OCR Text |
Show Findings create board concern A report by the National Commission Commis-sion on Excellence in Education about the conditions of student achievement has set a burning ember under the Uintah Uin-tah School Board of Education to enact some of the reports recommendations. The national report documents that some 23 million American adults are functionally illiterate by the simplest tests of everyday reading, writing and comprehension. Other deficiencies reported are that 13 percent of all 17-year-olds in the United States can be considered functionally func-tionally illiterate, average achievement achieve-ment of high school students on most standarized tests is now lower than 26 years ago, SAT's demonstrate a virtually vir-tually unbroken decline from 1963 to 1980, and the list goes on. Blayne Morrill, school board member, critized the district for looking look-ing at the education problem from the wrong perspective. He said that the district has been shortening the school day and requiring re-quiring students to attend half a day before Christmas, "just to meet state requirements." "I've visited several schools in the district without the administration knowing," Morrill said, "and if it's any indication of what the other schools are like, we should just drop the last month of school." The national committee's report suggests that school districts and state legislatures strongly consider 7-hour school days as well as a 200 to 220-day school year. "The time available for learning should be expanded through better classroom management and organization organiza-tion of the school day." Board member, Thomas Howells recommended that copies of the national na-tional report be distributed in the district and to begin the groundwork for a voted leeway to boost teachers saleries. The national report recommends that "salaries for the teaching professionals profes-sionals should be increased and should be professionally competitive, market-sensitive, market-sensitive, and Derformance-based." |