Cooperating Initiatives (original) (raw)
Related papers
Coordinating Assistance in School Improvement Efforts: Issues to Consider
This paper summarizes some of the main conclusions of the Study of Dissemination Efforts Supporting School improvement, specifically those regarding the process of innovation implementation. The focus is on the contributions of potential assisters to various implementation outcomes, from which implications for policy and practice are derived. The major emphasis is on the crucial (and unanticipated) role of district-level personnel in catalyzing and coordinating successful efforts. The primary ck.nclusion derived from the research is that, in any school improvement effort, the key actors tend to contribute in different ways: principals contribute to both practice-related mastery and plans for continuation; local facilitators contribute to both teacher commitment and perceived efficacy; and external facilitators contribute to practice-specific mastery. Practical implications of these findings are provided for principals, central administrators, and facilitators. The paper concludes with three general recommendations related to coordinating assistance in school improvement efforts: (1) both local and external facilitators should perceive implementation in terms of the 10 outcomes listed in table 1; (2) local and external facilitators should work out a division of labor; and (3) facilitators should locate and involve a central administrator committed to successful implementation. (TE)
Mdrc, 2006
is a grant-making organization that supports districtwide efforts to improve the quality and equity of student outcomes. The organization pursues various reform strategies. This report discusses the "focal strategy," which targeted selected "focal districts" in the Bay Area, beginning in the 2002-2003 school year, and was designed to increase the intensity of earlier BASRC reforms by creating more opportunities for district and school administrators to interact with BASRC staff. The focal strategy does not prescribe a particular curriculum or school structure. Instead, it promotes a vision of culture change, relying on three key features: coaching of district and school leaders; evidence-based decision-making at all levels of the system; and networking within and across schools to share experiences and lessons. With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit education and social policy research organization, conducted an independent evaluation of BASRC's focal strategy. This report, the second of two, analyzes the relationship between the focal strategy and improvements in student reading achievement. It compares progress in the focal districts during the three years of the strategy's implementation to progress in a set of carefully chosen comparison districts in the same area over the same period. Though differences in the outcomes cannot necessarily be attributed to the BASRC focal strategy, the comparison illuminates the relationships between student outcomes and the focal strategy. The key findings are: • In the districts that participated in the focal strategy, there were improvements in reading achievement during the years of the focal strategy, but these improvements were either similar to or only slightly greater than improvements in similar districts in the Bay Area. • The evident lack of a substantial, pervasive association between the BASRC focal strategy and student achievement may not be surprising given that the strategy primarily targeted district leadership, was not sustained at the school level, and did not specify particular instructional practices or supports at the school or classroom level. • Overall, the implementation research suggests that, in practice, the intensity of the intervention, the consistency of focus on improving teaching and learning, and the connection between the district-level focal reforms and changes in daily school life were not sufficiently realized. BASRC faced a variety of challenges in translating district-level coaching, evidenced-based decision-making, and networking and collaboration into changes in teaching and learning. Findings from this report indicate that the BASRC focal strategy had limited capacity to improve student performance and close achievement gaps beyond trends that were already in motion. v
Systemic Change for School Improvement
Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 2007
Despite the nationwide emphasis on school improvement, the complexities of accomplishing desired systemic changes have been given short shrift in policy, research, training, and practice. This article focuses on the problem of expanding school improvement planning to better address how schools and districts intend to accomplish designated changes. Specifically, we frame and outline some basic considerations related to systemic change, and, to encourage a greater policy discussion of the complexities of implementing major school improvements on a large scale, we propose a set of policy actions.
Mdrc, 2006
is a grant-making organization that supports districts' system-wide efforts to improve the quality and equity of student outcomes. The organization pursues various reform strategies. This report discusses the "focal strategy," which targeted six districts in the Bay Area ("focal districts"), beginning in the 2002-2003 school year. The strategy does not prescribe a particular curriculum or school structure. Instead, it promotes a vision of culture change, relying on three key features: coaching of district and school leaders; evidence-based decision-making at all levels of the system; and networking within and across schools to share experiences and lessons. With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit education and social policy research organization, is conducting an independent evaluation of BASRC's focal strategy. This report, the first of two, analyzes the relationship between the focal strategy and improvements in student achievement. It compares progress in the focal districts in the first two years of the strategy's implementation to progress in a set of carefully chosen comparison districts in the same area over the same period. Though differences in the outcomes cannot necessarily be attributed to the BASRC focal strategy, the comparison illuminates the relationships between student outcomes and the focal strategy. Key Findings • In the years following implementation of the focal strategy, achievement among third-grade students in the BASRC focal districts slightly declined, while achievement in the comparison districts showed no change compared with the baseline period. • On the other hand, fifth-grade students' performance in the focal districts improved over time, slightly outpacing improvements in the comparison districts in Year 2, but the differences were not statistically significant. • Among blacks and Hispanics, English Language Learners, and economically disadvantaged students, performance in the focal districts appeared to surpass the improvements in the comparison districts. The differences were most evident in reductions in the percentage of fifth-grade students performing below basic levels. However, the differences were modest, generally limited to Year 2, and not statistically significant. The evident lack of a substantial, pervasive association between the BASRC focal strategy and student achievement may not be surprising given that the strategy primarily targets district leadership and does not specify how reform activities may lead to changes in instruction or to instructional supports. The BASRC focal strategy has the potential to strengthen district leadership for supporting school improvement, and it may set the stage for stronger systemic improvements that are designed to change instructional practices. Thus it will be important to continue to look at follow-up data to ascertain whether the differences between the focal districts and the comparison districts-differences that were concentrated in the second year of implementation-persist, grow, or fade over time.
