Introductory Note

Educational Climate: Overview and Elements

Measures of Educational Climate

Focus Groups, Surveys and Polling

Technology

Post K-12

Other Academic Ends

Physical Education

(2) Few, if any, are consistent with the kind of precise measurements that were available to the Board when it drafted the academic ends for reading, writing and mathematics. Those qualities, coupled with the fact the Board has not yet addressed the matter of measures for climate, means that this memo – designed to reflect Board consensus – can do little more than indicate the issues and offer very tentative suggestions.

(3) Three documents were before the Board July 30: “Academic Ends Policies (Other Measures),”“Brainstorming Ends Policies,” an“Elementary Grades 4-6 Performance Music Ends Policy: An Exploration.” These are now all available from www.nicholasjohnson.org (click on “Governance”). (“Brainstorming Ends Policies” includes two useful appendices: an excerpt from Carl D. Glickman, Renewing America’s Schools: A Guide for School-Based Action (1993), and the “ICCSD Mission Statement” and supporting documents.)

(4) The Board considered, did not reject, but set aside for the moment a number of other possible ends policy areas that are itemized at the end of this memo.

(5) This memo is available online in a version that includes hot links to the referenced documents. It’s at: http://www.nicholasjohnson.org (click on “Governance”).

One of Webster’s definitions of “climate” is “the prevailing temper . . . characterizing a group.” Sociologists talk about “feeling the walls” of an institution. A positive educational climate is something we feel more than measure in a school or classroom. As Justice Stewart once said in another context, “I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.”

Indicia of a positive educational climate include many of the items mentioned by the Board during its brainstorming session:

• Equity among students of diverse backgrounds

• Safety, both in the sense of reduced accidents, illnesses and intentional physical injuries, and also in the sense of students’ feeling of security and well-being, the absence of emotional abuse

• Parental involvement in the school’s activities, supported by their sense of being valued and welcomed there

• Civility in relations among and between administrators, teachers, parents and students; a place more cooperative than competitive where people care about each other and it is easy to make friends

• High rates of attendance, occasioned by students’ desire to be in the school rather than by the fear of punishment if they are not

• Schools as active community centers after the school day is over, buildings that are welcoming and used by individuals and groups

• The practice of genuine democracy within the institution, with participation in decision-making by students as well as teachers, and experience as well as rhetoric regarding the role and responsibilities of every student as a “public citizen” through community service, service learning and job shadowing (see, for example, Apple and Beane, Democratic Schools (ASCD 1995))

Some aspects of educational climate can be measured, others cannot – at least not easily. Those that can are subject to ends that call for improvement in positive numbers and reductions in negative numbers.  For example:

• Equity complaints can be counted, and an end established that such actions as may be necessary will be taken to reduce their number.

• Safety can be measured in terms of reported incidents of physical abuse and injury or sexual harassment and the disciplinary actions taken.

• Some elements of parental involvement can be counted, such as the attendance at school events, percentages of parents active in a school’s PTO, or the number who sign off on their children’s homework.

• Attendance can be (and is now) counted.

• The number of times there are new uses (i.e., as distinguished from PTO, scouts, or other present uses) made of school buildings could be (and may be already) counted as their role as community centers increases.

• The number of students involved in community service and service learning could be counted, and an end established regarding the increase in these numbers. Indeed, one of the four “Objectives” accompanying the ICCSD Mission and related documents is that “by 2002, 25% of ICCSD high school students will participate in job shadowing and/or internship programs.”

The Board also discussed in this connection the use of focus groups, surveys and polling.

Such tools could – if professionally designed and independently administered – provide an incentive to improvements in climate without the use of measurable and fixed ends. Such tools already exist. (They are to be contrasted with the “evaluation” form sent to parents by one of our schools about which a number of us received e-mails of derision and outrage: the form offered participants no meaningful option but to rank administrators very highly.)

An honest and confidential survey of student, parent and teacher experiences and attitudes – reported publicly – could tell us a lot about equity, safety, democratic governance, parental involvement, and civility, among other things. Such reports would, presumably, produce improvements in the behavior of all and therefore in the educational climate in our schools. In other words, these public reports would be the end, the spur to improvement, in lieu of (or in addition to) specific, mathematical measures.

“Technology” was ranked second by the Board among the “other” ends policies possibilities.

We did not discuss precisely what we meant by “technology.” In some educational contexts “technology” is synonymous with “computers.” Of course, it could also include the use of the ICN as well as the Internet, and videotapes and students’ use of video cameras as well as computer technology.

On the assumption we, too, are using it as a synonym for computers, there are a number of possible educational uses:

• e-mail, computer conferences, and other computer communications,

• teachers’ access to online teaching materials,

• students use of Internet research resources and presentation software and Web pages for reports,

• students’ use of programs, CDs, and online learning software in lieu of, or as a supplement to, more conventional classroom teaching,

• conventional administrative uses (e.g., payroll and accounting), and

• more innovative administrative uses, such as students' and parents' access to teachers’ Web pages for homework, students’ grades, and related information.

Once that’s settled upon, some measures could be devised.

(My column dealing with this subject, “How Should We Use Computers?,” in the August 1 Press-Citizen, is available on the Web: http://www.nicholasjohnson.org (click on “Writing” and then “Recent Publications”).)

The Board’s third priority among other ends policies were those dealing with students’ performance after graduating from high school. Some possibilities are set forth in the “Academic Ends Policies (Other Measures)” document under “College,” “Post-college achievement,” and “Preparation for democracy.”

Finally, the Board mentioned some other academic subjects for which it might want to establish ends policies:

• Foreign language

• Arts: performing music (for which the document “Elementary Grades 4-6 Performance Music Ends Policy: An Exploration” was prepared), performing arts generally, visual arts

• Social studies generally, including history, geography and global studies

Given the problems of obesity and atherosclerosis among today’s relatively young, the Board expressed some interest in exploring the possibility of establishing some minimal physical fitness ends policies. The end would be to increase the levels of students’ physical fitness over time. Possible standards are available from the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, such as those for the President’s Challenge Physical Fitness Awards Program.