Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 27, 1993 TAG: 9304270055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Not so for Alisha Minor. This 5-year-old wants to measure stuff - people, blocks, whatever. It's her choice.
She made it during "planning time," and she'll talk about what she's accomplished once the hour-long session concludes.
It's all part of a day's education at Hurt Park. World Class Education, that is.
The Roanoke elementary school, one of 12 schools statewide to take part in a $1.5 million experiment this year, hopes to teach its students to think independently, solve problems and communicate better.
The concepts are not new. But the ideas driving them are. They stem from a sweeping school-reform movement being pushed by Joseph Spagnolo, Virginia's superintendent of public instruction. Some know it as World Class Education, others as Outcome-Based Education or the Common Core of Learning.
But few know what any of that means, Spagnolo told Virginia's school superintendents at their annual conference at the Roanoke Airport Marriott on Monday.
"Most people don't have a clear idea what this is," he said. "Most people don't have any idea what this is."
That's because the movement - catching on in varying degrees in each of Virginia's 134 school divisions, with or without grant money - takes so many different shapes, Spagnolo said.
In Roanoke, it's preschool classes and teacher-parent potluck dinners and a school nurse who drives students to the dentist when nobody else can.
In Salem, it's 50 businessmen taking time off from work to teach ethics to high school students.
In Roanoke County, it's ninth grade English and social studies teachers deciding to integrate their lessons by teaching Indian literature.
And that's just the way it's supposed to be, Spagnolo said.
"This is not a one-size-fits-all strategy," he said.
The methods will differ, he said. But the goals are the same: Teach Virginia's students a "common core" of skills that will prepare them to compete in a global market. Measure success by what a student learns - not the quality of what the teachers teach. And gear the lessons toward individual student's needs.
If it works, Spagnolo said, by the time each child reaches the age of 16, he or she will be prepared to enter college, technical training, an apprenticeship program or the work force.
"I consider nothing else to be more important than this and I believe that with every fiber of my body," he said.
Not everybody shares his enthusiasm.
It's not only the program that's unclear, said Ileada Ribble, of the Virginia Taxpayers Association. It's the cost.
"How are we going to pay for this? They have no idea what it will cost," said Ribble, who lives near Smith Mountain Lake. "We're demanding more clear-cut answers."
From the Taxpayers Association to a group of Virginia Beach parents whose primary mission has been to remove sex education from the schools, the reforms have seen no shortage of critics.
Even among educators, they garner only lukewarm support. The Virginia Education Association neither embraces nor rejects World Class Education, taking a position President Robley Jones recently characterized as "a critical friend of education reform."
Spagnolo readily concedes that much remains unclear, including the price tag. Estimates place the cost at $500 million over the next 10 years, but Spagnolo prefers to think of that as "an investment."
"The big thing that will cost money is added time," he said. He anticipates expanding the school year to perhaps as long as 240 days to achieve these goals. But that, too, remains to be worked out.
The General Assembly must approve each change as it arises, a process that will evolve slowly as it reviews and rewrites the state's "standards of quality" every two years, Spagnolo said. The standards determine the basic level of education Virginia's schools must provide.
In the meantime, pilot projects - such as the one at Hurt Park - forge ahead.
Principal William Shepherd said he hopes his program - still in the planning stages - will be used as a model once the movement earns statewide approval.
So does Spagnolo. But he's hoping the other school divisions won't wait.
by CNB