What Do You Know?

Dr. Martin Brooks, executive director of the Tri-State Consortium, gave the Bronxville Board of Education an overview of the Tri-State Consortium accreditation program, which emphasizes a continuous improvement process.

The Consortium brings together forty-two school districts in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. Visiting committees of educators from member schools evaluate the quality of specific programs on a three-year cycle. The Consortium last conducted an evaluation of Bronxville’s K-12 mathematics program in 2005 and is slated to assess K-12 science in the fall of 2009. Dr. Brooks contrasted the limits of standardized testing with performance assessment: “Standardized tests ask ‘Do you know this?’”, he said. “Performance assessments ask, ‘What do you know?'”

Board members asked questions about what the District will learn from the K-12 science review, how best practices are identified and shared, and whether our current scope and sequence will be validated. Dr. Brooks said the report would be organized around essential questions developed by the faculty.

Superintendent David Quattrone said the essential questions under consideration address curriculum alignment, inquiry skills, technology applications, and the educational needs of diverse learners. These questions dovetail nicely with the professional development themes that have been adopted for the next three years. Over this period of time, he said, he expects achievement levels to remain high and stable, but the faculty will design new units of study and develop technology applications that promote depth of inquiry, authenticity, and engagement with real-world problems.