ASCD, a global community dedicated to excellence in learning, teaching, and leading, used its resources to release its first ever Global Policy Agenda that focuses on recommendations to ensure student success.

ASCD found several ways for the global community to best guarantee success for all students. Among those ways, the first is that the government of any given country must be accountable for equal education of its most in-need students.

"It is important to create new, comprehensive accountability models that use multiple measures of performance, incorporate all subjects, include nonacademic factors, promote continuous improvement and support, and report community-level data to highlight shared responsibility for student success," it said.

Further, the agenda discussed the importance of reducing reliance on standardized testing, an especially hot issue this past school year with the unprecedented opt-out movement in response to increased testing in the United States.

"School systems must make sure standardized tests are never used as the lone measure of student performance, educator effectiveness, or school quality," it said, describing many testing requirements in place as "woefully inadequate" determinants of a student's future success.

As to what school systems should be doing, the agenda says, is focusing on a whole child approach to learning by providing social and emotional learning, appropriate mental health and counseling services, meaningful student and parent engagement, and high-quality early childhood education.

Finally, the agenda suggests better resources and programs in place for preparing, supporting, and evaluating teachers. It insists successful schools must invest in ongoing professional development resources for its most valuable asset- teachers.

Read the full agenda here and comment thoughts below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

06/10/2015