School review process guide. Washington, DC: Learning Point Associates. Acknowledgments This guide was developed under the leadership of the following individuals: Stephanie Wood-Garnett (original) (raw)
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A Consumer's Guide to School Improvement. Trends and Issues Series, Number 4
1990
Intended as a synthesis of current literature on school improvement and educational change, this guide attempts to provide central office personnel, principals, teachers, and parents with an overview of five school improvement models, along with practical suggestions for improving instructional programs. The second chapter summarizes relevant literature, focusing on two themes: the actors in the change process and impediments to change. Specifically discussed are district administrators' and principals' roles in the change process, principals' strategies for coping with change, the effect of teacher and administrator career paths on innovation, and "top-down" versus "bottom-up" change. The third chapter examines five school improvement models (the Structure of School Improvement, Onward to Excellence, Program Development Evaluation, School-Based Improvement, and the School Improvement Process) and summarizes common program characteristios. The final chapter presents qualifying assumptions (including the need for multilevel cooperation and strategies for managing the slowly evolving change process) and seven recommendations: (1) fostering an attitude favorable to change; (2) broadening participation; (3) identifying and defining problem areas and key school effectiveness research elements; (4) deciding on long-range goals; (5) developing an information and feedback system; (6) anticipating obstacles and ways to overcome them; and (7) promoting a spirit of collaboration among participants. A bibliography of 40 references is included.
School Improvement: A Resource and Planning Guide. Bulletin No. 8448
1988
This guide describes a design for building-level school improvement in the state of Wisconsin. Summarized is effective-schools research that is designed to encourage schools and districts to become familiar with and engage in the improvement process. The first section describes what a school district needs to consider when beginning the school improvement process, followed by a discusston on needs assessment and goal setting. A three-step design for building-level school improvement is described in the second section. This design includes an initiation process, a delivery model, and a continuation process. Section 3 contains descriptions of the effectiveness elements along with worksheets to help in the planning process. Section 4 outlines several successful projects and gives 24 references. Appended are: (1) a 7-page summary of Wisconsin's statutes and administrative rules that govern school district standards; (2) a school improvement needs-assessment survey; (3) a 12-page school improvement. program profile; and (4) a 2-page list of resource highlights for effective schools. (SI)
School Development Program, Benton Harbor, Michigan. Process Evaluation Report
1986
This study gathered information and perceptions regarding the School Development Program's (SDP) history, structure and procedures within the Benton Harbor Area School District (Michigan). The study sample included 46 people. SDP was created to be part of a comprehensive desegregation/educational improvement program for the district. Using a field survey and a structured interview approach, the study found a general perception that student achievement is improving, school climates are becoming more positive, parents and teachers are finding more avenues of communication and the decisionmaking processes are becoming more democratic in SDP schools. The most frequently mentioned obstacle to the achievement of SDP goals was a general resistance to challge among the school staff. The second most frequently mentioned obstacle was a perception that procedures and expectations were unclear. The report also discusses study design, method, and analysis. An appendix includes the interview protocol and tables with response information. The predominant attitude about the SDP seems to be one of cautious optimism. (PS)
2000
A third wave of school reform, originating in the United States, has arrived in the Pacific region. The first wave, which occurred in the 1980s, resulted in increased teacher salaries, core-subject requirements, and an expanded academic calendar. The second wave led to improved teaching conditions, with greater emphasis on professional development and teacher retention. The third wave, involving the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program, is directed at the whole educational system, with special focus on schools with large populations of disadvantage students. This paper discusses the application and evaluation of CSRD in the Pacific region. The program provides startup funds for state-of-the-art education in school communities in the Pacific. It is grounded in educational research through nine core components and model programs, the top 10 of which are described. Practitioners and departments of education are being instructed in empirically based reforms meant to affect entire school curricula and instructional practices. Successful implementation depends upon strong leadership and universal commitment to the reform throughout the school community. CSRD's most positive impact may be to open educators' minds to the vast array of high-quality instructional and curricular practices, encouraging their application. (RT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. In distributing CSRD funds to individual schools, HIDOE and ASDOE are responsible for disseminating information on model programs, soliciting and reviewing CSRD grant proposals, awarding CSRD grants, and providing technical assistance and oversight on the conduct of CSRD activities.
