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Pathways to Effective Schools: Correlates and Strategies for School Improvement

This article discusses the correlates of effective schools and provides specific examples and strategies for school leaders to improve student achievement. Topics covered include clear and focused mission, safe and orderly environment, high expectations, instructional leadership, and more.

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Pathways to Effective Schools: Correlates and Strategies for School Improvement

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  1. Pathways to Effective Schools Ellen Goldring Department of Leadership, Policy & Organizations Peabody College, Vanderbilt University

  2. How to Approach School Improvement?

  3. Agenda • What are effective school correlates? • What are specific examples? • Why are they important? • What can I do about them as a school leader?

  4. Correlates of Effective Schools

  5. The Journey Towards Effective Schools • 1960’s era of social inequality • Students of color and children in poverty • Wide gap in educational attainment and drop out • Coleman report: Equality of Educational Opportunity • School resources and conditions do not explain the gap • Family circumstances strongest predictor of student achievement

  6. Response to Coleman: What does explain student achievement? • Open the window (black box) into schooling • School processes and features that consistently lead to high student achievement for students at –risk • Compared high achieving and low achieving schools with students from similar family backgrounds: outliers • THE RESULT: Effective School Correlates or Pathways to School Improvement

  7. School Improvement and Effectiveness Correlates • Factors or correlates work together • School is the unit of improvement: schools matter! • Continue to evolve to meet current context, expectations, and needs of students • The principal can influence all the factors • Research has continued to inform practices

  8. School Effect? • Classroom? • Teacher? • The Student? • Consistent-Coherent-Planned • School-wide priorities, culture, practices, procedures, programs –everywhere, everyplace everyone • NOT pockets of excellence

  9. Correlates of Effective Schools

  10. 1. Clear and Focused Mission • Original: Articulated, common mission; Focus on academic mission • Current: Clearly guides and drives actions and decisions • High standards for all students • Rigorous learning goals • Accountability • Involvement of the whole school community • Measurable goals for student learning and academic progress. • Guides the daily practices and decisions of all stakeholders • Unity and clarity of purpose • Learning focus for all –teachers too

  11. Example of Clear and Focused Mission Respect All, Value All

  12. 2. Safe and Orderly Environment (Supportive Culture) • Initial: Discipline, physical and emotional safety, school climate that allowed learning—absence of behaviors not-conducive to learning • Current: Culture of support and responsiveness • Collaborative cultures, community of learners • Professional communities focused on student learning, de-privatized practice and reflective dialogue • Effective professional communities are deeply rooted in the academic and social learning goals of the schools

  13. Examples of Safe and Orderly Climate (Supportive Culture) 1. Learning Communities: Question and challenge teaching practices • Respect but question creative contributions and passions of individuals; Learn from each other 2. Positive Behavior Support

  14. 3.Climate of High Expectations • Original: All students can learn and reach mastery; staff have sense of efficacy that they can help all students reach mastery (focus on basic skills); focus on beliefs and attitudes • Current: Urgency for learning for all • Focus on actions and strategies (differentiated instruction, flexible grouping and reteaching) • Rigorous academic content standards • Provide depth and specificity • High cognitive demand • Coherence and alignment across grade levels and subjects • Coordination • Do not adopt any program or idea—focus on strategies and interventions that connect and are consistent

  15. Examples: High Expectations 1.Rigourous, Visible Academic Standards Analyze problems by identifying relationships, telling relevant from irrelevant information, identifying missing information, sequencing and prioritizing information, and observing patterns.Example: Solve the problem: “Develop a method for finding all the prime numbers up to 100.” Notice that any numbers that 4, 6, 8, … divide into also divide exactly by 2, and so you do not need to test 4, 6, 8, …(Grade 6; Mathematics-Indiana) 2. Standards for All Students

  16. Examples: Teacher High Expectations

  17. 4. Instructional Leadership • Original: Focus on improving instruction rather than management; strong principal leadership; focus on student achievement as the mission • Current: Learning–centered leadership • Distributed leadership • Support teacher professional development • Data –based decisions • Culture of collaboration

  18. Example: Instructional Leadership

  19. Examples: Instructional Leadership

  20. 5. Opportunity to Learn andTime on Task • Original: Focus and protect instructional time; • Give all students opportunity to learn • Current: Quality Instruction and Time • Support teachers and provide feedback to improve instruction • Ensure all students have access to high quality instruction • Extended and ongoing learning opportunities (after school, Saturday, tutoring)

  21. Examples: Opportunity to Learn High Quality Teachers High Quality Curriculum High Quality Instruction

  22. 6. Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress • Original: Teachers monitor student learning • Current: ACCOUNTABILITY for ALL STUDENTS-focus on outcomes There is individual and collective responsibility among leadership, faculty, and students for achieving the rigorous student academic and social learning goals.

  23. Examples: Frequent Monitoring of Student Learning • Multiple types and sources of data : teacher record-keeping, formative assessments, student work products, criterion-referenced tests, and standardized measures of student performance. • Direct observations in classrooms. • Disaggregate information on the important conditions and outcomes of schooling (e.g., program placement of students, test results) by relevant characteristics of students (e.g., gender, race, social class). • Tight alignment between local school-based and external assessments

  24. Examples: Frequent Monitoring

  25. Examples: Actions of Frequent Monitoring • Identify individual students who need remedial assistance, • Tailor instruction to individual students’ needs, identify and correct gaps in the curriculum, • Improve or increase the involvement of parents in student learning, • Assign or reassign students to classes or groups. • Use data to help teachers identify areas where they need to strengthen content knowledge or teaching skills. In other words, monitoring is used to focus professional development. • What do students need to know and be able to do: (what) • How will we know when they know it: Formative assessments and student work

  26. 7. Home-School Relations • Original: Parents support the school and help achieve the mission • Current: Expanded role for parents, families and the community • Authentic engagement and involvement • Focus on academic and learning • Open and increased two-way communication • Collaboration and partnerships (Center on Family, School, and Community Partnerships, John Hopkins University)

  27. Examples: Home-School Relationships

  28. Why? • Each correlate is a pathway for school improvement: together they are powerful forces • Schools can directly influence and change each of the correlates • Powerful leavers for change • Leaders are key to facilitating this change • Impact Student achievement and learning

  29. How? • Shared understanding and learning: Professional learning community • Collect Data: Where are we? How are we doing? • School improvement processes and strategic planning around each • NOT A CHRISTMAS TREE APPROACH • Pervasive practices • Consistent, unwavering focus

  30. For Each Correlate:

  31. The Activity: Going on an Archeological Dig! First Step: Learning to Identify and Recognize

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