Desired State of School Essay

School Improvements

Performance Outcomes at Dunn Middle School in Trenton

Inner-city schools today are struggling with a litany of challenges that threaten the quality of education and the opportunities available to students. Issues such as high poverty rates, crime-afflicted neighborhoods, racial disparity and limited parental involvement all threaten to stand in the way of bright futures for such students. This is true for the attendees of the Grace A. Dunn Middle School in Trenton, which is working to overcome the obstacles typical of such resource-strapped urban schools. The discussion here outlines some of the areas of Dunn Middle School that require improvement and offers some suggestions on how to achieve this improvement.

Performance:

Reviewing the Dunn Middle School performance outcomes, all evidence suggests that the school is in need of sweeping improvements. Under the thumb of mandatory state-proficiency tests, Dunn Middle School has struggled to yield any positive outcomes. The demand placed on the school to focus its efforts on proficiency testing has not only failed to result in positive test performance but it has also impeded the focus on broader educational objectives.

According to the New Jersey School Performance Report (2013), "this school outperforms 10%of schools statewide as noted by its statewide percentile ranking and

29% of schools educating students with similar demographic characteristics as noted in its peer school percentile ranking in the performance area of Academic Achievement. Additionally, this school is meeting 75% of its performance targets in the area of Academic Achievement." (NJ School Performance Report, p. 1)

This denotes that the students of Dunn Middle School lag substantially behind not just the broad population of schools in New Jersey but also behind the majority of those that share the school's socioeconomic obstacles. The findings are even worse where the school's preparation of students for the real world is concerned. According to the same report, Dunn Middle School "outperforms 2% of schools statewide as noted by its statewide percentile ranking and 3% of schools educating students with similar demographic characteristics as noted in its peer school percentile ranking in the performance area of College and Career Readiness." (NJ School Performance Report, p. 1)

The report goes on to indicate that Dunn Middle School is achieving a shocking 0% of its performance targets where College and Career Readiness are concerned. This denotes that there is a strong need to change the strategy in place at Dunn. Its emphasis on standardized tests has neither produced improvements in this area nor has it taken the necessary steps of involving educators or members of the community in their…