4/22/03 -- High-poverty school districts that succeeded in raising student achievement were able to do so by acknowledging that they had a problem and devising a coherent, districtwide strategy to solve it.
That's the key finding of a new study by the Learning First Alliance called Beyond Islands of Excellence: What Districts Can Do to Improve Instruction and Achievement in All Schools.
The report is based on the experiences of five districts -- Aldine Independent School District in Houston; Chula Vista (Calif.) Elementary School District; and the school districts of Kent County, Md.; Minneapolis; and Providence, R.I.
They were selected because they had exhibited at least three years of improvement in student achievement in reading or mathematics across multiple grades and among all races and ethnic groups.
"This report shows that all stakeholders in a district -- from the school board to the superintendent, the central office, the teachers, and the parents -- have to work together to raise student achievement. And the school board has to lead the way," says NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant.
NSBA is one of 12 national education associations that make up the Learning First Alliance.
The study identifies seven factors as essential in promoting districtwide improvement. In general, the districts highlighted in the report:
• had the courage to acknowledge poor student performance and the will to seek effective solutions;
• put in place a systemwide approach to improving instruction -- an approach that articulated curricular content and provided instructional supports;
• instilled visions that focus on student learning and guide instructional improvement;
• based decisions on good data, not instinct -- using multiple measures of student and school performance to guide decision making;
• adopted new approaches to professional development that involved a coherent and district-organized set of strategies to improve instruction;
• redefined leadership roles -- with school boards responsible for shepherding instructional improvement efforts, central offices driving systemwide change, and principals and teacher leaders implementing the reforms in their schools; and
• recognized that there were no quick fixes and showed the patience, hard work, consistency, and long-term support necessary for improvement.
During a briefing on the report March 24, Aldine Deputy Superintendent Archie L. Blanson said some of the steps his district took to raise achievement included developing a principals' academy, involving all assistant principals in instruction, designating some teachers as "skills specialists," and decentralizing leadership.
Ossie Brooks-James, a principal in Minneapolis, gives three reasons for her district's progress in raising student achievement: data-based decision making, shared leadership, and professional development for teachers.
At her school, Lyndale Elementary, faculty meetings have been transformed into teacher-led professional development sessions. The school brings in a substitute one day a week so teachers can observe each other in the classroom.
Even the most troubled school districts tend to have schools that could be characterized as "islands of excellence," says Judy Wurtzel, executive director of the Learning First Alliance. "We cannot continue to point to heroic principals and extraordinary teachers to improve the performance of all children."
What we need are "systemwide approaches that support teachers and principals, not simply school-by-school fixes," Wurtzel says. "The districts in our study are putting in place strategies that touch every school and every child."