Promising Futures

Abstract:
Promising Futures is a book that was written to help improve the high schools in Maine. People at the Department of Education observed things in Maine's high schools that bothered them. Academic achievement was very uneven from school to school. Students were disengaged from learning. Students didn't feel like they had any input on their education. And the rate of students that were accepted to college, the rate of them finishing was lower then the national average. The state wanted to do something to change this, so they created six core principles that they believe will help students be more successful. Schools which promote a safe, respectful and caring environment, high universal expectations with a variety of learning opportunities, understanding the actions based on assessment data, teacher practice which values and builds upon the contributions and needs of each learner, equitable and democratic practices, and coherence among mission, goals, actions, and outcomes. The book then goes through these six principles as well as other principles in more detail. It explains the rationale of each one and gives an example from a real school.

Reflection:
The one thing that I like best about Promising Futures is that they show within this entire book that everyone has to participate in order to make this work. There are principles involving the teachers, there are principles involving the students, and their are principles involving the administration. This process won't work unless everyone is involved. The entire school needs to change.

One of my favorite principles was the one that says that students and teachers belong to teams within the school that provides each student continuous personal and academic attention and a supportive environment for learning and growth. I can not say how much I love teams within schools. It makes things so much easier. The teams of teachers get to know each other better and they can collaborate on units. The book also made a good point that if a student is having a problem with a teacher or a student, then the student has someone they can go with for help on how to solve the issue.

The other principle that I liked was the one that said every teacher has sufficient time and resources to learn, to plan, and to confer with individual students, colleagues, and families. Teams don't work unless they have the time to get together to meet. But it's also great for students. They can use time to meet with teachers to get extra help or make up for assignments that they missed. Parents can be given these times too so they know what time is the best for calling teachers.

At the end of Promising Futures, they have a section labeled "Practices to Consider Phasing Out." And this section has 19 things that schools should avoid doing. I think it's a helpful thing because schools can check easily to see if they're doing the things that are on this list.