North Elementary is model of excellence

If state and federal experts want a model for the delivery of an elementary education that gets results, they should spend some time at North Elementary School in Fruitland, which is part of the Jackson School District.

The school's Missouri Assessment Program scores for 2002 rank North Elementary as the top-performing school in our area. Such an outstanding performance is naturally a source of tremendous pride, but it's also the result of a collaborative effort that bears notice.

For one thing, the effort to make sure students perform well at North Elementary is a partnership that involves just about anyone with any connection to the school.

Teachers and administrators lead the way, but everyone from the school's janitor to the cook are active participants as well.

Parents are involved in a variety of ways, including volunteering as classroom aides or providing one-on-one tutoring.

As a result, the school's 284 students significantly outperform the statewide averages in every area assessed by the MAP tests: math, communication arts, science and social studies.

It's interesting to see how students, parents, teachers, staff and administrators relate to the high level of success. Perhaps most interesting of all is how they share the credit and tend to draw attention to the efforts of others and to the cooperative spirit that exists at the school.

One thing North Elementary has going for it is a recognition that areas measured by MAP should be reflected in the school's curriculum. While some other schools -- mainly those whose students perform poorly in the MAP evaluations -- often criticize MAP, North Elementary has embraced MAP as a road map of educational expectations for students in elementary grades.

That's the way it should be. As long as MAP measures what children should be learning -- and the North Elementary results show that students are capable of such progress -- then that's what the classroom teaching should emphasize.

If learning expectations and MAP testing ever diverge at some future point, it would be incumbent on teachers and administrators and on state officials to reconcile those differences. For now, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Fruitland is an interesting community that reflects good values and various socio-economic levels. It is a good laboratory for educational excellence. Through its cooperative spirit and strong desire to see students achieve at the highest levels, North Elementary has demonstrated what can be done when everyone works together to make things better.

Students in our area are fortunate to have so many good schools to attend, and many of them have programs to pursue the same educational objectives as North Elementary. It's good that so much effort is being made to make sure schools here offer the best opportunities for all of our students.