Middle Schools To Focus On 21st Century Workforce Skills

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posted March 29, 2010

Author Tony Wagner has written that companies in the new global economy want employees to have seven “survival skills,” including critical thinking, collaboration, communications, curiosity and imagination, among others. Teams of students, parents, principals and school leaders will grapple with how to teach those skills in middle school at the Middle Schools for a New Society planning retreat on Wednesday, March 31 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Chattanoogan.

The retreat will allow leadership teams from each middle school in Hamilton County to focus on goals and activities for next year’s reform work. Leadership teams will include 8 people from each school: the principal, teachers, a parent and a student. About 180 participants are expected.

During the day each team will be considering “Connections, Challenges, Commitments,” using a variety of data to assess schools’ capacities to deliver challenging, rigorous, relevant learning experiences for students, and will plan and commit to a course of action that will lead to desired results for all students.

With $9.5 million in funding from the Lyndhurst Foundation and the National Education Association Foundation, Middle Schools for a New Society is in the fourth year of a reform effort that is focused on moving middle school students from proficient to advanced in math and language arts. From 2005 to 2009, the percentage of middle school students scoring advanced in language arts jumped from 30% to 40%, and in math from 30% to 45%. In addition, eighth graders in Hamilton County middle schools outpaced the nation on the 2010 EXPLORE test (a precursor to the ACT college-readiness exam). The composite score (a combination of English, Math, Reading and Science scores) rose from 14.9 to 15.3 in Hamilton County. The national composite score was 14.9.

The MSNS planning retreat will be moderated by Dr. Jackie Walsh, an education research and development specialist who is currently lead consultant to both the Alabama Governor’s Commission on Quality Teaching and the Alabama Best Practices Center.

Dr. Walsh has pursued a variety of research, writing, and professional development projects focused on effective questioning, school reform, and school culture. In the process, she has worked with educators in over thirty states. Her latest book, co-authored with Beth Dankert Sattes, is Leading Through Quality Questioning: Creating Capacity, Commitment, and Community.