Critical attributes of a postive school culture and the principal's contribution to the positive culture

My campus is "rebuilding," so to speak. The last year was horrendous and the staff and students paid the price. One of our strong points is the family atmosphere and support. Everyone jumps in to help everyone else and we work as a team. We have set high expectations for our students and are helping them meet the expectations. We celebrate every victory. We also have a close connection to our community and the parents we serve.

My principal is making the difference this year. First and foremost she does not ask anyone else to do something she would not do herself. Trust is being re-established. The staff is more willing to step out and take risks because they see our principal doing so. Douglas Reeves states, "Leaders speak most clearly with their actions." (Reeves, 2006/2007, 92). This statement describes my principal's connection to creating a positive culture on my campus.

In reading, Ten Big Effects of the No Child Left Behind Act on Public Schools, I found myself comparing where the state was in 2006, when the article was written, and where we are now. Effect number 3 scrutinizes alignment of curriculum & instruction and data from test scores. Our district is in our second year of full implementation of the CSCOPE curriculum. This curriculum management system is all about alignment of curriculum and instruction and performance on assessment (STAAR). Our district did not meet AYP for the first time this year. The instructional staff is not as hostile to the curriculum this year. Part of this change has to do with having one year of implementation under our belt, but I think getting hit square in the face with the test data was the bigger wake up call. If we as educators are going to enable our students to succeed in the real world we are going to have to all be on the same page and use data to drive our decisions.

The other area I found interesting was teacher demonstration of academic qualifications based on NCLB criteria. Five years later I think it has been clearly shown that passing a test as a means of being "highly qualified" doesn't really improve the quality of instruction. When will this practice change? No job/career should be solely determined on the basis of performance on a standardized test. We only hurt the validity of that profession.