Community-Connected Learning - Jobs for the Future - Company Profile - Industry Overview

School Administrator, August, 2000 by Adria Steinberg

Bottom Up or Top Down

The story of the last five years of reform in North Clackamas, Ore., is illustrative of how school districts are combining these four key elements to drive change, especially at the high school level.

To a first-time visitor, the 14,500-student North Clackamas district may seem like an unlikely site for a school reform effort based on school-to-career approaches. Serving three small communities outside of Portland, Ore,, North Clackamas is a fairly homogenous suburban district. Indeed, the district's school-to-career director had to overcome a widespread perception of schoolto-career as synonymous with vocational education--a program of questionable value, at best, to the largely college-going graduates.

As a first step in demonstrating the compatibility of school-to-career with rigorous academics, the coordinator brought in an expert in project-based learning, a member of Jobs for the Future's national faculty, to lead intensive workshops for a cadre of 25 teachers from across the system. Early signs of success from the work of this cadre kindled support in the district office. As Sue Shields, head of staff development explains, "Teachers were energized and revitalized by the process. They wanted to stick to it."

In the second year, this cadre of teachers received continuing support from the consultant as they tried out the projects they had designed in their classrooms, and a second cadre began. Excitement mounted as teachers began to see improvements in student attendance and perseverance in completing tasks.

At the same time, the effects of state education policy were beginning to be felt in North Clackamas. The Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century set content and performance standards, including a certificate of initial mastery, a gate all students would have to pass through at the end of 10th grade. The act also called upon school districts to reorganize the last two years of high school around focused programs of study and career-related experiences through which students would meet career-related learning standards, as well as academic standards and earn a certificate of advanced mastery. Employers in the Portland region were active proponents of this legislation, advocating at the state level for the two-level certificate approach.

At the district level, Superintendent Ron Naso initiated a systemic planning process in North Clackamas, which included school-to-career as a vehicle for whole school change. As Naso put it: "We've got to get the relevance, the applied component into the requirements to help drive staff development and build the energy to make change in the school."

Understanding that "the driving force for change is the definition of exit requirements," Naso set up a districtwide task force to develop a new set of graduation requirements.

By this time, district curricular leaders realized that the work teachers were doing on project-based learning had the potential to help them combine an emphasis on academic rigor and career competencies. In fact, professional development in project-based, community-connected learning had become a cornerstone of districtwide systemic reform.