Quality Teachers Quality Learners

The families of Bios have enjoyed the fruits of their children being taught by the best educators I have worked with or observed in the classroom in my twenty-six years in education. I doubt anyone would disagree that each of those teachers have had a large positive impact on each of their students. Two out of three have entered the teaching profession through alternative ways. While all three are very intelligent, hard working, and God fearing, only one besides myself is certified. While qualifications are important for any profession including teaching, certification does not necessarily mean quality as shown in two recently published research articles appearing in Education Next and Education Finance and Policy and recently cited in the Wall Street Journal.

Essentially both studies came to the same conclusion independent of each other. With studies centered on New York City teachers, they found there were “few significant differences in effectiveness between traditionally certified teachers and teachers entering through alternative pathways” and “more important they find that differences in teacher effectiveness within pathways far exceed the average differences between pathways.”

In other words, the difference in a teacher’s effectiveness is not because of certification but because of their skills at teaching.

The study by Kane, Rockoff, and Stanger concluded that “the average of being the student of a teacher in the top quarter of effectiveness rather than the bottom quarter is roughly three times the advantage of being taught by an experienced teacher rather than by a novice, and more than ten times any advantage created by teacher certification.”

My point is not to justify our teachers not being certified or to say I do not feel qualifications for teacher at Bios are important and necessary. No, the point is having the best teachers makes a large, positive impact on your children. And our goal is to continue to attract, keep and train these best teachers so your children can continue to grow and learn.

Though these studies solely focused on student achievement, I also believe best teachers also make a profound impact on a student’s character, and in our school’s purpose, modeling Christ.

In a recent editorial, the Wall Street Journal in support of the above studies, also noted that “Teachers learn by teaching, not by mastering, the required “Education” courses associated with state certification.” My strong preference is to hire teachers with degrees that give them specific skills and even experiences in their lives using those learned skills. They are then able to share with our students from those experiences and those experiences help to provide them training in how to teach.

The Core Group (which is made up of teachers and staff committed to the Bios way of instructing and serving our families) and I constantly discuss how to maintain what we have as we grow and who to hire to continue our practice of having the best teachers for our students.

28 to graduate

It takes twenty-eight credits to graduate from Bios Christian Academy. Four of those credits required for graduation are Bible classes. So to then compare us to the outside world, our students need twenty-four other credits to graduate. Of those 24 credits, four are for math, English – 4, Science – 3, History – 3, Spanish – 3, and 7 electives. Each credit is two semesters of a course.

The reason I bring this up now is because of the current controversy in the Gilbert and Queen Creek School Districts over increasing the credits required for graduation from twenty-two to twenty-three.

The East Valley Tribune in an editorial on Sunday, December 14 supported the idea, saying, “[Public schools’] focus must be on the educational needs to prepare students for college or, more generally, success as informed, well-rounded adults.” That is exactly the focus the public schools need, but unfortunately they do not have.

After witnessing and educating on Christ, our focus is college-prep. Early graduation from high school does not help prepare for college. Consistently students are emotionally and educationally “ready” for college at just about the middle of their third quarter of the senior year. But before that, every semester of every class is used to prepare them for college and the world they live in. Twenty-four credits are just enough to provide them for that.

Composition Program

The Bios composition program is built on three basic principles: all students are able to write well, writing is a skill which should be taught with meaningful assignments, and students should practice, practice, practice.

On the first point, there is not much to say except for this reasoning – if a student is able to read, then they have the ability to write also. Just as in math, basic skills are built upon in writing, which leads to further skills.

I scour the internet and the newspapers for writing contests. With the help of our families and friends we have a fairly busy and productive writing year filled with essays, science research, and poetry to be read by other audiences. Each contest is unique. Some contests are judged by civic leaders – mayors, judges, and other prominent citizens. Another contest may be read by retired English teachers and so on. Writing for different audiences rather than just your teacher provides incentive to think about who you are writing to.

Our writing program is purposely devoid of what James Webster calls “meaningless language exercises such as workbooks and assignments which fill in the blanks, one word answers, multiple choice, underlining or circle the correct answer.” While we do use workbooks to teacher grammar, grammar by itself does not teach one how to write a sentence, a paragraph, or a paper.

Finally, we do practice, practice, practice. Students are instructed with six to ten assignments throughout the school year on how to write sentences and paragraphs and how to bring all those thoughts and ideas into one focused, exciting, and fun to read paper. They practice playing with nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Six methods for opening a sentence with an additional six ideas for creating interesting sentences are added to the student’s repertoire of skills that are practiced. Skills for grabbing a reader’s attention are also taught and practiced.

