How to Continuously and Better Evaluate Students’
Many high school teachers have questioned why students are not more academically prepared when they enter high school. Likewise, middle school teachers wonder why their students are not better prepared when they start middle school. To solve this problem, why don’t schools implement and utilize an IDP for each student for every school year? An IDP is an Individual Development Plan that can be utilized for each student to help that student plan his or her academic success every school year starting with kindergarten.
IDP has been utilized for teachers for several years as part of their evaluation process, but why don’t we use them for students as well, so we can monitor their progress too? For example, if a student IDP can be developed that identifies each student’s academic strengths, weaknesses, social problems, and other student concerns, then teachers will already know their students and their academic progress clearly at the beginning of each school year. The same form can also be used for academic recommendations to help students progress further and more successfully. Starting a student IDP at the kindergarten level would give teachers, schools, and parents an ongoing track record of the academic strengths and weaknesses of every student and more importantly what needs to happen for each student to have more and better school success.
Too often in our school system, we have students coming into high school unprepared, and no one has taken the time to work on and correct any of their deficiencies in earlier years. That is both a personal and an academic tragedy. I have observed students who are only reading at 3rd to 5th-grade level in the ninth grade, and when I researched these students, I found they already had reading problems in the early grades, but no one gave them the extra support they needed then. That is truly a tragedy, and a student IDP will make more people aware of individual student problems and find a way to resolve them.
The IDP is a practical and unique way to make both parents and educators more aware and more accountable for the ongoing academic successes of all the children in our schools. Of course one of the key concerns is who is going to keep these records and who is going to complete the forms” The teacher is the logical person to complete the form, but I believe that with all the technology available today, any extra work can be minimized, and the IDP can be transmitted electronically. The form can even be developed as a check-off, if necessary. On the flip sign are the benefits that will be offered to teachers when they know the strengths and weaknesses of their students at the beginning of each school year and can thus better plan their lessons for that school year.
If we are truly going to educate all our students and educate them well, we have to stop leaving so many students behind. One way to solve that problem is to continuously evaluate our students in the early grades and provide the necessary support both then and going forward to any students who need extra help because they will benefit from it immensely.