The long and winding road to accountability: Monrovia's journey toward improved learning has not been smooth or predictable, but the results are as tangible as better API scores

Leadership, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Louise K. Taylor, Joel Shawn

The destination is clear: improved student learning. The straight accountability road designed by state and federal officials purportedly (and arguably) leads us there. In Monrovia Unified School District, we believe that our charge, while unquestioningly embracing the goal of student progress, is to map out our own road to both reach the destination and provide our students with an enriching educational journey along the way. We find we are building a long and winding road, ever subject to review and revision, but leading us steadfastly toward increased student learning.

Monrovia Unified School District mimics many in its demographics: 6,700 students; 55 percent Latino, 30 percent Caucasian, 15 percent African-American; 66 percent on free/reduced lunch, as well as a percentage of affluence; 20 percent limited-English speaking.

We have some students who enter school with a rich array of experiences, skills and learning; and others who have never held scissors, read a book or ventured outside the community to see the ocean or mountains. They are all fully capable of learning, and it is our job--professionally and morally--to help them do so.

We know the necessity of a solid foundation: a climate of respect and support, communication about our itinerary, curriculum to focus the journey and connections among our many responsibilities.

District climate

We have been fortunate in Monrovia to build district climate that allows individual employees, employee associations, administrators and board members to feel included in a family with common goals and to work together with trust and understanding.

We try new ideas confident that we will be supported through right and wrong turns. The trust we have built has enabled us to avoid the personal and emotional distractions that would veer us from our destination.

This is especially true of the Board of Education, which in Monrovia takes every opportunity to celebrate small steps of progress, support staff through disappointing efforts, and focus resources in needed areas.

Communication--group and individual--is crucial to maintain and define the climate, and to inform people of our plans.

New curricula, like Open Court Reading, have brought focus and efficiency to the journey, leveraging limited teaching time and maximizing effective instruction.

Also vital are the connections we make to ensure that our efforts follow a common road--evaluation systems, staff development, committee tasks, meeting agendas and work activities ate integrated rather than pulling us in a variety of directions.

The Monrovia system

What is our current road? The Monrovia USD accountability system includes explicit steps toward understanding student needs, targeting areas to address the needs, monitoring ongoing progress and revising strategy and direction. Our system is straightforward, but powerful:

1. Data analysis and target-setting: Each school staff analyzes student achievement data at the beginning of the year, using state test results, as well as the results of district developed criterion-referenced tests in reading, writing and math. Following group analysis, each teacher studies the data for students in his or her own classes, and develops target areas for improvement for the coming year.

Elementary teachers focus on the three Rs; secondary teachers may use subject content standards and assessments to develop targets, of focus on reading, writing of math basic skills to be imbedded in their subject lessons.

2. Monitoring progress: Whole staff and grade level/department meetings are scheduled throughout the school year to revisit the targets, assess progress, review student work and make adjustments where needed.

3. Reports on progress: Principals and support administrators lead their staffs in identifying their current level of student learning: summarizing their target instructional areas the year; analyzing past-year efforts and successes/disappointments; and reflecting upon the accountability system as a whole--examining its efficacy and making recommendations for improvement. These discussions are compiled in a written report.

4. Oral reports to the Board of Education: The School Site Accountability Reports are presented in writing, and summarized in an oral report to the board. Reports are given in a study session, one school and principal (or administrative team) at a time.

Principals ate asked to provide in the oral report a brief overview of student progress: one "glow"--an area of particular student success, and one "grow"--an area of disappointment--and the plan to address this need. The remainder of the half-hour meeting with the board is preserved for open discussion, focused on academic achievement.

Since the board has received and read the comprehensive written report in advance, the full oral review of information is not necessary. This report focuses on the principal's analysis of student performance data and his/her own development of a theory of improvement, rather than the typical report about programs and public relations. The individual school meetings remove the competition between sites that might otherwise take place.