How high poverty districts improve: a national study uncovers the policies and practices of high-poverty districts that have improved achievement across multiple schools

Leadership, Sept-Oct, 2003 by Wendy Togneri, Stephen E. Anderson

Leaders in the Aldine Independent School District were alarmed when scores on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills were released in 1995. Test results revealed that Aldine's students were achieving well below the state average. In fact, the results were so slow that Aldine ranked near the bottom of the districts in the state.

District leaders were shocked. They had always assumed that Aldine children were doing well based on anecdotal evidence. The fact that some minority children were at the top of the district led leaders to believe that things were fine. Yet TAAS data revealed they were not.

Former superintendent Sonny Donaldson, explained, "[Eight to 10 years ago] we didn't have the data that showed that not everybody was performing at the level they're performing [at] today. We never disaggregated test scores 10 years ago.... We had Hispanic kids that were just outstanding students and we would look at that and say, well, yeah, Hispanic kids are getting a fair shake in Aldine because we've got Hispanic kids that are doing great. But no, they weren't ... we didn't look at the data" (Koschoreck, n.d.).

Instead of making excuses for poor performance, the district set out to change instructional practice and improve student achievement. With time and a well-orchestrated plan, student achievement rose. Within five years the district rose to the top tier in the state, dramatically narrowing the achievement gap between white and minority students.

A study of improving high poverty school districts

Aldine is one of five high-poverty school districts that took part in a study conducted by the Washington-based nonprofit Learning First Alliance. The Alliance study arose from concern that many children in high poverty schools were failing. Alliance leaders wanted to learn more about policies and practices in districts that had improved achievement across multiple schools. More specifically, the study sought to build greater understanding of what improving districts were doing to support the instructional work of teachers and principals. Questions included:

* How did the districts create the will to begin instructional reform?

* In what ways did districts change their approaches to professional development?

* How did interactions among the stakeholders facilitate or hinder instructional reform?

* How was leadership distributed across stakeholders to facilitate improvement?

Five school districts took part in the study: Aldine Independent School District (Texas); Chula Vista Elementary School District (California); Kent County Public Schools (Maryland); Minneapolis Public Schools (Minnesota); and Providence Public Schools (Rhode Island). The districts were selected based on their ability to exhibit at least three years of improvements in student achievement in mathematics and/or reading across multiple grades, most schools and most races and ethicities. The study also sought districts that represented a mix of characteristics, including size, region, urbanicity and union affiliation.

Strategies for improvement

The five districts increased student achievement in math and/or reading, across grade levels and racial groups. Kent County and Aldine were among the highest achieving districts in their states. Improvements in Chula Vista, Minneapolis and Providence were less dramatic but evident in at least one subject at the elementary grades.

By and large, the study revealed a strikingly similar set of strategies used across these districts. A summary of these findings show that the districts:

1. Acknowledged poor performance and sought solutions. In each district top leaders stepped forward and publicly acknowledged that student achievement was unacceptably low. They didn't make excuses for poor achievement; they sought solutions.

2. Focused intensively on improving instruction and achievement. Improving teaching and student achievement were the most important goals of the district. Each district made hard choices to allocate their limited resources to this core mission.

3. Built a systemwide framework of instructional supports. District leaders created a framework of supports. They established a clear vision, set outcome goals, created districtwide curricula, and put forward a set of professional development strategies to support better instruction.

4. Redefined and redistributed leadership roles. No single stakeholder tackled reform alone. Boards members, union leaders, principals, teachers, administrators and community leaders played a role in reform.

5. Made professional development relevant and useful. The districts shifted their approaches to professional development. They decreased traditional teacher training strategies and replaced them with research-based strategies to improve teacher and principal skills. Teachers and principals readily shared ideas and investigated good practice; data drove the content of professional development; and staffing and scheduling structures provided for increased collaboration among teaching staff.