New approach energizes teachers and students after period of low performance in education
The Syracuse City School District serves more than 20,000 students across 34 schools, most of which have been classified by the New York State Education Department as either “priority” or “focus” schools.
These schools have the overall lowest student academic performance on state assessments, persistently low graduation rates, and had shown little improvement.
As educators, we strongly believe all people have a need and a desire to learn, but we were simply hitting a roadblock in our schools. We knew this was due in part to the way we were presenting information. Instead of it being student-driven, it was test-driven. The focus was on what students needed to know to pass the test...