Myth-Dispelling Schools Have Keys to Success

All too often, it is alleged problems with public education that make headlines, but recently the Education Trust put the media’s focus on school success stories. In November, five public schools received the Education Trust’s annual “Dispelling the Myth” awards, which honor high-performing schools that serve large populations of low-income and minority students. These five schools – and others across the country – are lessons in how capacity-building, strong leadership, and more resources can turn around poorly performing schools.

The “Dispelling the Myth” schools also provide examples of strategies and reforms are needed to help all schools improve. The honored schools, for example, all emphasize assessment systems that provide regular feedback for both students and teachers. This emphasis on instructionally supportive assessment is also a statewide focus for educators in Nebraska, where the state has been granted an exception to the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and uses a system of “classroom-based assessment” in place of high-stakes standardized tests.

Finally, the success of these schools demonstrates the importance of adequate support and resources. For these schools, success has been achieved with the help of new technology, supplementary programs for struggling students, and directed support from school districts, including curriculum standards and meaningful professional development.

Five Themes for Success

The schools honored by EdTrust are diverse, but they all serve students who are traditionally thought of as “left behind” in public education. The schools range from an urban school that serves almost entirely students who are African-American, many of whom live in poverty, to a school near the Mexican border, where most students are from immigrant families and are English Language Learners, to a rural school that serves large numbers of families that dealing with the challenges poverty and unemployment. All of them, however, defy the stereotypes for such schools and perform at extraordinary levels, showing huge jumps in achievement or boasting student bodies in which 90 – and in some cases 100 – percent of students are proficient on state standardized tests.

While each of the schools honored by EdTrust – Capitol View Elementary School in Atlanta, East Millsboro Elementary School in Millsboro, DE, Imperial High School in Imperial Valley, CA, M. Hall Stanton Elementary School in Philadelphia, and Port Chester Middle School in Port Chester, NY – have unique strategies and methods of instruction, EdTrust identified what they saw as five common themes in the schools’ efforts to improve achievement:

•   High expectations of all students;
•   The analysis and use of data to track student progress;
•   Identification of individual student needs;
•   Rich curricula aligned with state standards; and
•   Purposeful professional development.

While critics of NCLB often claim it causes a narrowing and “dumbing down” of curricula, the successful schools identified by EdTrust all emphasize high expectations and rich curricula. In Port Chester, teachers work together on interdisciplinary units that approach a topic in depth from multiple angles. Capitol View similarly uses interdisciplinary curriculums, where teachers focus on building vocabulary and understanding in a particular concept area. Teachers in Capitol View report that the focus on achievement has caused them to broaden their curricula; engaged and curious students, they feel, learn more.

If anything shines through in the descriptions of the successful schools, however, it is their leadership and their environment. The schools honored by EdTrust have dedicated, hard-working principals who put a great deal of time and energy into turning their schools around. In many of the schools, teachers work in teams and meet weekly to discuss everything from developing lesson plans to how to help individual students. Furthermore, the principals have tried to create environments where teachers feel they have a support system. In Stanton Elementary, Principal Barbara Adderly has the school’s best teachers act as coaches for other teachers so that teachers can learn from each other; in East Millsboro, teachers who have students whose actions are interfering with other children’s learning have a network of support staff to whom they can turn for help. In Port Chester Middle School, where teachers used to quickly leave for higher-paying jobs at wealthier Westchester County schools, the faculty now considers itself a “family,” and many teachers have stayed at the school years longer than they expected.

Using Assessment as a Tool

Another reform that educators in the schools say contributes to their success is the collection and analysis of assessment data. In Stanton Elementary School, for example, students are given “checkpoint” tests every two weeks and district-wide “benchmark” tests every six weeks; the data from these tests is prominently displayed in classrooms on graphs and charts, so both students and teachers can identify their strengths and weakness and so teachers can determine which students need additional time and instruction on which topics. Several of the other “Dispelling the Myth” schools follow this same strategy, and teachers report that this feedback helps students become engaged and focused in their learning.

The use of assessment as a tool that informs day-to-day instruction in the classroom is a common theme in reports on capacity-building (see also Education Week’s “Leading for Learning” report), and nowhere is this more apparent than in Nebraska. Nebraska’s School-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System (STARS) does not use a single statewide standardized test to assess students. Each district adopts its own local assessment system, which is reviewed and rated for quality by external assessment experts. As George Wood of the Forum of Education and Democracy explains, the system provides feedback to teachers on how well students are learning material, allowing teachers to understand what is effective and ineffective in classroom instruction.

At the Nebraska Leadership for Classroom Assessment Conference in September, the system’s creator, Commissioner of Education Doug Christensen, explained that in every school where he has seen classroom-based assessment, “the change in the culture of the school is nothing less than dramatic.” Avoiding the “toxic culture” of high-stakes tests, he believes, helps educators focus on the real needs of students.

Best Practices Needed at All Levels

The Education Trust is just one of many organizations trying to identify the practices it associates with successful schools. The National Center for Educational Accountability, along with the organization Just For The Kids, released a report in July that brought together research from nearly 200 schools in 20 states. The report used three years of performance data to identify schools that are high-performing relative to demographically similar schools and identified common practices used in those schools.

The report found five major themes, all of which are similar to EdTrust’s themes:

•   Clear curriculum and academic goals;
•   Capacity-building through staff selection and leadership;
•   Evidence-based instructional practices;
•   Compilation and analysis of student data; and
•   Recognition of problem areas and targeted intervention for both schools and students.

The report emphasized that these practices applied to all levels of education, with districts and states providing the necessary resources and support for these capacity-building techniques and schools implementing the practices in the classroom.

The Need for Resources

While high expectations and strong leadership are important components of these schools’ success, it is impossible for all of the nation’s schools to rely on extraordinary leadership. It will never be the case that all schools have the charismatic principals and faculty camaraderie that keeps the best teachers from taking higher-paying jobs; providing additional resources to the schools with the most need is a critical component of building and maintaining the capacity to succeed.

At the schools honored by EdTrust, resources provided by school districts were a key component of the schools’ success. Educators at Stanton Elementary, for example, partially attribute their success to effective, district-provided professional development for teachers as well as district-developed core curriculum standards. Stanton’s success was also the result of a targeted district intervention, where the Philadelphia School District provided coaches, supervision, materials, teacher training, and professional development; teachers at the school believe that the intervention has greatly improved their ability to teach students. Philadelphia’s Chief Academic Officer, Greg Thornton, says that this level of intervention and capacity-building can only be provided for a limited number of schools, and that with more money, much more could be done. In addition, Stanton has received help from the Eagle Eye Foundation – sponsored by the Philadelphia Eagles – which provides students with eye exams and eyeglasses. Clinics such as these have a positive effect on student achievement, and not all schools have access to this kind of philanthropy.

Furthermore, teachers at East Millsboro and Stanton claim that their ability to instruct has benefited greatly from new technology such as “Smart Boards” – electronic boards that function as computers, blackboards, and overhead projectors. Other schools credit before- and after-school programs, as well as enrichment classes on Saturdays, with increases in student achievement. Capitol View has used its Title I funding to install new science facilities, and its students now participate in hands-on science activities three times a week.

The capacity to succeed comes from many quarters, and the Education Trust’s “Dispelling the Myth” schools show that building that capacity is within our grasp, even for schools with histories of low performance. With proper leadership and adequate resources, any school can become a success story.

Prepared by Matthew Samberg, November 29, 2006