To help means to teach
Teachers are a key component in helping to solve the country’s economic development problem, according to the state’s secretary of education. “We can’t solve this economic problem without America’s teachers,” said Gerald Zahorchak, speaking to the teachers of the Laurel Highlands School District during the district’s 2008 in-service day for teachers. “The most important successes are the ones that happen so frequently in the classroom.”
Zahorchak arrived at Laurel Highlands after accepting an invitation from Jessica Scott, the district’s director of federal funds/data analyst, who first invited him to the district at a conference in Baltimore.
In an address to teachers and administrators in the Laurel Highlands High School auditorium Tuesday, Zahorchak encouraged teachers to deliver not only content, but also to provide emotional support for their students.
Why worry about the child who needs emotional support? Because it’s going to cost us more in the long term to help this person, according to Zahorchak.
“To help means to teach,” he said. “When we look at a school district, we must care about each child because that ends up being a cost to us. …That’s why the governor says education is his number one economic development tool.”
Zahorchak said the people of the United States must swap its attitude of helplessness with one of persistence and effort to compete with the world.
The U.S. is internationally competing against other countries including Vietnam and Japan, whose students are excelling in math, he said.
“(These countries) have an attitude of effort and persistence,” said Zahorchak.
That attitude is the missing ingredient in the U.S., he said.
“Our country has to change because we have to compete. There’s a flip side of helplessness,” Zahorchak said.
He said it’s good reading and math skills that provide a base for success.
Students exiting high school ready to compete will earn more, pay taxes and will be less likely to become part of the dependency system, i.e. welfare, or become incarcerated, said Zahorchak.
They will save the country and the state money otherwise spent on remediation and/or incarceration, he said.
Because of India and China’s entrance into the free market in an effort to lift their people from poverty, the world has changed tremendously, noted Zahorchak.
“We need to education our children to do well and keep a standard of life as opposed to coming down, as economists say is happening,” said Zahorchak. “It’s bigger than a lot of our isolated, internal, inside-the-country talk.”
He said jobs that the country will be seeing more frequently center around analytical, teamwork, problem solving, math and communicative skills. The country has experienced the sharpest decline in routine cerebral employment such as customer service jobs, he said.
“These jobs are becoming much more global,” said Zahorchak.
According to Zahorchak, Pennsylvania has been making strides toward improvement.
He said he believes the federal and state goal of having 100 percent of Pennsylvania’s students score proficient or advanced on the reading and math Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) by 2014 can happen, and he said Pennsylvania is making gains.
He noted that the state is fifth overall in achievement gains across the United States, one of three states that received a B on the “Quality Counts Report” published by the education magazine, Education Week, and first overall in early childhood education improvements.
With the 2007-08 PSSA/AYP results, Zahorchak said three quarters of the state’s students moved from the low 50 to 72 percent testing proficient or advanced on the reading and math PSSA.
“We are one of the states looked at as rapidly closing the achievement gap,” Zahorchak said. “But, not rapidly enough according to other people and myself.”
He said state officials want to equip school districts with enough teachers, resources, supplies and professional development necessary to reach 100 percent proficiency.
“Every child can. There’s no doubt about it,” Zahorchak said. “Your superintendent has to be the first one to say that and while we say that, your teachers are working hard to accomplish it.”
He attributes some of Pennsylvania’s success to Gov. Ed Rendell, who has invested $3 billion in the state’s education system over a five-year period.
The investment is expected to continue.
School district funding targets set forth in a costing-out study, crafted for the state Legislature by the Denver-based consulting firm Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc., in November, have been written into law, he said.
As a result, the Laurel Highlands School District received an additional $545,874 in basic education subsidy this fiscal year, a 10 percent down payment on the total $6 million the district is expected to receive throughout the next five years, said Zahorchak.
Other school districts are expected to receive additional money as well.
The money is meant to help fill “adequacy gaps” or areas where additional resources are needed to reach proficiency goals, said Zahorchak.
Zahorchak said Laurel Highlands can be proud of its programs, including the career-focused academies established at the high school level.
After his address concluded, Scott, on behalf of the Laurel Highlands School District, presented Zahorchak with a plaque. On it was mounted a clock inscribed with, “Time in education is time well spent.”
herald_standa477:
http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20086326