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By Christina Cooke Americans who read Parade magazine every week will learn about Hamilton County's school reform efforts Sunday. The magazine's cover story titled "Good Schools Can Happen" will highlight Hamilton County's push to place a quality teacher in every classroom. "This is really great to see," said Associate Superintendent of Elementary Education Ray Swoffard as he leafed through a copy of the upcoming article in his office Monday afternoon. "It affirms what we've known all along: ... If you've got good leadership and quality teachers, all kids can learn." The article features Hamilton County's school reform efforts alongside those of four other communities: Long Beach, Calif.; Cleveland Heights, Ohio; Bridgeport, Conn.; and Mobile, Ala. Lyric Winik, the Parade correspondent who wrote the article, said she wants to show how communities with struggling schools rallied "to achieve change and make it stick." She said she chose Chattanooga because of the community's commitment to achieving long-term change in schools. The article focuses on the changes that have taken place in inner-city elementary schools since 2001. The article outlines how the Hamilton County Schools required all teachers to reapply for their jobs and participate in a rigorous training program funded by a $5 million grant from the Benwood Foundation. Since 2000, the number of Hamilton County third-graders reading at or above grade level has risen from 18 percent to 74 percent, the article reports. County Commissioner Fred Skillern said the picture of Hamilton County education reform is not completely accurate. He said the school system has not succeeded in its goal to "get a quality teacher in every classroom." Mr. Skillern said his district, the Soddy-Daisy area, absorbed many bad teachers when the district moved teachers from city to county schools to redistribute talent. "If you have a teacher that's unsatisfactory, and you get rid of that teacher, that's wonderful," he said. "But if you just send that teacher to another school, you haven't done anything. You've just hurt other children." Dan Challener, president of the Public Education Foundation, which administers the Benwood grant, said the recognition should give confidence and momentum to the schools involved in the reform efforts. E-mail Christina Cooke at ccooke@timesfreepress.com BY THE NUMBERS Parade magazine is the largest-circulation magazine in the United States. |
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