Journal Gazette | 02/04/2005 | Ball State hails... -
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Published on: 2/4/2005
Last Visited: 2/5/2005
Mike Malone, executive vice president of The Leona Group, said the management group shares Ball State,s concern about leadership but believes with Payne, the revolving door has stopped.
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,We feel the school leader sets the , tone for the success or failure of a school,, Malone said.
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Malone said mobility rates are often high at urban schools because families move during the school year, he said.
Still, Malone said, he would like to see the school reach 90 percent student retention, which is the rate at Irvington Community School in Indianapolis and Thea Bowman Leadership Academy in Gary.Both are charter schools sponsored by Ball State.
Malone said with a stable leader, student and teacher retention should improve.The high turnover with the teachers, he said, is from young teachers who come in and aren,t prepared to deal with the challenges the school,s students present.
,The job is harder than they ever imagined,, he said.
As the leadership stabilizes and student and teacher retention improves, Malone said the school will see stronger academic achievement.
So far, the school has performed poorly on ISTEP+, the state,s standardized test.But what is more important to look at, Malone said, is how the students are performing on tests given in the fall and spring to determine students, growth.
On the Northwest Evaluation Association exams, improvement in reading scores outpaced state and national rates, though the Johnson Academy students still scored below average on the exams.In language arts and math, the pace of improvement in most grades were at or below state and national averages.And again, students performed below average in their overall knowledge on the exams.
Dezelan and Malone said the below-average scores are not surprising because the students came into the school performing two and three grade levels behind.
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,We expect and intend to put into place that those (growth) scores have to exceed state and national averages,, Malone said.