Six-year plan for unparalleled achievement; the Richmond City School Board outlines a plan to improve the public education system in Virginia's capital

American Education, August-Sept, 1984

The Richmond City School Board establishes and defines in this report the goal of unparalleled achievement for the Richmond Public Schools. In order to attain this goal, unparalleled achievement must be exhibited by everyone responsible for public education in this city, including the School Board, the Superintendent, the administration and staff, teachers, parents, and students. This document provides the vehicle for the School Board to take the first step toward unparalleled achievement--the establishment of specific goals and enabling objectives for the school division. These goals are supported by general strategies which will be more clearly defined prior to implementation. A long-range resource planning model has been used in order to schedule the implementation of strategies over a five-year period. It is intended that this plan will provide the necessary link between the setting of educational goals and the formulation of the annual operating budget.

Education is at a crossroads in this country. School boards and administrations are under attack for continuing to produce high school graduates who lack basic academic and vocational skills. Such criticism is not new to educators. The difference in this most recent "crisis" in education is that government leaders and the public at large are admitting that past resource allocations have been insufficient, especially as they relate to teachers' salaries. There is a belief that a covenant must be made between both parties. According to recent polls conducted by Gallup and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the public is willing to raise teachers' salaries and increase other educational resources if it can be assured that this will result in superior staff performance and student outcomes. With this impetus and the consistent research finding that educational gains will occur only after expectations have been raised, the School Board of the City of Richmond has set its sights high.

The time appears ripe for making this challenging commitment. The seventies were characterized by massive changes in the Richmond Public Schools. A court-ordered desegregation plan in 1971 dramatically altered school assignments for a large portion of the student population. Emphasis was placed on administering this change and maintaining order and stability during the process.

The desegregation plan also had an adverse effect on the local financing of public education in Richmond. Additional resources were required to implement the plan successfully, but because supplemental funds were not provided by the Commonwealth, local funds had to be diverted to meet these administrative and logistical needs. At the same time, the need for increased instructional resources was greater than ever as disparities in pupil achievement became more evident due to the new assignment plan. The goals presented herein reflect the School Board's commitment to channel long overdue resources into all components of the instructional program.

Standardized scores suffered in the early seventies, ranging in 1974-75 between the twentieth and thirtieth percentiles for fourth, eighth, and eleventh grade students. Expectations for student achievement were low. Ignoring the cynicism of skeptics, the School Board established in 1976 the goal that student achievement levels would reach the national average by 1980-81. five years later, this goal was met and exceeded at all elementary grade levels. By 1982-83, eighth grade scores had risen from the twentieth to the forty-first percentile in reading and from the twenty-second to the fifty-third percentile in math. Eleventh grade scores, though slightly lower, have followed a similar trend.

The academic goals now are being raised once more: to the seventy-fifth percentile for elementary students and to the sixtieth percentile for secondary students. These are extremely ambitious goals. No large school division in the Commonwealth met this achievement level for elementary students in 1982-83. Reading and mathematics SRA scores for selected school divisions are presented in Table 1.

Again, skeptics asert that disadvantaged, urban students cannot score at the sixtieth, much less the seventy-fifth, percentile. The Richmond School Board disagrees. With superior resurces, programs, leadership, and commitment, the School Board believes that Richmond's students will demonstrate unparalleled achievement. This document establishes golas for excellence and provides a general overview of strategies for meeting these goals

The goal-setting process

For the past two years, the School Board has worked diligently to establish a unique set of goals for the Richmond Public Schools. An integral component of this goal-setting process was the School Board's participation n a series of seminars and work sessions sponsored by the Danforth Foundation to assist School Board members in their professional growth and development. Participating with Richmond in the Danforth program were the school districts of Atlanta, Columbus, Jacksonville, and Norfolk which have been nationally recognized for their instructional programs. The Danforth seminars provided School Board members with an exceptional opportunity to visit other urban school districts, interact with distinguished educators and statesmen, and discuss special concerns with fellow school bard members. Presenters in the Danforth programs included such outstanding educators and leaders as the following: Terrel Bell, Secretary of Education; John Glenn, United States Senator; Harold Hodgkinson, Institute for Educational Leadership, Washington, D.C.; Tom Richman of INC Magazine, speaking on megatrends; Floretta McKenzie, Superintendent of the District of Columbia Public Schools; John Goodlad, Dean of the Graduate School of Education, UCLA; Ron Edmonds, Professor of Education, Michigan State University; Luvern Cunningham, Dean of the College of Education, Ohio State University; Dr. Vincent Reed, Vice President, Washington Post; and Margaret Marston, a member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education and of the Virginia State Board of Education.