I hope you all have a restful Spring Break, and that you and your students are well prepared for the next round of state tests.
In Olympia, this is one of the busiest times in the annual legislative calendar. The new governor and both houses of the legislature will be working frantically to develop a balanced biennial budget that reflects their view of state priorities. While much remains to be decided, it is clear that significant cuts in current state programs will be required if additional sources of revenue are not created. Since neither party seems able or willing to address the revenue side of that equation, there is little optimism that new funding or programs to support our students will come out of this session. That makes your efforts on behalf of our students even more important.
Thanks in large part to those efforts, our schools have demonstrated remarkable progress in helping students achieve the new EALR standards. That progress is even more impressive when one considers the general erosion of state education funding that has occurred since the implementation of these learning standards over a decade ago. Much of that progress can be attributed to changed teacher beliefs and practices. In the 2003 Washington School Research Center Report entitled "A Decade of Reform: A Summary of Research Findings on Classroom, School, and District Effectiveness in Washington State," Jeffery Fouts identified the importance of such changed teacher beliefs and practices:
In summary, in successful schools teachers have recognized and accepted the direction of the state's reform efforts. This, apparently, is the "fundamental characteristic," perhaps a prerequisite, of school and student success. To be successful, educators are adopting a new set of guiding principles for their schools, and this is leading to changes in school-wide functioning. These practices are summarized below, but successful implementation of the practices appears to be heavily dependent on this type of second order change found in successful schools. Many lower-achieving schools are attempting to implement these same practices, but without a mind-set change on the part of the teachers, they appear to have little effect on student achievement. (p. 35)
With those findings in mind, I hope we are all able to maintain a positive orientation with our students in relation to the challenging learning standards they face. Within our current state budget environment, it is all too easy to become negative about those standards and our students' ability to achieve them. Given Fouts' research, such pessimism will undermine "a prerequisite of school and student success."
Thank you on behalf of those students, their parents and communities for your continued efforts to help us reach a new level of learning in Washington.