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Paul Panos
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Mr. Panos is married and has three children. His wife, Denise, is a speech and language pathologist at Sage Park Middle School. Paul and Denise had three children, who went through the Windsor Public School system. His son John graduated Windsor High in 1999, his daughter Pamela graduated in 2002, and Gregory graduated in 2005.
Mr. Panos served on the Windsor Board of Education for 20 years, between 1997 and 2017. After a two-year break from the Board, he is ready to serve again.
EDUCATIONAL VIEWS
Mr. Panos believes that changes in educational theory over the last several decades have introduced many practices that are destructive to learning, and account for the persistent problems in education that exist today in public schools, including the achievement gap and disciplinary problems.
Chief among these bad practices is “heterogeneous” grouping of students. This way of grouping students is applied vigorously in the elementary schools, and often in the middle school. To some lesser degree it has even been introduced at the High School level.
In this practice, imposed by the administrators, students are deliberately selected for classes by how different their educational performance is. In other words, each class of each grade has equal percentages of struggling, average, and excelling students. Every regular education teacher must deal with the most extreme range of academic needs within her class. Therefore instruction is either not suited to most of the class, or the teacher must break up the class into small groups of students of similar needs and teach each one separately for short periods. Instruction is either not suited or only part time. It is therefore inefficient, through no fault of the teachers.
The efficient way to instruct is to have each class comprised of students who have very similar academic performance. In that way, the teacher can focus her instruction all day long to the needs of all students. Learning will be much more rapid for all students, especially those who normally have academic difficulties.
With grouping by similar performance, all students will be engaged academically, because the subject matter taught is suited to their level of understanding. With full student engagement come fewer disruptions – fewer disciplinary problems.
Another, similar, problem with the educational system is “social promotion”. Students are promoted even if they have not adequately learned the subject matter for that year. Social promotion of an underperforming student makes the next year’s learning even more difficult, with continuing and increasing failures. The student furthermore learns that failing to do the work is acceptable performance. Therefore it is destructive to the student’s long term interests.
Mr. Panos believes that all students should demonstrate good understanding of all subjects taught before being promoted to the next grade. Promotion should be a serious, earned accomplishment.
In matters of discipline, Mr. Panos believes that teachers should have much more authority than they currently have. A teacher should not have to “deal with” deliberate disruptions by students in class when the student cannot be removed from the class or be given detentions. Nor should making out a disciplinary referral be time-consuming and complicated.
Finally, Mr. Panos believes that residency requirements for attending Windsor Public Schools should be strictly enforced. It is against Connecticut law for students who reside in other towns to enroll in Windsor Schools. If there are large numbers who do so, it will be very costly for our taxpayers. Moreover, the students learn to ignore rules and laws.
Mr. Panos served on the Windsor Board of Education for 20 years, between 1997 and 2017. After a two-year break from the Board, he is ready to serve again.
EDUCATIONAL VIEWS
Mr. Panos believes that changes in educational theory over the last several decades have introduced many practices that are destructive to learning, and account for the persistent problems in education that exist today in public schools, including the achievement gap and disciplinary problems.
Chief among these bad practices is “heterogeneous” grouping of students. This way of grouping students is applied vigorously in the elementary schools, and often in the middle school. To some lesser degree it has even been introduced at the High School level.
In this practice, imposed by the administrators, students are deliberately selected for classes by how different their educational performance is. In other words, each class of each grade has equal percentages of struggling, average, and excelling students. Every regular education teacher must deal with the most extreme range of academic needs within her class. Therefore instruction is either not suited to most of the class, or the teacher must break up the class into small groups of students of similar needs and teach each one separately for short periods. Instruction is either not suited or only part time. It is therefore inefficient, through no fault of the teachers.
The efficient way to instruct is to have each class comprised of students who have very similar academic performance. In that way, the teacher can focus her instruction all day long to the needs of all students. Learning will be much more rapid for all students, especially those who normally have academic difficulties.
With grouping by similar performance, all students will be engaged academically, because the subject matter taught is suited to their level of understanding. With full student engagement come fewer disruptions – fewer disciplinary problems.
Another, similar, problem with the educational system is “social promotion”. Students are promoted even if they have not adequately learned the subject matter for that year. Social promotion of an underperforming student makes the next year’s learning even more difficult, with continuing and increasing failures. The student furthermore learns that failing to do the work is acceptable performance. Therefore it is destructive to the student’s long term interests.
Mr. Panos believes that all students should demonstrate good understanding of all subjects taught before being promoted to the next grade. Promotion should be a serious, earned accomplishment.
In matters of discipline, Mr. Panos believes that teachers should have much more authority than they currently have. A teacher should not have to “deal with” deliberate disruptions by students in class when the student cannot be removed from the class or be given detentions. Nor should making out a disciplinary referral be time-consuming and complicated.
Finally, Mr. Panos believes that residency requirements for attending Windsor Public Schools should be strictly enforced. It is against Connecticut law for students who reside in other towns to enroll in Windsor Schools. If there are large numbers who do so, it will be very costly for our taxpayers. Moreover, the students learn to ignore rules and laws.
Paid for by the Windsor Republican Town Committee
James Durant, Treasurer
James Durant, Treasurer