Accelerating+Schools

=__How do we accelerate schools to greatness?__=

I. Description of Problem or Issue
Lead Editor: Kelsey Lydon One key goal in the Rhode Island Strategic Plan is to “Accelerate All Schools Toward Greatness.” For our schools, this means making sure that every school performs at its highest potential and that all students are receiving an equal education. This plan for Rhode Island students links in to the national effort to accelerate American schools to world-class standards. There are several key components to this plan that affect our students. For our portion of the plan, we have researched four key areas that are pertinent to the effectiveness of this goal: closing the achievement gap between our urban and suburban schools, how to diversify schools, providing our students with adequate support, and examining how qualifications for students are going to change with this new plan. In order to successfully reform education, we need to make sure all of our schools are performing at an adequate level.

II. Relevance of Problem or Issue in Rhode Island Schools
Lead Editor: Caterina Bessacini Accelerating all schools to greatness is relevant to Rhode Island because our schools also still need to be improved. One of the goals of the Rhode Island education system should be to accelerate our schools to greatness so they can succeed. It is important that Rhode Island uses the answers to these questions to help improve our schools and the students academic performance. The issues we explored and researched were how to close the achievement gaps, how a school becomes diversified, how wee can help students become more successful in school, and how qualifications are going to change for students. In order for our students to be high performing, some changes need to be made in the districts. All of this is being addressed in Rhode Island by programs that are instilled to keep students held to standards and people helping students to succeed and graduate.

III. Research Summary
Lead Editor: Robert Pekrul The overall findings from all researchers on the over-topic of "How do we accelerate schools to greatness?" is that the government, locally and nationally, is hindering the success and greatness of schools, diversity is a boosting factor towards national performance and cohesion, many students lack motivation that is rather helpful and detrimental to student success (and thus school greatness), and we as a nation need to invent and think outside-of-the-box to solve our socioeconomic problems, as well as problems of student success in general. It appears that the major hindrances to greatness in schools are students themselves and the government at large. Through the government resegregation is occurring, programs are draining resources that could be allocated to increasing performance levels throughout the academic field, and the educational system is clinging on to outdated forms of education in a modern society.

Some solutions found in the research include: creating an open-source academic network, improving motivation factors in and outside of school, improving the livelihood of individuals/families in order to increase the likelihood of their success, re-initiating the desegregation movement and incorporating multiple fronts against segregation in schools for to end segregation lawfully, and the execution of government command programs that are limiting schools or harming schools from succeeding or attaining greatness.

IV. Group Product Overview
Lead Editor: Kelly Lakin Our team plans on revealing a small portion of our research to the class at the beginning of the lesson. By going over these topics, it will help our classmates prepare for what is coming next. After we finish our individual discussions about either: closing the achievement gap, student qualities, student diversity, and making schools great, we will divide the class up into teams for the following exercise. We believe that a virtual game of jeopardy will engage the students about the importance of effects of schools accelerating schools towards greatness. Having the teams support their answer with a valid explanation will let them hear the other's opinions. Some of the questions on the slideshow will be to the point "one answer" questions that will allow our classmates to challenge their memory from the previous lesson.

VI. Research Questions and Reference Summaries

 * || **Research Question** || **Researcher** ||
 * 1. || How do we close the achievement gap? || Kelsey Lydon ||
 * 2. || How does a school become diversified? || Robert Pekrul ||
 * 3. || How can we help students become more successful in school? || Caterina Bessacini ||
 * 4. || @How are qualifications for students going to change? || Kelly Lakin ||

VII. Group Reaction/Opinion(s) about Issue
By conducting this research, we have found that a major factor that deals with schools accelerating towards greatness deals with the No Child Left Behind Act. If standardized tests were taken out, that is when the student qualifications will change, the achievement gap will become smaller, students will become motivated, and diversity will be spread throughout the country. I believe that each and every school CAN be great, the qualifications for those schools must change though in order to focus on that goal.

While researching how we can help students become more successful in school, I found that there are many different factors that can help students succeed. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are important and also the support of teachers, parents, and peers are vital. Also, sports teams can be beneficial to students and can help them work towards improving their academic performance. They also learn many different skills on sports teams that can apply to their work academically. Rewards are also helpful, but it is important that they are not stressed too much and given out all the time. It is important for students to learn self-motivation and to not rely on rewards in order to get themselves to complete something. Students are an extremely important aspect of making schools great. Great students can lead to a great school.