The Missing Focus of High School Restructuring

School Administrator, Dec, 1995 by Gordon Cawelti

Research Studies Find a Glaring Need: Connecting Reforms to Instruction

Students attending high school in Louisville, Ky., have experienced some recent changes: they attend longer class periods and take fewer subjects each term, they must demonstrate performance on new curriculum standards, and they have easy access in school to health and other social services.

In Kansas City, Mo., high school students can select from an extensive array of magnet schools to pursue their special interests. They enjoy modern facilities rarely found in other U.S. cities as part of a court-ordered desegregation overhaul.

And in a few communities, superintendents are basing their pay levels or continued employment on the conviction that curriculum and personnel changes in the schools will produce better student learning.

Enter a slight problem. In each case the intervention did not result initially in improved student achievement--at least not to the extent that had been anticipated. These are but isolated examples of significant efforts to alter the way the school and school system interact that failed to bring marked student gains.

What we can learn from these experiences, along with recent research on restructuring schools, is that multiple changes directly affecting classroom instruction for all students must be sustained if significantly higher achievement is to be accomplished. First one needs to consider what changes are being made in high schools.

Clear Definition

Restructuring simply means changing substantially the way important properties of the high school and its supporting district interact to improve learning. The term tends to mean all things to all people, rendering it useless to the point where many reformers now avoid using the word.

But some researchers have come to interpret restructuring in well-defined ways. The Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools at the University of Wisconsin uses four criteria to study the effects of school restructuring: student experiences, the professional life of teachers, management and governance changes, and community services.

The Coalition of Essential Schools at Brown University has worked for a decade with high schools interested in making students more active learners by requiring them to demonstrate mastery of their subjects and enabling teachers to help their students develop "habits of the mind."

My own national study of high school restructuring in 1994 contends that the critical elements of restructuring, such as self-directed teacher teams, block schedules, technology, and community involvement, are being changed to focus instruction on curriculum standards, performance assessment, and approaches for individualized learning styles.

A crucial idea is being tested by the National Center on Education and the Economy in some 17 states where a certificate of initial mastery is being used to make the diploma more meaningful. Begun in Oregon in 1991, this plan requires considerable work to develop reliable measures of academic and workplace skills that will withstand litigation and afford reliable information to prospective employers or universities.

According to Bruce Weitzel, principal of Beaverton High School, the largest in Oregon, this plan involves extensive staff work to develop performance assessments for initial and advanced certificates and "compels students to make choices about their future at the 10th grade."

Although the plan has undergone revisions in the state legislature to deal with parental concerns about academic rigor, Weitzel expects the certificate of initial mastery will prepare students to be part of a better 21st century work force.

Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, carries this idea further. He argues for policies requiring high-stakes examinations to determine admission to college or the workplace. A recent AFT report comparing achievement levels of teen-agers in France, Germany, Scotland, and the United States credits higher student achievement in the European countries due to national tests. Shanker contends the European students are motivated to study harder knowing they must pass these tests.

Some state education agencies have begun to make such policy shifts, but local school leaders in the meantime must forge ahead with restructuring their school and district to improve student performance.

The best of these restructuring plans are the toughest o undertake because they involve helping a faculty sustain several change over an extended period. They focus on classroom activities and expectations that enhance learning. School leaders can take advantage of research and experience to fashion changes that hold promise of improvement at a particular high school.

No single pattern of changes will work in every high school, owing to differing traditions, culture, community expectations, and capacity for renewal at any given point Using a variety of approaches car be equally effective. As teachers have begun to play a more significant role in planning and sustaining the multiple changes needed to affect achievement, the days of tightly controlled management and centralized planning have receded.