Reinventing the Naga City School Board

1. Reinventing the Naga City School Board Improving education outcomes

2. Outline • Our journey to improve basic education • Where we are 3 years hence • Getting there: 3-Year Local Education Plan Highlights • Lessons Learned

3. Reinventing the Naga City School Board Conceived to make the local school board a vehicle for improving the public school system by promoting governance reforms and building stakeholdership at the local level

4. Guiding Principle No. 1 • Education is a shared community responsibility • Impelled by reality that our nation cannot depend on a central government agency alone to revive the basic public education system • DepEd must partner with local communities, led by their respective local governments, to address this task

5. Guiding Principle No. 2 • Shared responsibility must be twinned with shared accountability among public school stakeholders • Means (a) defining roles in the effort to improve the quality of basic education, and (b) consistently reviewing performance of these roles • Implies the need for provincial, city and municipal schools divisions and districts to be more open towards engaging with its partners • Calls for creating mechanisms that will support more meaningful engagement and allow these partnerships to flourish

6. Problems facing Public Schools • Deteriorating quality of basic education • General lack of awareness about the current state of public education among stakeholders • Weak mechanisms for meaningful parent participation in the education of their children • Weak “soft infrastructure” support (textbooks, reference materials, continuing professional development, etc.) to facilitate the learning process • Underperforming City School Board that has been reduced to a mere budgeting agency for local education funds • Weak local involvement and participation in the delivery of public education services • Weak planning and budgeting practices and processes that contribute to inefficient and ineffective use of local education funds, and • Lack of transparency and accountability in the administration of the public school system.

7. Comparative Performance2005 National Achievement Test (Bicol Region)

8. 71.12 61.00 43.12 TIMSS* Results, 1999*Trends in International Math and Science Survey 75.50 60.88 43.12

9. TIMSS* Results, 2003*Trends in International Math and Science Survey 58.25 59.12 72.25 75.62 47.25 47.12

10. JESSE M. ROBREDO City Mayor - Chairman NENITA L. RAMOS Superintendent – Co-Chairman MILA RAQUID S. ARROYO SP EdCom Chair - Member SOLOMON SALES NACITEA President – Member ALLEN L. REONDANGA City SKF President - Member ABNER PARDIÑAS City PTA League President – Member RODRIGO C. BELLEZA City Treasurer - Member MA. FELICITAS SANTIAGO Non-teaching Personnel President – Member The Naga City School Board Legal basis: Sections 98-101, Title IV, Book I Republic Act No. 7160 (The Local Government Code of the Philippines)

11. Traditional vs. Empowered School Board

12. Naga Governance Model • a function of leadership which local administration must provide. Seeks to build prosperity for the community at large • ensures long-term sustainability by generating broad-based stakeholdership and community ownership over local undertakings Progressiveperspective Good Urban Governance • enables city to tap community resources, multiplying capability and enabling it to overcome resources constraints Partnership Participation

13. Broad Strategies

16. Key Accomplishments, 2002-04 INVESTED MORE THAN P100 MILLION TO PROMOTE: • QUALITY • 1:1 textbook, workbook-student ratio in core subjects bridging DepEd shortfall • Standardization of quality instruction through printed lesson plans. • Annual localized pre-testing and post-testing. • Transparent recruitment for the best teachers (close to 80 locally funded teachers) • Manageable class size (45) IT Programs (CLICK, Youth Tech ACCESS, PCs for Public H/S, Computer Achievement Test, Teachers Training) • Significantimprovements in achievement levels • ACCESS • Standardization of school fees • Sanggawadan extends assistance to 1,281 children and 1,281 parents to ensure stay of children in classrooms • STAKEHOLDERSHIP • SchoolEmpowerment Fund • PTCA – School Governance Boards

17. CAN IT WORK?Naga’s Academic Achievement Gains • Improvements are in linewith “Low” (6%) and “High” (9%) annual target under the city’s education plan for the next 3 years • A qualified “yes” – depending on validity and reliability of testing. Cross-referencing with third-party testing. To be negotiated with DepEd

18. Our short-term directions • Quality public education as a partnership between • Parents (individual and PTCA) • Students • School and community (incl DepEd, City Hall, Barangay Council, other community stakeholders • One hour study time at home every day – after school hours • Homeroom PTA meetings to discuss students’ academic progress,not school contributions • “Brigada Basa” reading program • Focused feeding program to address nutrition problems of those in need

19. Sustaining gainsfor the long term • Bring governance reforms to the community level • Deepen gains at the city level • Reduce class size • Optimize use of education investments, assets and resources • Pursue other measures: • Strengthen local capability for testing • Assess teacher proficiency as basis for continuing professional development • Establish high schools close to urban poor communities, i.e. Pacol, Del Rosario

20. Community governance • Anchored on proposed school governance board that will be established in each school • The board will • Formulate 3-year school development plan • Assess resources, validate needs and approve annual school budget • Review annual school performance • Monitor progress of school programs, projects activities • Its establishment may be legislated by the Sangguniang Panlungsod

21. Composition • Barangay captain • School head • Faculty and Employees Association president • PTCA president • PTCA treasurer • PTCA parent representative • Barangay committee on education chair • Sangguniang Kabataan chair • Barangay People’s Council representative • Student council president • Board to elect its chairman from its members School head – chief executive officer

22. Potential fund sources(Per annum)

23. Deepening gains • School-level targeting anchors the proposed 3-year local education plan • City schools divided into five sub-groups according to achievement level. Annual target decreases as achievement level increases • Has four scenarios: • “Do-nothing” adopts the 2% annual percentage point increase being targeted by the Naga schools division • “Low” targets a 6% average increase annually • “Medium” targets a 7.5% average increase annually • “High” targets a 9% average increase annually

24. A story of timelines • This journey (to eventually raise average achievement to 75%) will take a number of years • But “doing nothing” is not an acceptable option

25. Reduce class size • Class sizes, and the corresponding cost, differ under each scenario • Teacher requirement is based on actual sections formed • Cost of each additional teacher is assumed at P50,000/school year (current budget for a para-teacher) • E/S enrolment is projected to increase 2% annually, H/S by 5%

26. Resource optimization • Increased budget on teacher hiring means reducing spending in other mandated and priority areas of the school board • Instructional materials • Funding support for Palaro and similar activities • Capital outlay • Teachers’ COLA (?) • Maximize use of current textbooks, workbooks, lesson plans, etc. • Conduct A.M. and P.M. classes in congested schools to optimize current classroom capacity • There is also need for a DepEd policy statement supporting the setting of enrolment limit based on the locally adopted target class size

27. Resource sharing

28. Summing up • We cannot improve what we do not measure. This impels the need for • setting higher but doable targets, and • developing local testing capabilities to accurately measure progress • To increase ROI, we need to • optimize use of existing education resources • refocus use of available funding towards high-impact initiatives, e.g. reduction of class size • Share resources, responsibility and accountability with other stakeholders, particularly at the community level

29. An Emerging Paradigm Shift • The push towards decentralization Reinventing the Naga City School Board Highly centralized structure for delivery of public education Less centralized structure for delivery of public education Decentralized delivery of public education services DECS DepEd • “Principal empowerment” • School-based management • Greater community involvement • Bigger LGU role in service delivery

30. Lessons Learned • Local education reform can be done in the context of current legal framework • LSBs are the most logical vehicle for local education reform owing to its legal mandate under the Code • Shared responsibility goes together with shared accountability • Broad-based stakeholdership enhances outcomes by serving as entry points for greater and more meaningful stakeholder participation