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Communications
Making the Case
Talking Points for LEFs Around High Standards
We've compiled talking points for you to use to rally your community around the concept and implementation of high standards. A Call to Action:
The Next Step in Assuring Quality Education for Every Child
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We support academic standards — what students need to know and to be able to do. The next challenge for schools and communities is to work together to ensure that all children have the resources and supports they need to reach those high standards.
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Setting rigorous standards was the first step in raising the bar for our children and ourselves. Now, as citizens, we have a responsibility to ensure that every school in our community provides a high quality education, and that every student is achieving at high levels. This is not an easy task. It requires that our community come together to plan for the future. If we don't fight for quality, who will?
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Every child deserves quality teachers, competent
leadership, up-to-date materials, modern and safe
school buildings, before and after school programs,
accessible preschool, and modern technology. These
are only some of the supports our schools need
to provide quality education.
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Planning for Our Community's Future:
Every Student, High Achievement
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Our local education fund is leading a community-wide
process to evaluate and recommend strategies for
improving the supports, or conditions, for student
learning. This kind of evaluation can provide information
about whether our schools have adequate resources
and whether they're using them effectively. We
will also learn whether our schools are providing
access to quality education for all students.
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A community planning process will help us develop
a common vision of quality education. It will also
help us develop a plan of action to help ensure
that our students have the resources and supports
they need to achieve at high levels.
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Every citizen has an important stake in this
process. Different people have different roles.
Community and district leaders are especially important
because they lend credibility to the effort and
have the power to develop policies that can increase
accountability and performance.
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Community leaders can help get other important
groups involved, too. Parents need to be involved;
we need to help them know what to look for in their
child's classrooms and homework assignments. All
citizens need to know what quality education looks
like and how they can support it.
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Data Alone Will Not Make the Difference, Community
Action Will
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It is not enough that we have data about how our schools are performing. It is our responsibility to act on these data. It will take all of us working together to examine data and school performance levels, diagnose the needs of each of our schools, change policies that are barriers to quality programs, and hold our policymakers accountable.
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Public Responsibility for Public Schools
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Do we really believe that all children can learn and achieve at higher levels than they currently are? If so, what is our responsibility when there are children in our community who fail to learn? Or schools that do not have the supports they need to increase student achievement level? Working together, we must set a goal for our community: zero tolerance for low achievement. Together, we must analyze data, develop plans of action, and hold ourselves accountable for assuring that every child has a quality school.
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Download Mobile, AL community
agreement for high academic standards and
greater accountability from public education. |
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