From Deseret News archives:
Learn from Dixon's success
Students at Dixon, as this newspaper reported earlier this week, consistently score much higher than the state average on eighth-grade math in the Utah Criterion Referenced Tests. And they do this despite the fact that about 55 percent of Dixon's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and a quarter of them are ethnic minorities including some who come from homes where English is not the primary language.
In the United States, education traditionally has been considered an issue best handled on the state and local levels. Under such a system, the best educators can work their unique methods to produce results, and others can learn from and copy those ideas that work best.
But for that to happen, those other educators have to look at success elsewhere the right way. It can't be threatening to them. It ought to be empowering.
At Dixon, teachers describe rules that require students to take lecture notes and turn them in for grading. They give students regular review tests that cover the entire year's curriculum. They require students to explain all the steps they take to solve math problems. The teachers themselves have to be proficient in algebra and geometry, and they share their successful strategies with each other.
The natural human inclination is for teachers at other schools to feel competitive and to resent such a consistent performance. A better idea would be for all other middle schools in the state to study Dixon and see whether any of its ideas would work for them.
Dixon's teachers and students should be commended for their consistently strong math scores. Their performance ought to lift the entire state.
Recent comments
On the Utah Schools.org web site, Dixon Middle School ranks 126 out...
Paul Mero | Dec. 28, 2007 at 11:50 a.m.
The only thing more conservative then schools is society as a whole....
Instereo | Dec. 28, 2007 at 10:35 a.m.
I really hope that Dixon has a better way to teach math, but it...
liberal larry | Dec. 28, 2007 at 7:45 a.m.
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