The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997              TAG: 9701310540
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   86 lines

A NEW TEST FOR NORFOLK SCHOOLS: MAKING TEACHERS ACCOUNTABLE

There might not be a magic formula to improve students' test scores, but Norfolk wants to try this:

Give teachers more training and supplies. Get parents more involved in the schools. And, quite possibly, boot the teachers and principals of schools whose test scores don't improve over time.

Those are some basics of the Norfolk Quality Schools Initiative to boost student academic performance.

Central administrators and principals met at Booker T. Washington High School on Thursday to discuss the first completed phase of the plan: assessing where the schools are now.

Under the plan, once dubbed the Norfolk Instructional Accountability Program, each school will develop individual goals and processes for raising the test scores, attendance and overall performance of its students. The schools won't compare themselves to one another, only against their goals.

``You can't expect a school in the 20th percentile to trend to the 90th percentile the next year,'' said Tom Lockamy, assistant superintendent for academic affairs and accountability, who is heading the initiative.

``But you can expect it to be in the 32nd.''

Central administrators are promising to give more resources and to be more responsive to schools while making principals and teachers more accountable for low achievement. Those who fail to improve their school's scores over a three-year period could lose their jobs or be reassigned.

The responsibility goes both ways, however. Central administrators also will be evaluated annually and could lose their jobs or be shuffled if they receive a poor report card.

Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. said he doesn't want to emphasize the drastic - that people could lose their jobs - but he does want to spread the word that the district is serious about improving test scores.

``We don't want central administrators to direct, but go in and help,'' Nichols said. ``If the marks are consistently low, it will be another case of having the wrong person doing the job.''

The hard-line approach made some school leaders uneasy when the concept was introduced last year.

``There's a high level of accountability,'' Stephen Peters, principal of Lafayette-Winona Middle School, said this week. ``If you mention that if there's no improvement, the job you're doing will be seriously evaluated, or you may not perform in the same capacity, it may make you feel uncomfortable.''

But Peters said administrators are adjusting to the idea. Principals are accustomed to annual evaluations, although this will be the first time standardized test scores will be used as a benchmark.

In addition, Peters and several other principals formed an advisory committee to help iron out the plan and suggested that the district make the next school year a trial year, putting the goals and evaluations in place but not ``officially'' counting them.

The district agreed a pilot year would better ease schools into the initiative.

``I think this plan is something to clarify expectations,'' Peters said. ``I don't think principals are afraid to be evaluated. We have wonderful principals in the district.''

At Thursday's meeting, officials reviewed the results of a study conducted in the district late last year.

Classroom observers visited randomly selected classrooms in November and December to monitor student and teacher performance, to review classroom curriculum and to check attendance.

Some of the conclusions were:

Students are performing below the national average in reading and mathematics at almost all grade levels.

Compared with national figures, too few students are enrolled in higher-level classes.

Attendance problems are severe at middle and high school levels, particularly among poor and minority students.

Some schools, especially elementary schools, performed very well at teaching children, while others did poorly.

Some teachers felt that when principals observed classrooms, they concentrated too much on classroom management and didn't give them enough meaningful feedback on instruction.

Officials hope to use the findings as a groundwork for goal-setting this year.

The next step is to survey parents, students and other staff to get their feedback on the schools' performance, and then work with principals to establish the baseline goals for each school.

``In some areas, we are doing quite well,'' Lockamy said. ``But others, not so good. My major concern is that we need to address the attendance issues. If we don't have the students in school, we're not going to address the academics.''

KEYWORDS: NORFOLK SCHOOLS


by CNB