Outline
MSIP letters stand for Missouri School Improvement Program. Its purpose is to guide the school districts to a higher level of excellence by fulfilling the requirements of a qualified education. MSIP operates through standards and indicators. They have been revised and changed periodically to be able to measure the changing situations in schools. They are organized in three sections: Performance Standards, Process Standards and Resource Standards. These standards help to classify and accredit the school districts. The state law defines penalties for a school district which has become unaccredited but in most cases it can not intervene before two years from the occurrence. The unaccredited status does not affect the student’s diploma, the admission in the colleges, participation in extracurricular activities etc.
MSIP process
MSIP letters stand for Missouri School Improvement Program. It was created to promote school improvement by giving assistance to the public schools of the state of Missouri. Its purpose is to guide the school districts to a higher level of excellence by fulfilling the requirements of a qualified education. This goal is possible to be reached if schools meet certain minimum standards and continue seeking for higher student’s performance. For the state of Missouri it is important to provide a qualified education to its citizens. This program has given results regarding this point by stimulating significant progress and change in many school districts. MSIP operates through standards and indicators. They are necessary for the classification and accreditation of the school districts which is made by other subjects who have a legal mandate. The evaluation of the school improvement is made by defining if the schools fulfill the standards. Through this control we can realize if the quality of education is improved and we can also make clear the steps that are required to move to higher levels. In other words the standards and indicators are the school guide in the way of excellence. They are organized in three sections. These sections are: Performance Standards, Process Standards and Resource Standards. The first section measures student’s performance by defining their academic achievements, the preparation in school, the percentage of the students who stay at school and also the percentage of the others that leave the school. (“Accreditation Standards for Public School Districts in Missouri”, pg.8).
Resource Standards are generally quantitative in nature and address the basic requirements that all the districts must meet. Some of them are appropriate for all districts and some others are not. (“Accreditation Standards for Public School Districts in Missouri”, pg.10).
Processes standards deal with the school’s instructional and administrative processes. These standards can not be easily quantified because they incorporate multiple criteria. This makes the assessment of this section. It requires more attention than the other sections to be evaluated. It is the one which gets an on-site review by a team of trained observers who accomplish it. (“Accreditation Standards for Public School Districts in Missouri”, pg.10)
MIPS’s standards and indicators have changed through time. This has created the cycles of the project. A MSIP cycle is a certain phase of the program which has its certain standards and evaluation results. They have been revised and changed periodically. This was necessary because the school’s conditions and the expectation of the citizens change over time. If the standards would have been kept the same as in the beginning, they would not be able to evaluate the real situation. The progress made by the school districts is presented in a curriculum. The MSIP team examines it and after the evaluation decides if the district has fulfilled or not the set standards. If the standards of e cycle are fulfilled, the district waits to pass in the other cycle. The school districts in Missouri now are making efforts to move to the fifth cycle.
The accreditation project may let outside some districts. The state law defines penalties for a school district which has become unaccredited but in most cases it can not intervene before two years from the occurrence. Students of these districts are free to pass to an accredited district and the unaccredited school district must pay the tuition and transportation cost for each student. (“What happens when a school district becomes unaccredited?”, para. 1-2 )
The unaccredited status does not affect the student’s diploma and does not cause problems with the admission in the colleges. Students from these kinds of schools are also free to participate in extracurricular activities like sports, dancing etc.
References
“Accreditation Standards for Public School Districts in Missouri”. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Proposed Intended Public Comment. 2009. Web.
“What happens when a school district becomes unaccredited?”.The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2007. Web.