July Newsflash
As summer program nears end, educators discuss new fall curriculum
Just before 9 a.m., Edward Koch, principal of Fairhill School in West Kensington, quiets the cafeteria full of the more than 300 children in grades pre-K to 8 in the school’s academic program this summer and then proceeds to make announcements in both English and Spanish.
Four days a week from 9 until 1, Fairhill is one of over 70 programs across the city where over 37,000 students from the District are going to school this summer. About 30,000 are enrolled in remedial academic programs while about 7,000 are participating in enrichment programs.
All students who performed poorly on the TerraNova standardized achievement test in math and/or reading or who have failed their regular math and/or reading courses for the school year were recommended to attend. Attendance for low-performing students will become mandatory next summer.
Many proponents of summer school argue that continuing academic activities throughout the summer helps students, especially those students who are struggling academically, to retain and build upon the skills gained during the school year.
Principal Koch estimates that between 20 and 30 percent of students who have enrolled in Fairhill’s summer school program did so voluntarily, not necessarily because a teacher recommended them based on unsatisfactory academic performance.
Jasmine Pagan, 15, who was recommended to attend the Fairhill summer school program because of low TerraNova scores, sees the value of continuing her studies during the summer.
“I forget stuff, and this is like bringing my memory back,” said Pagan, who hopes to enter ninth grade at Mastbaum High School in the fall.
Summer school program is ‘gateway’ to District’s standardized curriculum
A key part of the District’s ongoing school reform efforts is the establishment of a standardized language arts and math curriculum in grades K-9 starting in Fall 2003.
While the curricula currently being used for remedial instruction in the summer school programs—Voyager (language arts) and Princeton Review (mathematics)—are different from what will be in use in the fall, one similarity is that both programs are standardized core curricula created by outside companies for uniform use in all specified grades in the District. These two programs were first introduced districtwide for last year’s extended day programs.
District CEO Paul Vallas called the summer program curricula “a gateway to our curriculum and instruction offerings next year.”
Philadelphia is one of the more than 1,000 school districts in forty-five states that have purchased Voyager Reading programs. George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act requires that school districts use reading instruction materials that have been proven by researchers to increase reading skills in order to receive federal funding for their reading instruction programs.
Princeton Review has designed a math curriculum for the District that integrates the Pennsylvania academic proficiency standards into instruction through a skills-based approach that tracks student progress through weekly benchmark testing.
The District paid $3.2 million to Voyager for summer program curriculum materials and professional development, and $2.9 million to Princeton Review.
Brenda Morris, a third grade teacher who has taught at Fairhill for over 30 years, described Voyager as “a very scripted program.”
Morris, who knew about half of her eleven fourth graders prior to teaching them this summer, added, “You really don’t have a choice to do your own thing. You have to really just follow the program as it is scripted. And…you have so much to do, you don’t have any time to do anything else.”
Morris observed several positive features—such as the promotion of both team-oriented and individual leadership skills—in Voyager’s literacy program, which uses a thematic approach to building literacy skills. She also noted that while all teachers regardless of experience can benefit from using the standardized curriculum, it will especially help more inexperienced teachers.
“For someone who really doesn’t know exactly what they’re doing, I think it’s really great,” said Morris.
One problem that Morris has with the summer program’s Voyager curriculum is time. The curriculum that she is currently using in her classroom was designed for four hours of use, five days a week. However, the time constraints of the summer program only allow instruction for two hours a day four days a week, forcing her to pick and choose the most important aspects of the lessons to teach.
In addition, Morris said that while she did participate in a two-day professional development training about the summer program’s curriculum, she had only one day with the curriculum materials before she was expected to teach them to her students, all of whom either failed fourth grade or scored low on the TerraNova.
Educators discuss pros and cons of curriculum
Though all the teachers and administrators interviewed by the Notebook for this story agree that using a standardized core curriculum—during summer school or the regular academic year—does require teachers to follow prescribed guidelines more closely than curricula used in past years, views are mixed on how helpful that is to teaching and learning.
According to Hope Yursa, lead academic coach in mathematics in the District’s Office of Curriculum, implementing a standardized curriculum in the District is necessary to “ensure that children are being given the opportunity to learn at proficient levels” despite varying levels of teacher quality.
Fairhill literacy coordinator, Tim McKenna, emphasized that the core curriculum is only one part of the entire curriculum, which allows teachers to retain some flexibility in integrating the state academic proficiency standards into their teaching.
“It truly doesn’t stifle a teacher’s creativity,” said McKenna, who has taught at Fairhill since 1996, “That was my major concern.”
Principal Koch echoes this sentiment: “You have your core curriculum but you can also map out and spin off into other areas to support the programs,” he said.
The new curriculum in use this summer at Fairhill reflects the increased emphasis that education officials at the federal, state, and local levels are placing on testing as the leading indicator of student achievement.
The Voyager program requires students to take skills assessment tests at the beginning and at the end of the program. In addition, students have been tested once a week in the six-week program. According to District spokeswoman Amy Guerin, the decision as to a student’s promotion to the next grade will be made this summer on “a student-by-student assessment.”
This six-week testing cycle—five weeks of instruction, one week of review and testing—will also be in use in the fall as a part of the standardized core curriculum initiative in grades K-9 in the District.
Koch, who has spent the past four of his 29 years with the District at Fairhill, believes this testing cycle is beneficial because teachers will be able to evaluate student performance sooner than the PSSA or the TerraNova would allow, enabling teachers to adjust instruction and support accordingly.
Koch affirmed his support for the helpfulness of standardized testing in terms of guiding instruction: “It tells us where we are. It also tells where we need to be,” he said. “It gives us a great baseline.”
But some teachers said their concern about the new curriculum centered on the difference between preparing students for a standardized test and preparing students to be critical thinkers in today’s world.
“It’s really test preparation,” said one veteran high school English teacher, who did not wish to be named, of the standardized curriculum.
Some teachers told the Notebook they worry that the pace of the new standardized core curriculum is not appropriate for all students. When students miss assignments, it will be a challenge for these students and their teachers to keep up with the pace set by the scripted six-week unit cycle in the curriculum.
Advocates for a multicultural curriculum have questioned whether the District is adopting curriculum materials that are sufficiently inclusive of the diverse cultures and histories represented in a system that is majority African American and serves large Latino and Asian populations.
Summer preview of fall changes
Concentrated blocks of class time in literacy and mathematics will be standard in all elementary and middle schools this fall according to Yursa, lead math coach in the District’s Office of Curriculum. Elementary grades will have two-hour blocks for language arts and 90 minutes for mathematics while the middle grades will have 90-minute blocks for each subject.
The Fairhill summer program also resembles what some primary grade classrooms in the District are projected to look like when the District adds over 400 K-3 teachers to implement reduced class size starting this fall, with a target of 22 students per classroom teacher in those grades.
“In a big classroom these children…are lost,” said Morris, “but here because I’m working in small groups (of six children)…they have to pay attention. They can’t hide behind somebody.”
All of the District’s summer school programs end Wednesday.