Early education, more time in school, strengthening school leadership, and developing community schools as hubs for family support won the strongest support from the 65 participants. (Note: Some thoughtful choices were separately submitted by a few of our experienced members who could not be present.)
Here are the top-ranked choices:
- Providing early childhood education – especially for those at risk
- Lengthening the time in school – day or year – including summer school
- Establishing community schools as hubs for support of families from prenatal care through school
- Establishing PK-3 or PK-5 schools (pre-school tied to early elementary grades)
- Strengthening principals as school leaders
- Increasing authority of principals in choosing or retaining teachers
See below for the ranking of the 25 items considered by the Committee. Many of the lower-ranked items were undoubtedly viewed as supplemental or ancillary to the top-ranked items.
| Tally of items marked at Achievement Gap meeting 12-11-09 | Tally totals |
| Providing early childhood education – especially for those at risk | 36 |
| Lengthening the time in school – day or year – including summer school | 35 |
| Establishing community schools as hubs for support of families from prenatal care through school | 18 |
| Establishing PK-3 or PK-5 schools (pre-school tied to early elementary grades) | 15 |
| Strengthening principals as school leaders | 14 |
| Increasing authority of principals in choosing or retaining teachers | 11 |
| Strengthening after-school programs including extra curricular activities | 10 |
| Reducing class sizes especially for early grades | 10 |
| Using data driven instruction | 8 |
| Educating parents about child development through ECFE, PAT, & MELD | 8 |
| Increasing pay and setting higher qualifications for teachers | 5 |
| Emphasizing early literacy including expanded use of Americorps | 3 |
| Recruiting adult mentors for students | 3 |
| Utilizing visiting nurses beginning with prenatal care | 3 |
| Utilizing paraprofessionals for home visits and support for new parents | 3 |
| Restructuring teacher education | 3 |
| Empowerment training for parents | 2 |
| Reducing segregation and achieving a balanced racial and ethnic student body | 2 |
| Adopting innovations including on-line learning and teacher-led schools | 2 |
| Using smaller schools – either standing alone or created within larger schools | 1 |
| Increasing use of experiential learning | 1 |
| Providing incentive payments to teachers | 0 |
| Using computer-assisted retraining of brain to improve speech recognition | 0 |
| Supporting parents in pursuing their own educational goals | 0 |
| Allocating both teacher and dollar resources more strictly based on need | 0 |
