Virginia Schools Hail Successes And Fund Challenges
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Patricia Hawke
Mar 29, 2013, 7:40:03 PM3/29/13
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Article Title: Virginia Schools Hail Successes And Fund Challenges
Author: Patricia Hawke
Word Count: 483
Article URL: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=158482&ca=Education
Format: 64cpl
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Virginia Schools recently received national acclaim for some of its successful schools. Newsweek released its list of the top 5% of schools in the nation, and 87 Virginia Schools made the cut. Eleven Virginia Schools made the top 100, and an additional two were included in the list of the �public elites.� Those two were Maggie Walker Governor�s School for Government and International Studies and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Both were included because of the higher than average SAT and ACT scores of their students.
Virginia Schools achieve these results while spending about $7,751 annually per pupil. This puts the state right in the middle for national spending. Clearly some good results are coming from some of the efforts of Virginia Schools. But there are still some big concerns and certain gaps. Like the rest of the country, Virginia Schools struggle with an achievement gap for minority students. African-American and other minority students consistently score lower as a group on standardized tests. Socioeconomic factors have proven to dramatically effect a student�s academic success.
One way that the Virginia Schools are trying to remedy this problem is through a partnership with the ECMC Foundation. In 2003 the ECMC and the Virginia Department of Education teamed up to create the Virginia ECMC Scholars Program to �increase participation in postsecondary education by economically or otherwise disadvantaged students, and to challenge these students to better prepare during the junior and senior years of high school.�
2007 will be the fifth cycle of funding and the ECMC has upped its pledge for Virginia Schools to $3 million dollars in scholarships, mentoring stipends and program funding. Participants in the programs are selected from Virginia Schools at the end of their sophomore year. What makes this scholarship program different is that educators select students they know. Anonymous strangers who base the decision on faceless essays or a qualifications list choose participants in most other scholarship programs.
ECMC and Virginia Schools select children based on future potential rather than past grades. The participants are mentored and tutored through their junior and senior years to bring out their best potential. Ten Virginia Schools were selected on basis of need, and the program is funded through 2009.
Privately funded programs like the Virginia ECMC Scholars Program are one way that Virginia Schools hope to close the achievement gap and propel the state school system forward. Virginia had its own testing system in place (Virginia Standards of Learning) prior to the 2001 No Child Left Behind Initiative. But the national mandate implemented class size and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) markers for every school in the nation. Pressure for students to meet passing marks in both Virginia Schools and across the nation has been intense. Educators and politicians continue to debate the merits and pitfalls of standardized testing as a way to raise learning standards in the nation.
About The Author: Patricia Hawke is a staff writer for Schools K-12, providing free, in-depth reports on all U.S. public and private K-12 schools. For more information please visit http://www.schoolsk-12.com/Virginia/index.html
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Message delivered directly to members of the group:
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Please consider this free-reprint article written by:
Patricia Hawke
*****************************
IMPORTANT - Publication/Reprint Terms
- You have permission to publish this article electronically in free-only publications such as a website or an ezine as long as the bylines are included.
- You are not allowed to use this article for commercial purposes. The article should only be reprinted in a publicly accessible website and not in a members-only commercial site.
- You are not allowed to post/reprint this article in any sites/publications that contains or supports hate, violence, porn and warez or any indecent and illegal sites/publications.
- You are not allowed to use this article in UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) or SPAM. This article MUST be distributed in an opt-in email list only.
- If you distribute this article in an ezine or newsletter, we ask that you send a copy of the newsletter or ezine that contains the article to http://www.isnare.com/eta.php?aid=158482
- If you post this article in a website/forum/blog, ALL links MUST be set to hyperlinks and we ask that you send a copy of the URL where the article is posted to http://www.isnare.com/eta.php?aid=158482
- We request that you ask permission from the author if you want to publish this article in print.
The role of iSnare.com is only to distribute this article as part of its Article Distribution feature ( http://www.isnare.com/distribution.php ). iSnare.com does NOT own this article, please respect the author's copyright and this publication/reprint terms. If you do not agree to any of these terms, please do not reprint or publish this article.
*****************************
Article Title: Virginia Schools Hail Successes And Fund Challenges
Author: Patricia Hawke
Word Count: 483
Article URL: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=158482&ca=Education
Format: 64cpl
Contact The Author: http://www.isnare.com/eta.php?aid=158482
Easy Publish Tool: http://www.isnare.com/html.php?aid=158482
*********************** ARTICLE START ***********************
Virginia Schools recently received national acclaim for some of its successful schools. Newsweek released its list of the top 5% of schools in the nation, and 87 Virginia Schools made the cut. Eleven Virginia Schools made the top 100, and an additional two were included in the list of the �public elites.� Those two were Maggie Walker Governor�s School for Government and International Studies and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Both were included because of the higher than average SAT and ACT scores of their students.
Virginia Schools achieve these results while spending about $7,751 annually per pupil. This puts the state right in the middle for national spending. Clearly some good results are coming from some of the efforts of Virginia Schools. But there are still some big concerns and certain gaps. Like the rest of the country, Virginia Schools struggle with an achievement gap for minority students. African-American and other minority students consistently score lower as a group on standardized tests. Socioeconomic factors have proven to dramatically effect a student�s academic success.
One way that the Virginia Schools are trying to remedy this problem is through a partnership with the ECMC Foundation. In 2003 the ECMC and the Virginia Department of Education teamed up to create the Virginia ECMC Scholars Program to �increase participation in postsecondary education by economically or otherwise disadvantaged students, and to challenge these students to better prepare during the junior and senior years of high school.�
2007 will be the fifth cycle of funding and the ECMC has upped its pledge for Virginia Schools to $3 million dollars in scholarships, mentoring stipends and program funding. Participants in the programs are selected from Virginia Schools at the end of their sophomore year. What makes this scholarship program different is that educators select students they know. Anonymous strangers who base the decision on faceless essays or a qualifications list choose participants in most other scholarship programs.
ECMC and Virginia Schools select children based on future potential rather than past grades. The participants are mentored and tutored through their junior and senior years to bring out their best potential. Ten Virginia Schools were selected on basis of need, and the program is funded through 2009.
Privately funded programs like the Virginia ECMC Scholars Program are one way that Virginia Schools hope to close the achievement gap and propel the state school system forward. Virginia had its own testing system in place (Virginia Standards of Learning) prior to the 2001 No Child Left Behind Initiative. But the national mandate implemented class size and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) markers for every school in the nation. Pressure for students to meet passing marks in both Virginia Schools and across the nation has been intense. Educators and politicians continue to debate the merits and pitfalls of standardized testing as a way to raise learning standards in the nation.
About The Author: Patricia Hawke is a staff writer for Schools K-12, providing free, in-depth reports on all U.S. public and private K-12 schools. For more information please visit http://www.schoolsk-12.com/Virginia/index.html
Please use the HTML version of this article at:
http://www.isnare.com/html.php?aid=158482
*********************** ARTICLE END ***********************
- To distribute your articles go to http://www.isnare.com/distribution.php
- For more free-reprint articles go to http://www.isnare.com
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