This semester, I’ve read a lot about school improvement. Specifically,
I’ve read several detailed explanations of how educators can create meaningful
change in schools by working with data in a systematic and collaborative way. For
example, I read Boudett, City, and Murnane’s (2013) eight-step guide to school
improvement. Their model of change begins with forming leadership teams and
training the staff on how to “read” various assessment data to then having
teachers examine data in collaborative groups and use the data to develop a
school-wide focus. Once the focus is selected, teachers then decide on and
implement a series of strategies. The success or failure of these strategies is
then reviewed, and the whole cycle begins again. In their book Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with
Effective Classroom Instruction & Intervention, Fisher and Frey (2010) present
their vision for an RTI2 system that provides all students with
quality core instruction that has a clear purpose and follows the
research-proven release of responsibility model. Their system is responsive to
student needs to the extent that as soon as any child falls behind (as
determined by one of the formative assessments that is scheduled to be given
periodically throughout the year), that student receives additional layers of
support. Efforts of all school members are coordinated and often reviewed in
leadership teams. Although the two aforementioned plans for school improvement
were described in great depth and detail, providing educators with an almost
step-by-step guide for school change, these plans struck me as overly
idealistic and out of reach for real schools. Perhaps this is because the
authors seemed distanced from the day-to-day reality of what happens in schools.
Even though these individuals worked with schools, they were not in schools
everyday. In the introduction to their book, Fisher and Frey write, “We were
privileged to learn alongside teachers in the City Heights Collaborative . . .
The collaborative allowed us to try out many of the ideas in this book with
actual students and teachers” (p. vii). That is, the authors of the book came
up with the ideas that they would now “try out” on the school. No matter how
much they claimed to work with schools, ultimately, they were on the outside
looking in. Patrick Baccellieri’s book Learning
Communities: Using Data in Decision Making to Improve Student Learning is
different because it shows what really happened in one school over a period of
five years. Baccellieri was himself the principal of the school featured in his
book, and his book thus offers a first-hand perspective of how change occurs in
real schools and in real time. His work shows that change can happen with the
right leadership and commitment—even though that change can be slow and
difficult.
Baccellieri took South Loop Elementary School, a school that local
media described as a “‘sinking ship’” (Baccellieri, 2010, p. 20), and turned it
into a shining example that many are now trying to copy as they seek to improve
their own schools. The history of South Loop is one with which many teachers of
low-performing schools can identify. Baccellieri writes, “Historically, over 65% of South Loop’s students in grades
three through eight demonstrated below-proficiency performance on the State
Board of Education’s Illinois Standardized Achievement Test” (p. 59). In other
words, almost two-thirds of the school’s students were failing, based on the
state assessment data. Moreover, Baccellieri explains, “Some of the persistent
conditions of the school included high teacher autonomy, serious student
behavior problems, and controversies within the community” (p. 22).
Exacerbating these problems was the high rate of turnover in both leadership
and teacher positions. For example, South Loop had six different principals
between 1995 and 2002 (p. 19). Baccellieri himself was only appointed interim
principal at the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year and thus functioned
somewhat in limbo until he was given an official contract in November of 2002
(p. 21). However, Baccellieri had a vision in mind that he quickly moved to put
into action. This vision focused on improving two key areas: reading
achievement and school culture. Although Baccellieri says that the school did a
lot of work to change its culture by implementing a program called Positive
Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), the book does not discuss these
efforts at length (Baccellieri says his work to change the school climate is
the subject of another book). He does emphasize, however, that efforts to
target reading and culture were
essential to effecting change.
Baccellieri’s used a
standards-based-change approach to target reading achievement (p. 32). However,
his approach very much relied on teachers working collaboratively. This
collaboration proved difficult to implement as teachers were used to working in
isolation. To address this issue, he restructured the school schedule in the
following ways: “(1) an extra 90 minutes of professional development time was
scheduled every 15 school days, and (2) grade-level meetings were held during
the school day where teachers met on a weekly basis for 40 minutes with others
who taught in the same grade level” (p. 63). Despite having the time to work
together, teachers resisted. In discussing grade-level meetings, one teacher
quoted in the book admitted, “I remember [a reading coach] had to come to my
classroom to get me for each one. I was scared and hiding at my desk” (p. 86). Eventually,
teachers did overcome their reluctance and, over time, their work together
became more structured and more meaningful. Eventually, teachers met to create assessments,
discuss student data, and plan instruction. As Baccellieri grew to understand,
structure was key in making these meetings productive. He explains, “The work
for school teams must be supported by structures—annual rituals, monthly
routines, and weekly protocols during team meetings. Each of these structures
is grounded in high expectations for the quality of teacher professionalism,
support for teacher collaboration, and reflective dialogue on teaching and
learning” (p. 146). During Baccellieri’s time at South Loop, he worked with
teachers to create the following framework for improvement:
1)
Interim assessment analysis identifies areas
of concern;
2)
Determine
common assignments, or assessments targeting learning needs and addressing key
state standards;
3)
Assign
or administer common assessments, assignments, or student work to monitor
progress;
4)
Protocols
during weekly grade-level team meetings are used to share, score, discuss, and
analyze common student work;
5)
Plan
and teach, meeting student learning needs while addressing key state standards;
6)
Use
monthly schoolwide professional development to address needs from team meetings
and to move the work forward. (p. 146)
By working together through
the six steps outlined above, South Loop’s achievement improved dramatically.
Baccellieri notes that between 2002-2007, “In all areas tested, the percentage
of students meeting and exceeding state standards moved from 32.4% to 83.4” (p.
82).
