Somerville's Growth Growth

These two graphs, show the improvement in Somerville's instructional impact from 2011 to 2013 among districts with 1000 or more students.
 



2011

2013

 
As you can plainly see, Somerville has leaped ahead of our neighboring communities in impact on learning in English and math, as measured by MCAS.
 
 According to the City's press release, the district made this progress due to the following five actions:

1.   Somerville Schools have improved general instruction in every classroom by setting high, formal standards

2.   Targeted instructional support that predicts student performance and intervenes early supports Somerville’s richly diverse student population and a wide range of educational backgrounds and learning abilities

3.   Remediation initiatives quickly adapt to students targeted for instructional support—providing intervention to students at risk of a decline in proficiency before they begin to decline

4.   Technology brings leading edge techniques to the classroom and provides the data points that return information fast and quickly to teachers, constantly measuring student progress throughout the year, improving communication between teachers, students and parents or guardians, and empowering teachers and the district to stay nimble and proactive in adapting to the individual needs of each student

5.    Somerville has expanded academic opportunities both before and after school, while addressing the education and needs of the whole child.

While these measures are not everything, they are a very, very good sign that things are working better for the school district's core responsibility to educate every child in English and math.  Much more work needs to be done by the schools, parents, and community groups to ensure that all parts of our kids progress equally, including engineering and arts.