Critical Ingredients for School Improvement Efforts
1988
Research for Better Schools and a Maryland county school district developed a school improvement program to examine the relationship between the program and subsequent improvement. The program involved a self-assessment survey, choosing goals for the following year, assigning a committee of practitioners to lead the program, executing the plan created by the committee, and completing the self-assessment survey at the end of the school year to analyze the amount of improvement. The Dimensions of Excellence Scales (DoES) was employed to assess program effects and the School Survey was employed to measure program implementation. The study reveals that every school except one significantly improved; schools that achieved high faculty completion rates on the DoES made only moderate school improvement; no relationship seemed to exist between participa,:ion in the program and the amount of improvement; improvement was affiliated with. the original pretest status; and schools with better pretest scores attracted more faculty personnel to the program. Essentially, no consistent relationship was evident between involvement in the program and school improvement. Future school improvement efforts should consider the context of the school. Sixteen references and 7 tables are included. (RG)
2018
Author(s): Adelman, Howard S; Taylor, Linda | Abstract: PREFACEIn opening this volume, you might be thinking:Is another book on school improvement really needed?Clearly our answer is yes. Our analyses of prevailing school improvement legislation, planning, and literature indicates fundamental deficiencies, especially with respect to enhancing equity of opportunity and closing the achievement gap.Here is what our work uniquely brings to policy and planning tables:(1) An expanded framework for school improvement – We highlight that moving from a two- to a three-component policy and practice framework is essential for closing the opportunity and achievement gaps. (That is, expanding from focusing primarily on instruction and management/government concerns by establishing a third primary component to improve how schools address barriers to learning and teaching.)(2) An emphasis on integrating a deep understanding of motivation – We underscore that concerns about engagement, management o...
The Essential Supports for School Improvement. Research Report
Consortium on Chicago School Research, 2006
The average base learning gain (in grade equivalents) in CPS, averaged for 1990-91 and 1990-92, in reading and mathematics at all elementary grade levels was 0.87 and 0.82, respectively. Applying the percent improvements to these base gains and then accumulating these effects over eight grades results in the numbers reported here. 2 T he Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is in the midst of a major effort to open new schools and close schools with low enrollment or chronic poor performance. Since 1996, 134 schools have opened and 60 have closed. The Renaissance Schools Fund, the Gates Foundation, local foundations, and private sources have invested millions of dollars in new school creation. Regular neighborhood schools, charter and contract schools, small new high schools, and specialty schools compose the new generation. 1 Each new school brings new leadership; in some cases principals have transferred from other Chicago public schools, and in others, they are new to the district or first-time principals. Besides these new schools, many traditional Chicago public schools have relatively new leaders. In 2005, for instance, 150 principals (out of 600) averaged a mere three years of experience. 2 These conditions are not unlike those of the early 1990s, when the Illinois legislature passed a law establishing the local school councils (LSCs), which brought local oversight to many aspects of school operations, such as principal selection and discretionary spending. The introduction of LSCs resulted in a raft of principal resignations and hirings. Between 1990 and 1992, 45 percent of schools had hired new principals, and 94 percent of these were first-time principals. 3 The law also led to an influx of significant new resources for most schools. The school leaders of today face a similar challenge to that faced by the leaders in the early '90s: how to create the conditions and enact the practices that ultimately lead students to perform at higher levels. Beyond Chicago, this is a fundamental and serious issue facing educators in most major urban districts in the United States. Hence, it is worthwhile to look back at the earlier period and derive lessons on the kinds of internal structures and practices that were successful in raising student achievement and warding off failure. This report refects the interpretation of the authors. Although CCSR's Steering Committee provided technical advice and reviewed earlier versions, no formal endorsement by these individuals or their organizations should be assumed.
