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[quote=Anonymous]I think most of what schools get wrong starts at the local school district level, not with DOE.

Literacy - they need to focus on things that work and provide strong decoding skills, like phonics rather than "balanced literacy" and other things that have poor outcomes for decoding, comprehension and long term learning.

Math - too much procedural teaching without conceptual models.  You get students to follow steps but then they don't know how to transfer or reason with what they learned.  Schools need to focus more on mastery, visual models and other things proven to have better outcomes.

Curricula overall - are often fragmented and inconsistent across grades, teachers are re-creating curricula and there's no strong sense of cumulative multi-year knowledge being built.

Testing is misused by districts - they often either misuse them for punishment or ignore them entirely, schools teach to the test, or don't have feedback loops.

Tutoring is often lacking, it's generic after-school help, and it's not aligned well to class content.  Instead tutoring should be a lot more focused and aligned to the curriculum.

Professional development is often things like one-off workshops that aren't well aligned to daily practice.

Special ed programs often miss because they focus more on compliance rather than evidence-based interventions.  It's heavy on paperwork and light on impact.  Instead there should be more MTSS/RTI with proven interventions and gen-ed and SPED instruction should be better aligned.

Schools also screw up on tech, they spend a lot on platforms and devices but fumble on instructional integration.

And then there's spending.  Too many school districts obsessed with the edifice complex, over-investing in facilities and glossy textbooks that are often overpriced and underused.  Instead they should focus more on teach quality and time.

Those among many others are areas where school districts are failing us far more than the Department of Education is.[/quote]

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