NWEA Spark Community

The take-home message on the closing day of Fusion 2010 was one of optimism and encouragement: the nation’s public education system, while troubled in many areas, is fundamentally strong.

But Matt Chapman, the president and CEO of Northwest Evaluation Association, said America needs to confront its crisis of confidence about public schools and school teachers. "As a society we need to reconnect to public education,": Chapman said in the final keynote address of the three-day conference.

Chapman chipped away at common myths about the failures of public education saying that a close look at data about dropout rates, academic achievement, and college enrollment show steady improvements over time. He didn’t minimize the problems facing schools but said the public education system, which includes charter schools, is fundamentally sound. The chart below illustrates how America's college enrollment rate remains internationally competitive.

"We should not assume that public education is so broken that it has to be replaced and outsourced," he said.

The positive message matched the mood of the day as the 400 participants at the Summer Conference wrapped up their three days in Portland. They were no longer strangers:  teachers and administrators clustered over breakfast to share their successes and challenges, following the advice on Thursday of Turnaround Schools founder Damen Lopez that they turn to each other to improve their skills.

Lopez had told his audiences that change begins with them, not with federal or state watchdogs that set standards for education. "I don’t see the federal and state government in the face of a five-year-old," Lopez said. "I see a five-year-old."

If a common theme emerged from participants, it was that the MAP test provides teachers with a wealth of data that teachers and districts have not fully tapped. Workshops on how to interpret and use MAP data were packed; educators were eager to take up the challenges raised by inspirational speakers by using the data more effectively in classrooms and in school districts.

Chapman offered encouragement about what’s going right in public education, and said educators need to do a better job of telling their success stories to their communities. And he encouraged teachers to push back against pervasive "teacher bashing."

"My counsel to you is to expect good treatment, and demand it when you don’t get it," said Matt Chapman, the Northwest Evaluation Association’s president and CEO, on the final day of NWEA’s Summer Conference in Portland.

The session ended recognizing this year’s Growth Achievement Awards for districts with the highest year-to-year growth in test scores.

This year’s winner for small districts (599 or less) were Milnor Elementary School in Milnor, N.D. and Ojo Encino Day School in the New Mexico Navajo Central ELO,  Crownpoint, N.M.

The winner for a standard district (600 to 4,999) was Ashman Elementary School, in the Seivier School District, Richfield, Utah. Winners in the large district category (5,000 to 24,999) were the East Chicago Lighthouse Charter School of the Charter School Association of Indiana and Evansville Elementary School, of Natrona County School District #1, Casper Wyo.

Winner for a mega district was Hickey Elementary School of the Plano Independent School District, Plano, Texas.