Tips from a top performer

Leadership, Nov, 2000 by Charles Weis

Although there is no single ingredient that produces high-achieving students, there is a recipe for success.

Ventura County students were the top performing students in all of Southern California on the 2000 SAT 9 tests. This group of diverse elementary-grade students out-performed the state and national averages in every subject matter. Middle and high school students scored better than the state and national average in mathematics, language, science and social science at every grade level except 10th. Additionally, students demonstrated increased acquisition of the state content standards in English-language arts and mathematics, answering more questions correctly on these portions of the test this year than last.

When three years of data covering two years of instructional effort in Ventura County was analyzed, we found that smaller school districts with elementary students who have a high percentage of English Language Learners and high numbers of children living in poverty appear to have experienced the greatest gains. This data is particularly encouraging as it points to a reversal of the trend of poverty and language dominance predicting achievement.

What is the secret to our success? The truth is there is no one secret to success, no single ingredient that produces high-achieving students. We all know it takes a mix and we know the best recipe: Fully credentialed, highly motivated and qualified teachers and highly involved and well-educated parents, combined with adequate cash for smaller classes, professional development, classroom and alternative programs and facilities, topped off with excellent leadership.

That's the ideal recipe from a utopian kitchen, not the reality of the workplace that most of us know. In relatively affluent Ventura County, we are fortunate to have many of these ingredients in several of our districts, though we are far from a homogeneously wealthy county.

Because we are a safe community, we attract people who live safely. Because it is relatively expensive to live in Ventura County, we attract people who are successful and who can afford to live here. Because our test scores are high, we attract educated people who place a high value on their children's education. In many ways, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Consistently, our statistics show that the districts with the highest socio-economic standings also produce the highest achievement scores. They are also, for the most part, the districts that produce the most graduates who attend prestigious universities, the highest passing rates on Advanced Placement exams, the Academic Decathlon champions and the winners of the Mock Trial competitions.

Those districts with the lowest economic levels, and often, consequently, the largest number of students who are still learning English as their second language, score the poorest.

Those are the stark realities of education today. Yet there is more to it than economics. The high-performing districts set their sights high and then work hard to exceed those expectations. They adopt a "no excuses for failure" philosophy. They plan programs and services, implement those services, evaluate and steer by results.

Our top-performing school districts also go the extra mile for students, like providing before- and after-school tutoring or childcare at every elementary campus and parent co-op preschools. Arts education is emphasized for all students and Advanced Placement courses give college-bound students a jump into college. Our consistently top-scoring district emphasizes teacher development and has put a lot of work into developing high quality curriculum, instruction and comprehensive student assessments.

But the lower-performing districts also set high expectations relative to their achievement levels. Then they go after their problem areas from all angles, working with students in remedial programs before and after school, drawing in parents and tapping technology.

One of our school districts, where 45 percent of students are English Language Learners, demonstrates how tremendous effort and teacher enthusiasm has made a difference. Though it's one of the poorer districts economically, its leaders sought out grants to develop innovative, state-of-the-art computer labs long before they were commonplace in our well-to-do districts. This investment has paid off. Compared to other districts in the state with similar demographics, this district's scores are high and it produces consistently outstanding county science fair projects.

In another of our districts, where English Language Learners make up 50 percent of the population, the district is constantly working on cooperative and innovative programs to draw working and non-English-speaking parents into the schools.

In one program, the district has targeted adult literacy in English, on the theory that literate parents read to their children. The district also makes a concerted effort to hire teachers who can communicate with students and parents in their home languages.