Typically, the state’s release of the annual public school report cards creates fear from educators and has parents asking questions about the quality of their children’s education.
This time, Norwood Public School district administrators met or exceeded state numbers and gained ground on the six other sister districts that send students to either Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest or at Old Tappan.
"I am very pleased with the latest test scores overall," Chief School Administrator Andrew Rose said last week.
Rose and education officials discussed the latest public school report cards released in February.
"We were at or above average in comparison to the other Northern Valley Regional sending districts," he said. "That has not always been true in the past. But this year we exceeded most of our sister schools in math scores."
The improved test scores were a result of the district putting a greater emphasis on following the state’s core curriculum requirements.
"The state comes out with these standards that we review and make sure our teachers have them included in the lesson plans," Rose said. "Those standards really emphasize thinking skills."
For example, he said that a meeting was held with the English teachers and had them study the state’s holistic scoring approach. That information was also shared with the students so they had an improved focus on what was expected from them, especially when taking state mandated tests.
"The state also provides writing samples, which we also had the teachers share with the students," Rose said.
Of course, he said, that teaching this way "can be difficult." But he believes that it is necessary since the way students were once taught has dramatically changed.
"You can’t just give them drills anymore. They are not going to do well," he said. "The old fashioned drill and kill doesn’t work anymore. Drilling doesn’t help students with test scores."
Even in math, where the standard practice to teach students was "drilling and killing" with equations, now the shift is for students to explain problems, for example why 1+1=2.
"Now it is problem solving. Students write open-ended answers explaining about the problem," he said. "Our emphasis is on trying to help the students understand and explain back to the teacher why they picked that strategy."
