Erich Martel
Inaugural Column: My Goals
September 19, 2003

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INAUGURAL COLUMN: MY GOALS

by Erich Martel

In this, my first column since the establishment of DCPSWatch, I will describe what I hope to accomplish. I first want to thank Dorothy Brizill and Gary Imhoff for initiating this website and inviting me to be a columnist.

I have been a DCPS social studies teacher since 1969, first at Francis L. Cardozo H.S. and, since 1985, at Woodrow Wilson H.S. I currently teach Advanced Placement U.S. History, world history and African studies. In addition to my classroom experience, I worked on a number of history curriculum and standards projects in DCPS and on a national scale, including the development of the National History Standards and reviews of state history and social studies standards.

These experiences have given me considerable insight into the obstacles that prevent large numbers of our students from achieving the levels of academic success we expect to see. I contend that the primary obstacles to student achievement are to be found in the policies and practices of the DC Public Schools, not in external socio-economic factors. I intend to focus on these obstacles with the goal of shedding light on and demystifying their causes. Since I am not an expert in most areas of education, I will freely draw upon the specialized knowledge and research of those who are.

It is my hope that the information and reports posted to this column will generate discussion and debate on these academic topics. Discussion and informative response to questions are vital, the lack of which marks attempts by parents and teachers to answers to important questions (unless pressured by the media or forced by the courts). For these reasons, each column posted on the DCPSWatch website will also be briefly reported in themail@dcwatch.com, with a link to the full column.

The column will focus on the critical elements that contribute to student academic achievement in a school and a school system. These critical elements are:

1. An educational atmosphere that promotes a culture of student achievement; this requires
   1. standards of student conduct and decorum;
   2. standards of student responsibility for learning and behavior;
   3. support of these standards by parents and school administrators.
2. Teacher effectiveness requires teachers who
   1. have majors or minors in the content they are teaching (not just course work in how to teach that subject);
   2. employ teaching methods aimed at increasing students' subject-area knowledge;
   3. at the early elementary level are trained to teach reading with the most effective methods of phonics (based on the research findings of the Report of the National Reading Panel of the National Institute of Child Health and Development).
3. Subject area standards, curricula and pacing charts that are centered on content knowledge and subject-specific skills, not on abstract themes, disconnected "higher order thinking skills," socio-political behavior; for example: subject area standards must be "clear, concise, measurable and grade-level appropriate" (Minnesota State Legislature's requirements for the current [2003] revision of all subject-area standards);
4. Textbooks and supporting instructional materials that are accurate, content-rich and coherently organized;
5. Assessments and evaluations that are objective and securely administered and give an accurate picture of student achievement; they must "measure students’ academic knowledge and skills and not students’ values, attitudes and beliefs" (Minnesota State Legislature's requirements for the current [2003] revision of all subject-area standards).
6. An academic leadership that supports effective teaching by
   1. making academic decisions based upon well-documented educational research, which it is capable of distinguishing from educational fads;
   2. demonstrating knowledgeable expertise in all of the above;
   3. organizing productive staff development sessions led by competent in-house or external specialists and focused on teachers' specific instructional needs.

All of these critical elements of academic achievement are more likely to be realized, when parents and the community

1. hold children responsible for learning and achievement;
2. hold schools and the school system accountable for implementing and successfully sustaining these critical elements of student achievement.

These critical elements of successful schools are what parents and the general public expect to see in the schools that they and their neighbors entrust with the education of our children. Although there are many DCPS schools and individual classrooms that are exceptions, for the most part, the DC Public Schools are deficient in many of those areas.

Readers may notice that I didn't list income level, race, ethnicity, gender, home environment or English not spoken in the home. While these factors can have varying effects on a child's education, they are out of the direct control of the school system.

As long as DCPS fails to maximize the effectiveness of the critical elements over which it does have control and which it is legally charged with controlling, these external factors are unacceptable as explanations of its failures. I will give examples of public inner-city schools where all of those factors are present, but nonetheless are successful in bringing students to high levels of achievement.