In considering this stunning
improvement, it is important to keep in mind that change did not happen
overnight. Indeed, the six-point framework just presented was not even developed
at the beginning of Baccellieri’s time at South Loop. Rather it evolved over
time. Even collaborative meetings were not very structured at first.
Baccellieri writes, “There were few or no routines or structures that supported
teacher conversations about summative or formative assessment data in 2003.
During this school year, conversations about assessment occurred, but they were
neither ongoing nor comprehensive” (p. 90). The conversations “were
instructional in nature—intended to help the teachers become familiar with some
basics about assessment” (p. 90). However, as time progressed, the work
at South Loop became more targeted on standards and actual steps to improve
student achievement. Baccellieri describes this change as follows:
In
2004, routines for working with assessments and assessment data were put in
place. In grade-level team meetings, held three times a year, teachers examined
schoolwide assessment data. By the end of that school year, assessment data
were used for schoolwide curriculum planning. In addition to these activities,
teachers collaboratively scored writing assessments and gave data presentations
at schoolwide gallery walks. All these activities were ongoing after 2004. (p.
91)
In discussing change at South
Loop, one teacher explained, “Teachers were expected to know what students were
expected to learn and how that was different from previous years when teachers taught
literacy by teaching one chapter after another from a test book” (p. 134).
Indeed, prior to Baccellieri’s arrival, teachers at South Loop did not seem to
be familiar with their state standards at all. In speaking of one of the first
professional developments after Baccellieri’s arrival, one literacy coach said,
“That was the first time we were introduced to the element of learning
standards. The first time I ever saw that” (p. 64). This is shocking since you
would expect a literacy coach to be one of the most knowledgeable educators in
the building. If even the literacy coach did not know much about state
standards, it seems unlikely that other teachers in the building would know
much about them.
Instructional delivery was
also impacted by the standards-based change at South Loop: “Teachers shifted
from teaching from podiums to teaching student-centered lessons in classrooms
with tables for groups and learning centers” (p. 134). However, like everything
I have described thus far, shifting from teacher-led to student-led classrooms
was a process. One of the school’s literacy coaches explains, “Differentiation
definitely came in later [2005 and 2006] when there was more emphasis put on,
you know, having guided reading and working with students at their level and
knowing where to bring them up from” (p. 136).
The extent to which students took ownership for their learning was
also a part of the process that developed over time. Baccellieri notes, “One
important stage in the Standards-Based Change Process is student engagement,
where students know the expected outcomes, then own the learning outcomes by
monitoring their progress using rubrics” (p. 137). However, this type of
student engagement would have been impossible during Baccellieri’s first year
at South Loop since, by their own admission, the teachers themselves did not
even know what students were supposed to learn. The teachers themselves had not
developed rubrics that could monitor students’ progress towards reaching these
outcomes.
All in all, the entire school had to function differently in order for
significant change to result. The school principal took responsibility for this
change and seemed to do everything in his power—from starting a non-profit organization
to raise funds for new instructional materials to soliciting the aid of local
universities to restructuring school schedules—in order to make the change
work. Adding credibility to this account of school change is that the work
teachers and school leaders did during year one of the change process was quite
different from the work these educators were doing in year five. No one—not
even Baccellieri—expected immediate change. Change happened in a natural way
with everyone in the community learning bit by bit and changing the way they
worked slowly but surely. I think that anyone who is truly interested in school
change should take certain lessons from Baccellieri to heart. Anyone interested
in really changing schools must realize that change happens slowly and in
stages. Additionally, change happens only when the leadership makes it a top
priority. Finally, in order for change to take root, certain structures (such
as time for teachers to work together) need to be put into place.
Frameworks for Change
Baccellieri’s account of change reads as authentic and
plausible since he actually lived through the entire change process from start
to finish. Moreover, the change evolved organically over time. Change was a
“work in progress,” and readers of his book sense that each day was a day to
learn about what worked and what didn’t, so that changes were made to the
change process when needed. However, in point of fact, Baccellieri’s framework
for change is similar to what other authors we have read this semester call
for. For example, in their chapter on initiating RTI2 efforts,
Fisher and Frey write ““For RTI2 to work, it has to become accepted
and institutionalized, not a special program that individual teachers can opt
into or out of. It has to be hardwired into the very culture of the school” (Fisher
& Frey, 2010, p. 127). This is exactly what Baccellieri did at South Loop. He
started by creating structures (such as the time for professional development
and grade-level meetings) that eventually led to routines and procedures for
working with student data in meaningful ways. Moreover, Fisher and Frey write, “Organizational
change directed at hardwiring excellence begins with the leadership” (p. 127). If
it were not for Baccellieri’s commitment to change, South Loop would
undoubtedly still have the abysmally low student scores that it had in 2002
when Baccellieri took over. It wasn’t enough to tell teachers to change or even
to expect change. Baccellieri really had to change the way the school
functioned. It is important to note that no teacher—no matter how determined—could
have effected this change. The change had to be from the top-down even though
it very much depended on all teachers working together. The reason I’m bringing
this up is that I have noted in previous blogs that while well-intentioned, the
different frameworks for change could never happen unless the leadership made
it a priority. Baccellieri’s work with South Loop shows that when the
leadership does make it a priority and gets everyone else on board, real change
is possible—with time and sustained effort.
References
Baccellieri,
P. (2009). Professional learning communities: Using data in decision making
to improve student learning. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education.
Boudett,
K. P., City, E. A., & Murnane, R. J. (2013). Data wise: A step-by-step guide to using assessment results to improve
teaching and learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
Fisher,
D., & Frey, N. (2010). Enhancing RTI: How to ensure success with
effective classroom instruction and intervention. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
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