SCORE Education: SCORE News: Director's Corner

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Director's Corner

Dear Educator,

Sharon Marshall Lockett,
Director SCORE:

a favorite workshop leader, much sought-after keynote speaker, and author of a wide array of educational and personal publications.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. If your data is not affirming your dreams for student achievement, SCORE can help you. SCORE believes that every student can succeed in a rich curriculum that leads them toward eligibility for the college or career of their choice by the time they graduate from high school.

As director of SCORE, I am your guest in counseling sessions, dialogues, and classrooms. I am optimistic about our future because we educators love kids, believe in learning, and go above and beyond our job descriptions! We know we are shaping tomorrow's world. We believe it will be better because we are working with the greatest resource our nation has ever known...youth!

We are doing everything we know to shape young lives. When we learn a new method, we embrace it. We are scavengers for good ideas and more effective methods for improving achievement and enabling our students to live productive lives. We mourn when our students don't succeed. We join their parents, cheering their every success.

We face the infancy of a new century with multiple challenges. We want high graduation rates, equal opportunity, high test scores. We want America to lead the world.

SCORE endorses a comprehensive, holistic approach to educational restructuring training schools to institute a program based on the following assumptions:

For students to be eligible for their chosen college or career by the time they graduate from high school, they must participate in a rich core curriculum leading to appropriate content mastery. Therefore, students involved in SCORE are up-placed into appropriate classes.

If students are to be successful in these classes, they need to learn effective study skills. SCORE students are taught study skills as a formal part of the curriculum at transition grades. In addition, study skills are reinforced across the curriculum in tutorials and in every class throughout the school.

If students are to be successfully up-placed in the curriculum, they will need academic support. SCORE provides academic support for them in the form of SCORE classes, tutorials, and group study sessions.

If high-risk students are to be successful in a rich common core curriculum, teachers must use whole-brain, state-of-the-art, multiple modality teaching techniques. SCORE teachers, using study skills as a basis, are inserviced in strategies that empower them with state-of-the-art methodologies, successful in reaching all learners.

If students are to be successful in a rich academic curriculum, they must eliminate negative factors in their lives that would detract from their success. These negative factors include, but are not limited to, substance abuse, alcohol abuse, recovery from grief experiences, gang involvement, or poor attendance. SCORE programs monitor the progress of students, counseling them regularly and enlisting appropriate support networks when a SCORE student has a need that is negatively impacting academics.

High-risk students, in order to be successful academically, need support at all levels: family, community, peer, and education. SCORE programs design academic support that fosters positive peer pressure, family communication, community support, and teacher mentor ships.

If any of these elements is missing from a program, the end result will be diminished. When these elements support one another toward a common goal, the results in terms of student achievement are dramatic.

If your dream for students matches our dream for students, let us help you succeed! We're an e-mail, an inservice, or a phone call away!

Sharon Marshall Johnson, Director SCORE: Success in the CORE for Everyone!