5 Essential Steps to School Improvement: Raising the Bar on Student Learning

I recently was a guest on a webinar hosted by JK Thomas & Associates. First of all, I want to thank all the participants who attended the webinar. The topic was school improvement. I have been involved in school improvement efforts for several years in various capacities. I have taught in a school in improvement; I have assisted with improvement efforts as a Title I facilitator; I have led efforts of improvement as a school improvement specialist; and I have consulted with many schools working through various stages of improvement and sustainability. I have seen first hand the types of struggles administrators face as they attempt to bring their schools above baselines and make adequate yearly progress (AYP). While terms may be changing, the essence of school improvement hasn't changed. Here are five fundamental steps administrators should consider should they find their schools in need of improvement: (But then we all should be improving, right?)

1. Leadership

Leadership is so important. It should be developed at every level within the educational hierarchy: Superintendents, Directors, Administrators, Educators, and Pupils. I like what John Maxwell has to say about “pinnacle leadership.” (2013) People follow pinnacle leaders because of what they accomplish and what they represent. When working in schools, I try my best to lead by example, not by force or by position. I like the terminology of a quadrant four leader “collaborator”, who is high on task and high on relationships with others. It is this type of leadership that is needed to make sure true improvement efforts are taking place.

It takes pinnacle leadership for true professional learning communities to become established and effective. Professional learning communities (PLCs) should become clearly focused on standards of learning, correlation of standards and assessments, effective lesson development, but perhaps most importantly, individuals (including students and educators).

In science, we talk in terms of momentum. One occurrence that causes an object to lose momentum is ‘friction.’ (Don’t you just love the term ‘coefficient of friction’?) If I might ask, “what would be the friction causing a PLC to become less effective, or lose momentum?” Leaders must seek out the ‘friction’ causing agents and eliminate them quickly. We must never allow the ‘friction’ of mediocrity to creep in our PLC meetings.

2. Curriculum

I like Larry Ainsworth’s definition of curriculum - “the high-quality system for ensuring that all students achieve the desired end - the attainment of their designated grade - or course-specific standards.” (2010) Having a rigorous and relevant curriculum framework is an excellent place to start achieving the desired end (Daggett, 2005). Daggett supports a ‘thinking continuum’ and an ‘action continuum’. While our students must acquire knowledge, they also must learn to apply the knowledge in real-life situations, even those that are unpredictable.

Standards-based instruction should be the center of our curriculum for all courses/subjects or grade levels. In order to develop a true standards-based curriculum, educators must become highly trained on the standards that will be used to measure student mastery of learning. I fear there is a great misunderstanding that continues to surface with curriculum. I do promote the Ainsworth Model for developing a rigorous and relevant curriculum, where it must all begin with standards… not a textbook.

3. Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs)

IEPs have been developed for several years for special education students. However, I contend that all students would benefit from IEPs. Multiple intelligence and individual learning styles should not be negated from our educational process of developing instruction. Students are individuals with thinking processes as unique as the fingerprint or DNA sequencing of an individual.

John Hattie (2008) reported that self-reporting of students has a 1.44 effect size contributing influence of student learning. Personal self-regulation should be an integral component of self-reporting and the individualized educational plan. There isn’t a single factor with a greater effect size for contributing to student achievement than self-reporting according to Hattie’s research. Self-reporting seems like a worthwhile concept to pursue to me.

4. Assessment

There are volumes of books written on assessment. I do believe James Popham is perhaps my favorite author on the subject. I recommend his book, Transformative Assessment (2008). Popham defines formative assessment as “a planned process in which assessment-elicited evidence of students' status is used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional procedures or by students to adjust their current learning tactics.”

Before the lesson is ever taught, assessments should be developed in order for educators to know what students must be able to show through mastery of a skill. Then, as soon as the skill is presented, a formative assessment should be administered (a variety of methods can be used) to determine if learning is happening with all students. Once the educator has evidence the instructional procedures are working, a summative should be given as a final end to a particular unit. Ainsworth promotes the unit-based curriculum design in his book, Rigorous Curriculum Design (2010).

5. Data-Driven Instruction

Ah… Data! Numbers! Patterns! What do they tell us? What do we do with the information? There are certain reports I like to view on assessments. First of all, I like to look at the frequency distribution of an assessment. If I am giving a pre and post, I like to look for the L-to-J pattern. It makes sense that if I give a pre-test, my students will likely score below average on new material, presenting a typical L-shape in the frequency distribution. If I have taught for mastery, given appropriate formatives, and redirected my instruction based on the formative data, when I present a post-test to my students, I should expect a J-shape in the frequency distribution with most students showing mastery of instruction.

I also like to use a standards mastery and item analysis by standard report. There are many testing software applications that will provide you with this information on a test. These reports allow teachers to quickly determine mastery percentages of a single standard. Response to Intervention (RTI) tiers become easy to identify based on the standards mastery report. Data is then truly used to drive instruction when used in this fashion.

Conclusion

Improvement should take place in every school. We all need to continually strive to move forward from our last point of reference no matter how high it may have been. Education is a continuum with no end as more information is gathered daily. The list of essentials I provide here is simple, only 5 essentials listed. However, the reality is that improvement is often difficult to achieve with so many moving variables in schools. My goal as a consultant is to help schools take actions that will help them achieve their goals and set new ones. Change is inevitable, but it always needs to be in the right direction.