May/June 2007

The Road to School Improvement

It's hard, it's bumpy, and it takes as long as it takes

by Richard F. Elmore and Elizabeth City

In our work on instructional improvement with low-performing schools, we are often asked, “How long does it take?” The next most frequently asked question is, “We’re stuck. What should we do next?” In our roles as facilitators of communities of practice focused on instructional improvement, in our work on internal accountability (Richard) and using data (Liz), and in our research, we have noticed some distinct patterns in the way schools develop as they become more successful at improving student learning and measured performance. Here are a few of our observations.

There are no “breakthroughs” or dramatic “turnarounds” in the improvement of low-performing schools. There are, however, predictable periods of significant improvement, followed by periods of relative stasis or decline, followed again by periods of improvement. This pattern of “punctuated equilibrium” is common across all types of human development: individual, organizational, economic, and sociopolitical.

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Better Teaching with Web Tools

How blogs, wikis, and podcasts are changing the classroom

by Colleen Gillard

• Eric Langhorst’s eighth-grade American History students in Liberty, Mo., listen to his podcasts about the Boston Tea Party while walking their dogs, doing chores, or getting ready for bed.
• Ben Sanoff’s World History students in Berkeley, Calif., discuss their essays via instant messages before posting their final drafts to the class blog by midnight deadlines. Later they return to the blog to read and discuss one another’s work.
• Fifth graders in College Park, Ga., create a wiki so compelling it receives over 1,000 hits from as far away as Indonesia, Turkey, and Latin America in the first few days after it’s posted. The site, centered on a historical novel, includes a slide show, maps, historical background, and interviews.

From blogs to wikis to podcasts, teachers in schools across the country are beginning to use Web tools to enhance student learning. If these tools are transforming how students learn, they’re also changing how teachers teach.

Those who have waded into this brave new world say the use of Web tools in the classroom naturally propels teachers from lecturing at the front of the room to coaching from the back, a direction education professionals have been trying to steer teachers in for decades. With their peers—or the world—as their audience, students are eagerly seizing the opportunity to take charge of their learning.

The rest of this article can be found in the current issue of the Harvard Education Letter. Buy this issue.

An Interview with Karin Chenoweth
Finding High-Achieving Schools in Unexpected Places

In 2004, Karin Chenoweth, a longtime education writer and former Washington Post columnist, took on a challenging assignment: find and write about neighborhood public schools that “demonstrate that all children can learn.” Working with the Achievement Alliance and using a strict set of criteria, Chenoweth identified 15 schools and spent two years writing about them for a book, “It’s Being Done”: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools, published this month by Harvard Education Press. She spoke with the Harvard Education Letter about what she found in these schools, what they have in common, and why they are succeeding.

Describe an “It’s Being Done” school.

It’s a high-achieving or rapidly improving school that has a substantial number of children of color or children of poverty, or both. In most cases, more than 90 percent of these students are scoring proficient or above on state tests, sometimes less if they are in states with higher standards. The schools profiled in the book include a mix of big and small, urban and sub-urban, and racially isolated and integrated schools. The criteria I used are so stringent that it is safe to say that schools that meet all requirements are rare (“It’s Being Done’ School Criteria). I consider such schools to be precious resources that need careful study.

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