Education: Improve West Virginia’s Schools
My dad was a high school principal and my mom was a teacher. It’s their dedication to learning that shaped my values and made me who I am. Our education system is an integral part of our state’s economic foundation, it defines who we are as a state and it sets our expectations – and I have high expectations for all of us.
We must set high standards from our students, teachers, principals, superintendents and school boards. But we must also get our parents and our communities involved in every aspect of the educational process. As Governor, I will propose the creation of a task force comprised of teachers, administrators, business leaders and parents to study education reforms and recommend actions to the administration and state legislature. We must begin with addressing the classroom issues that hinder teachers’ ability to do their jobs. We must also utilize new ways of evaluating success.
An improved and reformed education system does not stand-alone. It is part of the bigger picture for our state and it fuels our economic engine. One dollar spent on higher education translates to more than ten dollars in the economy. Our early childhood and K-12 institutions, our vocational education and trade schools, our community and technical colleges, and our four-year colleges and universities must work hand-in-hand to train our workforce. Building on the work of great facilities like our County Vo-Tech Centers and the West Virginia High Technology Consortium, investment in job training and research will ensure our students and our workers are plugged into our state’s advancement.
• Address truancy, discipline problems and bullying. If students aren’t there, they aren’t learning. And even the best teacher in the world cannot reach a student who is worried about his or her safety. We must provide clear-cut guidance on punishment that backs up a teacher and empowers the teacher to control his or her classroom.
• Improve teacher training and professional development. Every teacher knows that they face a different challenge teaching a class in an impoverished neighborhood versus an affluent one. Teachers need the professional development to help them handle very different classroom environments and ever-changing technology.
• Encourage development of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) that allow teachers and staff to meet in groups of similar jobs (or grade or content) to study and develop solutions to make a positive change for students.
• Incorporate a statewide longitudinal data system center to keep track of student data beginning in early education and continuing through a student’s entry into the workforce. Evaluation must be comprehensive, as no one tool provides an accurate assessment of teacher or student success. Classroom observation, self-evaluation, test scores, written work and other projects, in addition to data collected throughout a student’s educational career, should all be factored into measuring student achievement. That data should not be used to simply punish, but rather to help teachers do the best job they can.
• Utilize public reporting of efficiency metrics and offer school administrators strategies for thoughtfully stretching their school dollar and making sure as much as possible goes into the classroom to help teachers succeed.
• Expand grant and loan opportunities for higher education students as well as continue to promote family college savings plans. We can lessen the financial burden of education beyond high school by expanding Dual credit and Edge credit programs.
• Ensure our classrooms are outfitted with new technology that enhances learning and prepares our students to be competitive in a rapidly changing technology based economy. Just as important, teachers will receive the training to use it.
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