Great writers are developed over time with clear instruction and much practice. That is our aim in our writing program.

Why Bios?

Choosing a school to entrust your son's or daughter's education with is a very important decision. Bios offers a very unique, Christian education - an education which works to support the parents in their training of their children while preparing the boys and girls for both the rigors of college and of life.

So why Bios? We are committed to a value system which at its core is the Bible, the infallible word of God. In addition, a rigorous college prep curriculum, with two AP courses already included, is set to provide the skills needed to allow each student to prepare for college.

Our teaching of the Bible comes from the belief that it is God breathed and basic for life training. Our daily Bible classes are taught directly from the Bible in kindergarten through eighth grades. Teachers interpret passages within the parameters of context, inerrancy, and Christ-centeredness. In high school, students spend additional time reading and discussing the thoughts of authors such as MacArthur, Sproul and others.

A developing arts and sports program is an essential aspect of the life of students attending Bios. Physical education is expected daily in kindergarten through tenth grades. In the first through ninth grades, students participate in a string orchestra, performing on stage at two performances each year. Our school participates in junior high/high school sports through AICS. AICS is a small school Christian athletic league involving schools located in the valley.
All of the above mentioned reasons are important parts of Bios. But what truly sets Bios apart is the caring, excellent group of teachers and staff who work diligently to support our parents in the training of their children.

We encourage you to visit Bios yourself to schedule a tour and interview for you and your child(ren).

Bios Basics I

The idea of Bios is built around some very basic goals. Those are:
1) The first goal provides a basis for all of the other goals. We are here to proclaim and witness the truths of the bible. This goal gives meaning and purpose to everything else we do.
2) We are here to serve the parents who chose to send their children to Bios for an education. A major part of that support is training those children.
3) Which segues into the last goal of why we are here, to provide an outstanding education. And that education results in skills learned by our students which forms the basis for further learning throughout their education here and for continuous learning after Bios.

The Bios Way

I read the other day a quote from an educational researcher by the name of Litky. He stated, in regards to educating students, the idea of “treating everyone alike, differently.” That is what we do. Everyday. Day in and day out. Bios is built around the concept that not only are all of our students able to learn, but they are expected to excel in every subject we instruct in.

How do we do it? Here again our differences make a difference. For one, we build from the basic skills in each subject. In math, facts are memorized, concepts are mastered, and previous skills are reviewed over and over to keep them fresh. Composition is built around several writing projects each quarter where students write for local, state, and national competitions. In addition to spelling, grammar, and word usage skills being applied in real life situations, students write for a different judging audience in each contest, in contrast to composing only for their English teacher.

Progress in some subjects such as math and Spanish hinge on passing scores with higher percentages than most schools. Daily assignments must be passed with at least 80% accuracy while Spanish tests and quizzes are 85% or higher for credit.

In all of our curriculum, from the kindergarten through twelfth grades, the daily goals and weekly lesson plans are already put together for all teachers in every subject. With clear daily goals and objectives, each teacher is able to know the progress of each student and when to make changes in their instruction if needed. The clear goals across the curriculum allows for the lower grades to consistently support the upper grades in higher level learning.

Speaking of curriculum, ours is handpicked by me. I continually search out the best and the brightest instructional tools that support us in the teaching of our students. Sometimes that may include a text from a national publisher, but usually not. The clearest written, most demanding programs are often the result of a frustrated homeschooling parent who attempts to use the curriculum available and says “I can do better than this” and does. Examples are the first four grades of Horizon’s math, Wiley’s junior high/high school science curriculum, and Easy Grammar. While none are perfect, all support Bios in each subject by giving our students skills in those areas.

Teachers bring it all together. Mature Christians, extremely intelligent, hard working, looking to draw the best out of each student, and in addition, they like people. Even with well laid out lesson plans and vigorous curriculum tools, without highly skilled and continuously trained teachers a Bios student would look the same as students from any place else. But with teachers possessing the aforementioned skills, Bios students excel. They excel not only in their personal academic skills, but in character and work ethic because of teachers who desire to support the parents in the training of their children.

Building from basic skills, higher individual expectations, organized K-12 objectives, exceptional curriculum, and outstanding teachers make for a school where we “treat everyone alike, differently” - all to the glory of God.