District Administration - February 2012 - (Page 51)

73% of the students, no matter their race, passed the state reading exam. Pushing Policy Reform Jones’ work in Fountain-Fort Carson drew the attention of the Colorado State Board of Education, and the elected body unanimously named him the state’s commissioner of education in July 2007. He was the ﬁrst African American to hold the position, charged with overseeing a $3.8 billion budget and the education of the state’s 830,000 public school children. Ken Turner, who served as deputy commissioner under Jones in Colorado, says that Jones’ ﬁnesse with lawmakers and the business community helped push through numerous bipartisan school reform bills. e state revamped teachers’ evaluations to include a student test score component; allowed districts to create their own “schools of innovation” that operated like charter schools with more autonomy in staﬃng and programming; and, with a 4-3 vote of the state board, adopted the common core standards. Jones also oversaw the development of a new model for determining students’ academic growth for the state’s accountability system. Based on students’ scores on a criterion-referenced test, the statistical model compares each child’s annual progress to the average growth made by other students in the same grade level who scored at the same level. “He did it in a way which was pretty remarkable,” Turner says. “He did it using open source [software], which means all the tools he developed are now widely available to other states.” About 20 other states, including Nevada, have adopted the model. port teachers—it’s just really what I enjoy doing and think what I’m best at,” he says. It might not sound like a good way to make friends, especially as the new guy in town, but Jones doesn’t believe in sugarcoating. Since taking the helm of the district about a year ago, he has been waking up the Clark County community with alarming statistics. Half the students in the nation’s ﬁfthlargest district leave without a diploma. About 45 percent of the 12th graders had yet to pass the state proﬁciency exam at the start of this school year. Some 9,800 seniors—out of 20,600—were at risk of not graduating. In April, Jones recruited Pedro Martinez, the deputy superintendent of Nevada’s Washoe County School District and the former chief ﬁnancial oﬃcer of Chicago Public Schools, to serve as his deputy superintendent. With diplomas on the line, the two Digital classroom resources provide an instructional path to robust, curriculum-aligned content with a wealth of multimedia. • Engage students and promote critical thinking • Supplement textbooks with dynamic, current, online content • Support 1-to-1 and/or mobile learning initiatives Help teachers infuse technology into the classroom and: Back in the Action Jones says his three years as commissioner gave him invaluable experience working with lawmakers and designing policy, and he’s now excited about implementing, and not only overseeing, similar reforms in Clark County. “For me, getting back to where the action takes place—that’s in the building where kids are taught, being able to sup- www.gale.cengage.com/DCR www.DistrictAdministration.com February 2012 51 http://www.gale.cengage.com/DCR http://www.gale.cengage.com/DCR http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - February 2012

District Administration - February 2012
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Conversations
Product Focus
What Can U.S. Schools Learn From Foreign Counterparts?
A New Prescription for Fighting Drug Abuse
The Game Changer
The Legal Implications of Surveillance Cameras
CIO News
Mobile Devices Drive Creative Instruction
Products
Crisis Response
Professional Opinion
Problem/Solution
New Directions

District Administration - February 2012