Study put premium on district-level reform

Reform works best when it isn’t confined to a single classroom or school. That’s the message underpinning “Beyond Islands of Excellence: What Districts Can Do To Improve Instruction and Achievement in All Schools.” This 2003 report from a coalition of education groups called the Learning First Alliance examines five high-poverty school districts across America and concludes that each system raised achievement by focusing on districtwide strategies to improve instruction. Not only does the report include accolades for school districts where AFT affiliates serve as bargaining agents, it also provides illustrations that give considerable backing to Redesigning Schools To Raise Achievement (RSRA), the AFT’s districtwide school im­prove­ment effort.

“We cannot continue to point to heroic principals and extraordinary teachers to improve the performance of all children,” says Judy Wurtzel, executive director of the alliance, which includes the AFT among its members. “The districts in our study are putting in place strategies that touch every school and every child.”

Threads that bind the five district success stories together are:

• Courage to acknowledge poor student performance and the will to seek solutions;

• Increased emphasis on effective instruction, combined with a coordinated set of strategies to support this goal;

• A move away from “one-shot” professional development into comprehensive, research-based supports;

• Data-driven decision-making that harnesses multiple measures of student and school performance;

• Recognition that reform is a long-term process requiring consistency and sustained effort; and

• A “big tent” approach to reform that engages teachers, parents, unions, administrators, higher education institutions and other groups in the process.

These qualities are in evidence in Minneapolis, where the report traces what it calls the district’s evolution from a centrally driven school district to one in which the central office provides the supports and framework for reform while giving schools considerable authority to make decisions and allocate resources. Building this “district-facilitated, school-based approach” required the energies and talents of many groups, particularly the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers/AFT. “Equal leadership importance must be accorded to the teachers union,” the report observes. “The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers was a driving force and creator of many of the district’s innovative efforts to support teacher professional development.”

Also included in the report are case studies from the Aldine (Texas) Independent School District, Chula Vista (Calif.) Elementary School District, Providence (R.I.) Public Schools and Kent County (Md.) Public Schools. “As these districts illustrate, improvement in high-poverty school systems is possible,” the report states. “While the districts have not figured out all of the answers, they show that when districts support schools and plan carefully and collaboratively, they can transform their visions into improvement—for their communities, their leaders, their teachers, their parents and, most importantly, their students.”

Teachers, public in sync on education

Teachers and the public remain very much in sync on key education legislation and avenues for school improvement, this year’s Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll reveals.

The 35th installment of this widely watched survey of public attitudes on education, which was released late this past summer, shows that the public remains deeply committed to public education and wants improvement to come through that institution rather than alternatives such as private school vouchers. Almost three out of four Americans believe that reform should come through existing public schools, up from 69 percent in 2002. And the number of respondents in favor of allowing private school attendance at public expense fell by eight percentage points in 2003 to just 38 percent.

The 2003 poll also surveyed voter attitudes on the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which is the latest installment of the centerpiece federal law for preK-12 education. The poll found the public was uninformed about NCLB—almost seven out of 10 Americans say they lack the necessary information to say whether or not they favor the law. The survey does suggest, however, that the public supports the objectives of NCLB but not all of its strategies. For example, 84 percent believe that schools should be measured on the basis of the improvement shown by students. Under the current law’s adequate yearly progress (AYP) formula for judging school success or failure, school improvement takes a back seat to measures based on an arbitrary, fixed threshold of students who pass a standardized test.

The achievement gap between white students and their black and Hispanic classmates also is a widespread concern, the poll shows. Closing this gap is considered very or somewhat important by 90 percent of respondents. And almost all Americans understand that school is only one factor in closing the gap: Parental involvement was identified as a very important part of the solution by 97 percent of respondents.

The full survey is available at www.pdkintl.org.

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