9486 in the collection  

Amato Brings His Test Prep Strategies to New Orleans

Ohanian Comment: Before they start cheering, folks in New Orleans should take a look at the test drill regime Amato instituted in Hartford. For starters, see

http://www.ctnow.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=hc%2Dmastery0919%2Eartsep19

Amato wouldn't allow questions after his PR statement. But for the sake of the children, parents and teachers had better starting asking a few.

BATON ROUGE -- By the end of the next school year, New Orleans public schools will have posted the biggest test score gains in the state, new Superintendent Tony Amato promised state education officials Wednesday. "I'm looking at the Orleans Parish school system to make the biggest leap on the LEAP" after the 2004 high-stakes test, Amato said. "Write it down and hold me to it."

Amato made the bold prediction to a panel of state school board members, chairmen of the Legislature's education committees and other state education officials as part of the Orleans Parish School Board's monthly report on the struggling district's progress. He also explained some specifics to address literacy, low-performing schools and the system's "dysfunctional" central office. Amato said he plans to launch a districtwide literacy program at the start of the next school year that will carve out a block of time each day to devote to improving students' reading skills.

"From 9 to 11 everyday it's going to be a sacred mission of literacy," he said. "Short of a fire, nobody interrupts it." At the end of each quarter, students in the third through eighth grades will take a "LEAP-like" test designed to measure improvement in their literacy skills and help them master basic test-taking strategies so the fourth- and eighth-grade LEAP test is not a mystery, he said.

Once the literacy program is in place, Amato said, he'll establish similar programs for math, science and other subjects. After Mardi Gras, Amato said, he'll unveil a menu of four or five "research-driven" school reform plans that have been used successfully elsewhere. Each of the district's 22 low-performing schools will have to introduce one of those programs next school year, and eventually the programs would be spread to other schools so "they don't end up on the low-performing list," he said. Teachers will be enrolled in summer workshops to learn about the selected program, he said. Right now, many struggling schools are using bits and pieces of different school improvement programs and are unfocused, he said. "It's a hodgepodge right now," he said. "We have to realign and set targets that are clear."

Disfunctional Office
Finally, Amato addressed reform of the district's central office, which he said "is in the worst shape of any district I've seen." "I've never seen anything this dysfunctional," he said.

His first order of business in tackling that problem is to hire a "first-tier" management auditing firm to "go into the dark corners and pull everything out," he said. Amato promised to bring the results of that report, which he expects to have in three months, back to BESE and expose all the problems and sketch out solutions.

"Six months from now, I defy you to find a person who is being paid that's dead or somebody on workers comp for years," he said. "We have to address this because unless that's done, we can't get to the real business at hand . . . educating children."

Along with the audit, Amato said, he'll introduce quarterly reviews of the central office staff by principals and teachers as well as evaluations of school staffs by parents. Those reports will be used to judge whether each department's staff is effective, he said. To hold himself accountable, Amato promised to return to BESE next month with a month-by-month schedule of his reform plan and vowed to come back with monthly updates.

BESE members pleased
Citing a hectic schedule, committee chairwoman Glenny Lee Buquet did not allow questions or comments after Amato's presentation, but BESE members said after the meeting that they were pleased.

"I think he made a good first impression," Leslie Jacobs said.

Keith Johnson, who represents most of New Orleans, said he was impressed that Amato was eager to hold himself to specific timetables. "If we're going to hold children accountable, we have to be prepared to hold ourselves accountable," Johnson said.

And state Superintendent Cecil Picard called Amato's introduction "very impressive" before ushering the new superintendent off for a private chat.

This meeting was a far cry from prior meetings between the BESE members and the New Orleans officials. In recent months, state school board members criticized district leaders for poor management, and more recently, berated the board for taking too

On Wednesday, the Department of Education's Baton Rouge headquarters was a abuzz with anticipation, and Amato's name came up again and again during the morning as BESE's committees met.

"We are extremely excited that you're here," Buquet said before leading a round of applause. . . . . . . .

— Aesha Rasheed
School Head Promises LEAP Gains
The Times-Picayune
Feb. 20, 2003
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-0/104572419021432.xml

---

INDEX OF OUTRAGES

Pages: 380   
[1] 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>    Last >>