The educational goals for The New Haven Public Schools are based upon the following key principles:
All children are capable of learning and contributing to society. No child should be permitted to fail.
Parents and caregivers are the children's first teachers. We must work together with parents and caregivers as partners in the teaching and learning process.
All students, including those with special needs, should be challenged to fulfill their utmost potential. The student expectations listed herein reflect the highest levels of achievement appropriate for each subject area at each grade level. Only when students are measured by high standards, will they aspire to meet and even exceed those standards.
English-Language Learners (ELL), students whose native language is not English, must receive special instructional programs in grades Pre-K to twelve and be provided with equal access to the quality programs designed for the entire school population. Effective instruction and assessment help ELL students to capitalize on their linguistic, academic and cognitive strengths. The concepts, literacy skills and critical thinking strategies developed in all areas of the native language should be maintained. This forms a basis for language acquisition, as well as for social and academic achievement in English.
Schools need to reflect an education that is multicultural. Multicultural education focuses on the creation of a total school environment that recognizes, celebrates and respects the diversity of individuals and groups, thus enhancing the learning experience and maximizing achievement for all students.
Schools can make a difference in students' lives. Our schools must, therefore, become meaningful enough to the lives of students that they will be motivated to continue their education through high school commencement. What students learn in school must be relevant to the world in which they live. The learning that takes place in schools is not only academic, but also social and personal. It is profound and must be relevant to the world in which they live.
To be effective, meaningful and lasting, instruction must stimulate students to use higher-level thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation. It must, at the same time, accommodate the differences in the educational experiences of individual students and the individual methods by which those experiences have been acquired. To accomplish these outcomes while accommodating those differences, instruction must actively involve students in a variety of well-integrated, stimulating, challenging, interdisciplinary and developmentally appropriate activities.
Success breeds success. Students must be given the opportunity and the encouragement to succeed and receive recognition for success.
Students must graduate from school with an understanding and appreciation for the role of technology in society and be prepared to use and integrate technology effectively into jobs and careers in the twenty-first century. Toward that end, students must have the ability to choose appropriate technologies to accomplish tasks, obtain information and solve problems in all areas and across all disciplines.
For students to demonstrate competency in academic achievement, they must be challenged to use the knowledge, skills and abilities they have acquired. They must be stimulated to become life-long learners who are able to use higher-level thinking skills to explore problems and make intelligent choices.
Schools must provide various methods of assessment to evaluate the meeting of established expectations; these include: standardized tests, projects, presentations, performances and the construction of individual student portfolios as evidence of what has been learned.
A particular acknowledgment is given to the insight of the New York City Framework document which guided the writing of these principles.
