I’ll skip the warm fuzzy goals for Ready, Set, Go and address the five specific policy proposals.
1. Incentives for great teachers in hard to staff schools and content areas.
Thumbs up. JLF has championed this idea for years.
2. Leadership Academy for school leaders.
Thumbs down. There is a need for better school leaders, but I worry about costs and benefits.
3. Restructure the ABC’s program to include diagnostic assessment, 21st century skills and national assessments so we can see how our students compare to others across the nation and world
Thumbs up. For many years, JLF has urged education leaders to adopt a national or norm-referenced assessment.
4. Adopt the Common Core national standards: everyone agrees on the skills that all students need to know to graduate ready to work, go to college or vocational school.
Thumbs down. Is it possible to get “everyone” to agree on national standards? Good luck. By the way, the state is spending millions of dollars on revamping its own standards (called ACRE).
5. Community College readiness initiative for diagnostic-type assessments to make sure that students graduate with skills necessary to do community college work.
Thumbs up. Let’s extend the initiative to students planning to attend a state university.
