MRSA

You might have seen the somewhat alarming report on 60 Minutes last Sunday on the rampant rise of an almost incurable bacteria called MRSA. It's also been referred to as a Staph infection with the strain being resistant to all antibiotics (except the antibiotic of last resort, which they want to avoid because then it will truly become incurable).

Here's the state website on the topic of MRSA and school athletics.

There have been cases recently also here in Massachusetts where MRSA has been reported in several schools including Wrentham, Adams, Dartmouth, Salem and Winthrop according to this article.

Here's a pamphlet from the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths on the subject of MRSA prevention for parents and educators.

The other trend we have to be concerned about is the overuse of antibiotics in treating what turns out to be viruses. This is kind of a natural expected outcome as the bacteria strains become more and more resistant over time. Some have brought up the possibility that use of antibiotics in the food chain (beef and chicken) could also be behind this trend.

Our school department and Board of Health has no position published on this topic at this time but I'd like to see this taken up by the district/town before any cases show up.

EQA report: Auburn school district 2002-2005

There's an office called Education Quality Assurance or EQA in the state of Massachusetts whose job it is to provide an independent assessment of education performance in our state. They have a small budget but provide an important unbiased voice; in other words they're not encumbered by self-interested unions or administrators patting eachother on the back when they take a look at how things are working. Actually, the office is in jeopardy of being cut in the recent budget Governor Deval, but that's not what I'm here to discuss.

The last time they did a report on our Auburn schools was for the period of 2002-2005.

The report, titled "How is your district performing?" can be found here in PDF.

Granted it's not since the new HS was completed, but I think it's important to look at it for other reasons than the condition of a building. I always thought we should focus on the results more than the actual facilities so much, but now that that's done I accept it - it looks nice I think they did a good job.

But let's get on to the results they found. Some good, some really not so good.

Generally, they are above state average, being a "high performing district", which is good. "High" in English, language and arts and "slightly above average" in math.

BUT!!! - one area of mediocre results was management quality index, a measure of how well the district is managed. It was on the edge of improvable/poor rating. If you look behind THAT number you'll find on curriculum/instruction and assessment/program evaluation, they rate very poor.

Yet-- the report states, the district is performing better than expected on MCAS tests! So in effect, the kids are exceeding expectation DESPITE the poor management of the school system!! We should bring this up to SC some time - how are they improving the rating on management quality index?!?!?

Read the section on high turnover of superintendents and administrators and also planning - very interesting. Middle school on up is hurting, K-5 is OK.

Also - the technology area was bad (hopefully this improved with new HS), computers were outdated and teachers don't use them to instruct.

It gets better though - they don't generally share with parents nor do they do enough assessment data to determine where students need to apply effort to improve their test scores?!? AND they don't assess completion towards goal (ie they don't track progress).

It's bad administrating and lack of basic assessment in the curriculum from what it sounds like ...

AND they don't use student assessments to allocate budgets. So how do they set priorities?!

btw - they found the old buildings being used at the time (including old HS) to be "safe, well-lit and conducive to learning", with the only area of improvement being for handicap access.

HOPEFULLY this has started to change, but it's something to track for sure - they've been slacking on this stuff. And please please please don't tell me you need more money again. It's not money than determines a program or the way that you assess performance and allocate budgets. That part is just basic management and education 101 so let's provide a better example for the students by showing them how to learn more effectively by being taught more effectively.