Charter Leadership Discussion Board

One of your reading assignments for the last session (Saturday, November 4, 2006) addressed the Effective Schools Research. This was the Williams dissertation. The Hull dissertation talked about the Level Five school where the administration tested the students every month. This is certainly a form of FREQUENT MONITORING OF STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT - one of the Effective Schools Research correlates.

What are your thoughts about the frequent monitoring system used at the Level Five school in the Hull dissertation?

Do you have ideas about other methods of FREQUENT MONITORING that can be used at Charterville?

I thought this was an excellent example of frequent monitoring. I also think brief weekly quizzes are a great way to assess learning.

Yes, using weekly quizzes is a good idea. They must, however, be closely aligned to specific skills, and the skills must be closely aligned with the standards. Actually, the weekly quizzes might be a better approach for Charterville because they assess small increments of knowledge. Testing small increments of information might be more successful in a low-income environment such as Charterville.

I think assessing in small increments is also good for the Charterville students because they will not view learning as such a huge obstacle to overcome. They will also have the opportunity to focus more intensely on specific skills.

Do you think this will be too much work for the classroom teacher? If you were starting a charter school, how would you address the additional workload for the teachers?