Teams Report on Curriculum Audit Progress
 Dr. Burns congratulates educators on their hard work on the audit. |
 Dr. Fenwick English talks with Chief Academic Officer Donna Hargens. |
April 25, 2008 - Teams of educators working on the curriculum management audit met together this week to provide an update on each group’s progress and to hear from Dr. Fenwick English, a University of NC education professor known as the father of the audit process.
"The curriculum management audit is an intensive look at what a school system is doing to improve teaching and learning and its management structure,” said English. “The auditors that came to Wake County were all experienced professionals. They were trained in auditing. They know what to look for. Its like taking an x-ray of the internal operations of the schools to see how well they are delivering the curriculum that children need to learn.”
The audit team from Phi Delta Kappa visited the school system in May 2007 for a week interviewing nearly 500 people and visiting nearly 4,000 classrooms. They presented their report to in September 2007. Their report provided eight recommendations and 117 action steps.
Teams of WCPSS educators were created to address each of the eight recommendations last fall. The teams have already completed six action steps. They are currently addressing 30. Through their work this spring, administrators have determined a work plan mapping out efforts for 17 quarters.
At the meeting of the eight teams, there were reports on the work underway. They are reviewing WCPSS processes, collecting data and looking at models recommended by the audit team and examples of other urban school districts’ efforts.
“Changing a school system as it goes is about the hardest thing to do in our business,” said English. “You really need to maintain the morale of the people that have to do the work and do their regular jobs at the same time. I was very impressed.”
English congratulated the school system for making the audit a public, transparent process.
Superintendent Del Burns called on the educators to celebrate their first year of hard work and understand the importance of the efforts being made.
“We undertook this audit because we wanted to know what must change in our culture so that we can better serve students,” said Burns. “We have a plan. Now comes the hard work of changing the culture. The next steps will make a difference for children for decades to come.”
Burns thanked each of the educators at the meeting for their work on the recommendations made in the curriculum management audit.
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