-continent Research for Education and
Learning (McREL), an Aurora, Colo.-based nonprofit organization devoted
to school improvement, the percentage of students in the school testing
at proficient or higher levels rose from 55 to 100 in reading and
45 to 94 in mathematics.
Johannsen noted that because schools have unique
needs, attempting to shoehorn them into one-size-fits-all reform
model is less effective than helping schools learn how to collect
and analyze student achievement data to identify needs and applying
research-based solutions to address those needs. Doing so helps schools
not only raise student achievement in the short term, but also prepares
them to continue the process after consultants leave.
“The one thing I felt was important for
the folks in Washington, DC to know is that McREL not only helped
us through the ‘school improvement’ process, but also
gave us the tools we need to continue to keep our school strong after
they finished working with us,” Johannsen added.
“The teachers and students in Alcester-Hudson
have all worked very hard to achieve this level of success,” said
McREL Lead Consultant Danette Parsley. “They have, as they
say, gotten ‘hooked’ on data and looking to research
for answers.”
McREL, which holds the regional educational laboratory
contract for the Central Region of the United States (comprised of
Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota,
and Wyoming) is also working with schools in Newell to refine and
collect evidence on the effectiveness of its school improvement process.
Schools in Newell have experienced similar improvements.
Newell Middle School was one of three South Dakota schools released
from school improvement status in 2004 after its percentage of students
testing at proficient or higher levels rose between 2003 and 2004
from 83 to 89 in reading and 66 to 86 in math. Newell Elementary
School also showed significant improvement in achievement from 2003
to 2004. Its percentage of students testing at proficient or higher
levels rose from 73 to 87 in reading and 69 to 81 in mathematics.
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McREL is a nationally recognized, private, nonprofit organization
located in Aurora, Colo., dedicated to improving education for
all students through applied research, product development and
service. Its staff of highly respected educators and researchers
focuses on providing educators and policymakers with the highest
quality, field-tested, research-based products and services available
in PreK–16 education.
