for-performance, ensuring more students graduate on time, and working
to protect the environment - those are just a few of the areas of
focus in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' Strategic Plan 2014: Teaching
Our Way to the Top. CMS Superintendent Dr. Peter C. Gorman launched
the district's plan for the next four years during his annual State of
Our Schools address on Nov. 5 at ImaginOn.
"Great teaching and great leadership will take the high
fliers even higher. It will take good students closer to great. And it
will take the ones who need help over the academic hurdles to
success," said Gorman. "When we improve teaching and manage
performance, every child gets a better education."
The 2014 plan has two key goals: improving teaching and
managing performance. There are six areas of focus that support those
two goals. The areas of focus are:
• Effective Teaching and Leadership
• Performance Management
• Increasing the Graduation Rate
• Teaching and Learning Through Technology
• Environmental Stewardship
• Parent and Community Connections
Strategic Plan 2014: Teaching Our Way to the Top includes
a major shift in direction in the way CMS will choose, train, pay and
retain teachers. Based on results and experience, district staff has
concluded that relying on credentials and years in the profession are
not the best approach to determining who is an effective educator.
Student proficiency, as well as student growth, must be part of that
determination.
"There are 15,000 school districts in America, and I'm
concerned there are 15,000 definitions of effective teaching," Gorman
said. "We can't have that. We need consistent standards across the
country."
Performance management isn't just for teachers. It is
intended to improve employee performance across all levels of the
district by helping each person understand how his or her
effectiveness affects all of CMS. Staff will work to create new
evaluation tools and growth plans for all employees with specific,
measurable goals for performance.
Strategic Plan 2014 is the district's second four-year
plan. In November of 2006, CMS launched Strategic Plan 2010: Educating
Students to Compete Locally, Nationally and Internationally. That plan
set seven broad goals, all intended to move the district toward the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education's directive to provide "the
best education available anywhere."
"In the past three years, we have made significant
progress on the goals in that plan," said Gorman. "Now we need to look
forward as we improve on our progress and reach for new levels of
excellence."
Strategic Plan 2014: Teaching Our Way to the Top, as well
as a review of the 2010 plan, are available on the CMS Web site.
CMS also wanted to thank the sponsors who made the State
of Our Schools event possible, including ImaginOn; Bovis Lend Lease;
Southeastern Technology Group, Inc.; Fifth Third Bank; EHG: Excellence
in Environmental and Demolition Services; Mecklenburg Citizens for
Public Education, and Discovery Education.