School Improvement Groups Network (SIGN), 7/89-6/90. A Plan To Improve School-Based Decisions
1990
This paper presents, describes, and explains the results of Project SIGN (a school improvement groups network) collaboratively conducted by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the Camp Lejeune Dependents' Schools during the 1989-90 school year. The collegial, professional in-service program, designed to improve school effectiveness and student outcomes, utilized SIGN teams that included a site administrator, teachers, and representatives from higher education and central education administration. Four schools participated in the project, which was evaluated by case study analysis, interviews, observation, a teacher and principal survey, and document analysis. Findings indicate that each school achieved its goals and that principals improved their leadership strategies. Results included reduced teacher isolation, increased collaboration, and improved instruction. Problem areas involved the roles of the principal, superintendent, and central office. Evaluation of informal outcomes indicates increased participant learning, curriculum improvement, and energizing effects of change. Three tables and examples of program agenda, program activities, and evaluation forms are included. (33 references) (LMI)
US Department of Education, 2003
The Field-Focused Study and the entire task order were directed by Robert K. Yin, Ph.D., of COSMOS. Margaret K. Gwaltney, M.B.A., of COSMOS served as the deputy project director, and Dawn Kim served as project coordinator. Many other staff members from COSMOS and TMG collaborated in the study, which involved four rounds of site visits to 18 CSRD schools and the collection and analysis of student achievement data from these schools. Michelle LaPointe, Ph.D., of the Policy and Program Studies Service, U.S. Department of Education, served as the ED project officer for most of the evaluation (Kathryn Doherty, Ph.D., was ED's first project officer). The report was mainly prepared by Robert Yin and Dawn Kim and is presented in two volumes. Volume I contains the main text. Volume II contains six appendices to Volume I, including short summaries of the 18 schools that were studied. The summaries, as well as data presented in Volume I, are based on 18 in-depth and detailed cases reviewed by each school and available separately from COSMOS (see www. cosmoscorp.com). Throughout, all schools are identified anonymously. Component 9 (see Section 2.3.4): Most schools were in a position to coordinate or converge resources, but resources for sustainability were still uncertain. District and State Influences. The Field-Focused Study also collected data about district and state actions potentially affecting the schools' CSRD implementation. Some of these actions were part of the CSRD administrative procedures, because states implement CSRD by having districts apply competitively on behalf of some or all of their schools. In the process, both states and districts can support or monitor the schools' CSRD efforts. The study found varying degrees of such support (see Section 3.1.1). More important than these procedures related directly to the administration of CSRD, the study uncovered other important state and district policies, not directly related to administering CSRD, that nevertheless influenced CSRD implementation (see Section 3.1.2). Some conditions, such as extremely limited professional resources, had a negative influence on CSRD. Other conditions, such as the direct alignment of CSRD designs with district improvement plans and state standards, had an extremely positive influence. Other conditions reflected the ongoing dynamics of school systems-e.g., districts reducing financial support for all external research-based methods, a district allowing a CSRD vi school to become a charter school, and a district deciding to merge two schools that happened to be CSRD schools. Strong district or state influence, creating a "vertical" alignment to the school level, led alternatively to either complementarity or conflict with CSRD. As examples on the complementary side, CSRD provided two schools with resources and a compatible reform agenda to respond to their designation as underperforming schools in the state's accountability system. As examples on the conflicting side, the shifting content of state assessments led districts to use resources for alternative curricula and professional development that were contrary to those involved in a CSRD school's original plans or implementation. In general, these external state and district conditions appear to be highly relevant to CSRD implementation. Conditions Associated with Successful Implementation and the Role of State and District Influences: Three Pathways to Reform The study identified three different sets of conditions, or "pathways," that appeared to be associated with the successful implementation of CSRD (see Section 3.4). The first pathway is a component-driven pathway, whereby a school uses the 9 CSRD components to guide the development and implementation of a comprehensive reform. The second is a method-driven pathway, whereby the school adopts and implements a comprehensive research-based method that affects virtually all school operations and whose successful implementation substitutes for the need for any independent articulation of the 9 CSRD components. (However, many research-based methods focus on specific curricula and are not comprehensive.) The third is a vertical-driven pathway, whereby a school articulates and pursues the needed comprehensive strategies as a result of state and district requirements involving: the setting of standards, use of appropriate assessment tools, and required alignment of district-and school-based strategic planning and improvement plans to meet state performance standards. No single pathway was considered the "best" or preferred pathway, and no pathway was necessarily more immune than the others to such disruptive conditions as: high principal turnover rates, limited professional development resources, or planned or unplanned school restructuring. Sustainability of "Whole-School" Reform: Still Questionable Given Current Fiscal Climate As a final topic, the study examined the prospects for sustaining school reform beyond the final year of CSRD funding (see Section 3.5). vii Neither the original legislation nor ED defined the exact nature of a school's changes to be associated with sustaining a comprehensively reforming school beyond the three-year CSRD award period. As a result, the Field-Focused Study examined two different views of sustainability and judged the 18 schools according to both. The first view, based mainly on the experiences of the New American Schools initiative, holds that the central changes to be sustained should be the practices associated with the originally-supported research-based method. The second view is that comprehensive reform, though embracing a research-based method, also transcends it. By this second view, successful sustainability would not necessarily be associated with the continued use of any particular method but could involve transitions from one researchbased method to another, over time. The transitions would have to reflect a progression toward continued school and student improvement rather than the "churning" of innovative practices. Using the most lenient benchmark and accepting either of these two views as a criterion for assessing sustainability, 14 of the 18 schools were exhibiting a promising level of sustainability by the time their CSRD awards were ending. Accepting only the second view reduces the number to 11, and accepting the first view reduces it to 10. The main barrier to sustainability continues to be the limited availability of sufficient resources, especially in light of states' and districts' revenue shortfalls in recent years. To sustain a reforming process, even when existing resources have been coordinated and targeted to reform, still requires discretionary funds to support such essential activities as: adequate professional development (including support for teacher substitutes), especially in situations of high teacher turnover; time for common planning periods or teachers' work on school leadership teams; and support for external technical assistance. Though such needs can be served with modest levels of funds, serving the needs is still a discretionary activity that may have to be ignored if core school operations are underbudgeted. viii Contents