This Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement Strategies and Suggestions document and The Four Domains Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) survey and feedback system were created to support the development of the school leaders and their leadership teams in identifying possible action items and developing an improvement plan. It is intended to facilitate the school leaders’ ability to track leadership actions within each domain and provide the specificity on possible next steps for each practice identified in the framework. These practices are critical for achieving rapid and significant school improvement and outline specific areas of focus within each of the four domains to support school-level implementation.
Teachers & Leaders
How Districts and States Can Support Instructional Transformation In the Turnaround Context
Because the quality of teaching is the most important school-based factor for student learning, a focus on instruction is pivotal for successfully turning around failing schools and districts. These school systems need to abandon instructional practices that are not working, usher in new approaches that lead to improved instruction, and create conditions that enable and inspire effective teaching that allows students to achieve their full potential.
To help address these gaps, the Center on School Turnaround (CST) designed a project to examine the practices of two districts — both members of the University of Virginia Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education, a CST partner — that are successfully improving instruction within their multiple turnaround schools. Our CST research team conducted a series of interviews, using protocols based on the framework defined in our Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement: A Systems Framework, to determine how these districts enacted two key instructional transformation practices: (1) diagnosing and responding to student learning needs, and (2) providing rigorous, evidence-based instruction.
This paper presents guidelines and recommendations for states and districts as they seek to improve systems that support instructional practices.
Jump-Starting Instructional Transformation for Rapid School Improvement: A Guide for Principals
The Center on School Turnaround at WestEd presents this guide, Jump-Starting Instructional Transformation, to assist both those participating in the Transformation Academy and the many principals who are charged with significantly improving their schools, but are unable to attend the academy.
This guide rests on the research and practice base of Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement: A Systems Framework (Center on School Turnaround, 2017). The four domain framework identifies four areas of focus, and key practices in each, that have been shown to be critical for achieving rapid and significant school improvement, including instructional transformation, the focus of this guide. In the approach laid out in this guide, the principal starts down the road to instructional transformation by convening a select group of teachers as an action team (or A-team) that will look closely at how the principal makes time for instructional leadership and how teachers help each other improve their practice. The team, which includes the principal, will examine every aspect of the school’s instructional system, a system that consists of planning, providing, adjusting, and enhancing instruction. The team considers learning obstacles their students might face and how well the school builds students’ capabilities as learners. The guide includes tools and other resources that may be used to support the development of a transformation academy.
Thought Leadership Forum Brief: Formative Assessment and Agency as Drivers of Instructional Transformation
This brief summarizes the May and June 2018 Thought Leadership Forum presentations. May featured a content-based presentation by Kevin Perks of WestEd on the Visibly Improving Teaching and Learning (VITAL) program offered to build teachers’ capacity for collaboration focused on teacher and student learning. June featured joint presentations by Suzi Mast and Tracy Fazio of the Arizona Department of Education, and by Pam Betten and Steve Holmes of the Sunnyside School District in Tucson, Arizona profiling their work in formative assessment. This brief concludes with recommendations for SEAs and LEAs for implementing instructional transformation.
Link to WestEd’s VITAL Collaboration website (Click here)
Link to Arizona Department of Education’s Formative Assessment Resources (Click here)
Shifting School Culture to Spark Rapid Improvement: A Quick Start Guide for Principals and Their Teams
This paper focuses on Domain 4, culture shift — what it means, why it is essential for rapid improvement in a school, and — critically — how to move a school from a negative culture to a positive one that fosters student learning and success.
A school’s culture is a powerful force that will work for or against improvement efforts. A school with persistent and chronic low achievement has, almost by definition, spiraled into a negative culture that contributes to and is worsened by its failures. Rapid improvement, then, requires culture shift, an enterprise that requires changes in mindsets, norms, and attitudes and is as difficult and uncertain as it is essential.
In this paper, we address the nature of that challenge. We define what we mean by school culture and differentiate between the school’s culture and the variety of cultural influences students and teachers bring with them to the school. Throughout, we emphasize that the unrelenting focus of a successful school’s culture is student instruction and learning. We address why, in particular, that means ensuring that everyday school and classroom practices substantively respond to, rather than ignore or simplistically acknowledge, students’ home and family cultures. Finally, we offer steps schools can take to prepare for culture shift and a tool that can help launch and guide the change process.
Chartering Turnaround: Leveraging Public Charter School Autonomy to Address Failure
Persistently low-achieving public schools around the country have received $5.8 billion from the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, in addition to district and state funds, and other supplementary federal funds. Despite all of these sources of funding, most of the schools receiving them have failed to make a dramatic difference in improving student achievement. However, according to a new report jointly released by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the Center on School Turnaround, autonomy provided by state charter laws can be better leveraged to improve school turnaround efforts.
The report, Chartering Turnaround: Leveraging Public Charter School Autonomy to Address Failure, provides case studies of three charter management organizations (CMOs) that have successfully restarted low-achieving public schools, adding a valuable component to the limited body of research that exists about turnaround models. The report highlights the freedoms that benefit poor-performing schools most significantly, including: the autonomy to hire, retain and reward staff; the ability to adjust the length of school year, academic program and curriculum; and, the option to develop tailored approaches for finances and facilities.