Forget charter schools and voucher schools and waiting for Superman. The heroes of K-12 education in Indiana are the teachers – and the students! – of two public elementary schools in Lafayette.
Murdock Elementary and Thomas Miller Elementary both achieved eye-popping improvement in their students’ ISTEP-Plus scores, which were announced this week by the Department of Education.
At Murdock, 84.7 percent of students passed both the English and math sections of the test in spring 2011, up from 53.8 percent the previous year. At Thomas Miller, the pass rate increased to 85.9 percent from 61.5 percent.
And these are low-income schools, with 85-90 percent of their students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches – the kind of student profile that often produces ISTEP passing rates of under 50 percent.
How did they do it? According to the Journal and Courier newspaper, Lafayette School Corp. officials decided two years ago to devote all their federal Title I funding to the schools with the neediest students and worst performance record, Murdock and Thomas Miller — and to supplement it with federal stimulus money.
They hired more staff and reduced class size, putting two teachers in every classroom. At Thomas Miller, the school day was lengthened by an hour. Parents had to sign school-support contracts; if they didn’t, their children were sent elsewhere. Murdock implemented a “countdown” curriculum that emphasized testing and focused attention on ISTEP. The principal and a counselor met individually with every student to update them on their progress and encourage them to do well on the state tests. Continue reading
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