who come from disadvantaged backgrounds to
make sure they are all successful. To address
this, we have to be focused on the learning
needs of each and every child, and we have to
use strategies that work with kids who come from
disadvantaged backgrounds. A lot of this begins in
higher education with the way we train teachers.
The biggest challenge I am facing as the state superintendent
is figuring out how to show improvement in student achievement
results. We have to overcome a lot of obstacles like finding a
way to reach difficult kids. We are thrilled that with House Bill
206 the Legislature provided $30.5 million to be advocated
directly to all of our school districts so they can work with
student advocates in meeting the social, emotional and mental
health needs of kids. We want to reach the kids who have
experienced trauma, who come from opioid-addicted families
and who are homeless or in foster care so we can provide them
with support while simultaneously teaching them the core skills
they need in mathematics, reading, English and the arts at an
early age. That is a critical need.
WVE: Speaking of student achievement, how are
students currently assessed?
SP: What gets all of the notoriety, unfortunately, is two
standardized tests. One is the state assessment for third through
eighth graders and 11th graders. The other is the NAEP assess-
ment—the National Assessment of Educational Progress—which
is misused a lot. It is not intended to be used to rank states
against other states. It is an auditing tool to see how well you
are doing in your state relative to a national standard. What I
would really like to see are more authentic assessments related
to project-based learning where we can not only assess the
content knowledge of our students but also the way they are
able to apply that knowledge in real-life situations.
WVE: What are your goals for the 2019-2020
school year?
SP: Math, math, math. That’s number one. It’s an area we
must tackle in this STEM world. That doesn’t mean reading
and science aren’t important. What it does mean is we are
really going to turn up the effort. Twenty-five percent of our
Algebra I and geometry classrooms are taught by non-certified
math teachers. We can’t get people to teach those subjects any-
more, so we are providing alternative pathways where we will
offer anyone who’s willing the opportunity to do the training
because our feeling is that we have to get out of the box and
think of different ways to prepare teachers, especially in those
areas. In the meantime, our kids are being taught by teachers
who are extremely well-intentioned and very willing to accept
the challenge but don’t have the math background they need
to be the best they can be.
Another goal for this year is to figure out how to get more
teachers in the profession. One strategy that has potential in the
long term is creating within our schools a school that helps kids
who want to be teachers understand the challenges of being a
teacher and then accelerate their learning. They would receive
some dual credit for courses they could take in high school,
and then when they go to a two-year or four-year institution,
they could take what we call their pedagogue—where they can
learn how to be a teacher. The Legislature and House Bill 206
provided some incentive for this initiative through the restruc-
turing of the Underwood-Smith Teacher Scholarship Program.
Now there are 25 scholarships for kids who want to commit
themselves to becoming teachers.
WVE: What kinds of challenges do you face with
school building infrastructure?
SP: We have a challenge to replace outdated facilities. A lot
of people don’t realize that a new facility will typically bring,
according to research, a 10-point student achievement gain,
and we have some facilities in the state we need to replace.
The real challenge I see today is how to make sure we go the
last mile with the internet so every rural community has the
same access we have in Charleston. That is one of the greatest
equalizers out there. We need to make sure as we build build-
ings that there is consideration for that kind of infrastructure.
WVE: Tell us about your relationship with Chancellor
Sarah Armstrong Tucker.
SP: You know, I didn’t know Chancellor Tucker until we
accepted our current roles. She is an incredible talent and a very
bright thinker. She is knowledgeable and sincere and authentic,
and she has shown more empathy for pre-k-12 education than
anyone I have ever worked with from higher education. She
and I have some areas we have agreed to work on together.
She recently brought her leadership team together with ours,
and we all sat down for a couple of hours to look for some
common areas where we can collaborate.
For instance, one area is how we prepare our teachers, and
we have created a subgroup to focus on teacher preparation.
We are working on what’s called a residency model where
we increase the amount of time teachers spend doing their student
teaching experience. We find that our current models are
short-changing our teachers. These residency models have a
great track record of results for students who make it through
the first three years of their employment because it is in that
timeframe that a teacher is going to quit. By increasing the
amount of time they spend learning how to teach
and teach well, it really helps them understand
the challenges of teaching, and they are better
equipped once they get that first job. As a
result, more of them are lasting after those
first three years and are staying in the pro-
fession, and that’s exciting to us.
WVE: How do you think K-12 education can help
address the shortage of skilled workers West Virginia
is experiencing?
SP: We have the ability to do that within our career technical
education programs. We have pathways that, upon graduation
from high school, can lead to gainful employment.
Another responsibility we have is to make sure students
understand they may not stay in that one job. They may decide
they want to go back and further their training. When they
have finished all we have to offer within K-12 or the career
technical education programs, they need to know Chancellor
Tucker and her institutions have other programs to build upon
the skills they have already learned.
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