The Essential Supports for School Improvement
The average base learning gain (in grade equivalents) in CPS, averaged for 1990-91 and 1990-92, in reading and mathematics at all elementary grade levels was 0.87 and 0.82, respectively. Applying the percent improvements to these base gains and then accumulating these effects over eight grades results in the numbers reported here. 2 T he Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is in the midst of a major effort to open new schools and close schools with low enrollment or chronic poor performance. Since 1996, 134 schools have opened and 60 have closed. The Renaissance Schools Fund, the Gates Foundation, local foundations, and private sources have invested millions of dollars in new school creation. Regular neighborhood schools, charter and contract schools, small new high schools, and specialty schools compose the new generation. 1 Each new school brings new leadership; in some cases principals have transferred from other Chicago public schools, and in others, they are new to the district or first-time principals. Besides these new schools, many traditional Chicago public schools have relatively new leaders. In 2005, for instance, 150 principals (out of 600) averaged a mere three years of experience. 2 These conditions are not unlike those of the early 1990s, when the Illinois legislature passed a law establishing the local school councils (LSCs), which brought local oversight to many aspects of school operations, such as principal selection and discretionary spending. The introduction of LSCs resulted in a raft of principal resignations and hirings. Between 1990 and 1992, 45 percent of schools had hired new principals, and 94 percent of these were first-time principals. 3 The law also led to an influx of significant new resources for most schools. The school leaders of today face a similar challenge to that faced by the leaders in the early '90s: how to create the conditions and enact the practices that ultimately lead students to perform at higher levels. Beyond Chicago, this is a fundamental and serious issue facing educators in most major urban districts in the United States. Hence, it is worthwhile to look back at the earlier period and derive lessons on the kinds of internal structures and practices that were successful in raising student achievement and warding off failure. This report refects the interpretation of the authors. Although CCSR's Steering Committee provided technical advice and reviewed earlier versions, no formal endorsement by these individuals or their organizations should be assumed.
This paper examines the efforts of two external school-reform programs to expand their systems of intervention to include districts and states. An analytic framework is put forth that highlights the implications of this strategy for the ability of interveners to promote improvement and to survive as organizations. The framework draws attention to interactions among interveners' designs for change, the environments in which they operate, and their organizational capabilities. Findings suggest that working with districts and states, on the one hand, presents interveners with opportunities to attain high-profile adoptions and to exert a measure of control over environmental influences, yet, on the other hand, demands an expansion of an intervener's enterprise that can quickly overwhelm organizational resources. DRAFT REPORT-Please do not cite or distribute without permission of authors Beyond Comprehensive School Reform Glazer and Peurach Beyond Comprehensive School Reform 3 et al. (2004) captured this point, arguing that the work of "…aligning the various forms of instructional guidance in support of a coherent set of curricular and instructional practices within schools is a major challenge of CSR" (p. 71). In sum, while comprehensive school reform programs were initially developed as school-level interventions, experience and research have demonstrated that organizations in schools' environment are highly consequential for interveners' effectiveness and viability. But while researchers have noted the salience of environmental organizations on external, nongovernmental improvement initiatives, they have done so primarily to explain variation in implementation, and usually simply to make the point that environments matter more than most analysts have typically assumed (e.g., Berends et al.; Bodilly, 1998). Far less scholarship has explored the salience of environmental organizations from the perspective of external change agents, as they actively position themselves in schools' environments, construct alliances and partnerships with other organizations, lobby local, state, and federal governments, and attempt to create environmental conditions within which their school-level programs can flourish. This constitutes a significant gap in the literature that inhibits our ability to understand how external change agents operate, and
Guidelines for facilitating systemic change in school districts (89)
Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 1998
This paper opens by addressing the emerging need for systemic change in K-12 school systems, with consideration given to requirements for new mindsets on educational change. Given the history of less than successful attempts at educational change, the need exists for a guidance system which helps change facilitators to guide school districts and communities through a systemic change process. The paper describes the characteristics and elements of a systemic change guidance system which builds on the principles of process facilitation and systems design. It examines in detail the integral values or beliefs related to facilitation and systemic change, the types of events (sets of activities) typically needed, and the processes which form the guidance system. Also discussed is the process used to create the guidance system. Increasingly, educators are recognizing that the conditions and educational needs of their communities are becoming dramatically different from what they were in the 1950's and 1960's. Those changing conditions and educational needs include: • a society in which there is greater need for citizens who can understand and utilize the advancements of new technologies, sustain and advance a democratic way of life, accept the responsibility of protecting the environment, and ensure the future, • a workplace in which there is greater need for employees with initiative, cooperative skills, communication skills, problem-solving skills, life-long learning skills, and diverse perspectives,