(Vol. 2, No. 2 - Summer/Fall 1998)

Back to index

The Way Across the Tracks?
Improved Teacher Skills

Tracking is part of the politics of the Louisville community, says one middle school principal. It's not likely to go away. But the district's determination to focus teacher and principal professional development on raising the achievement of the district's less-advantaged students may be the surest path "across the tracks." Highland Middle School's staff development effort offers an example.

by John Norton and the Focused Reporting Project team

JCPS middle schools have been struggling with their collective consciences (and their KIRIS results) for several years now, puzzling over the disparities in performance among their "have" and "have not" students, looking for explanations (and sometimes, for excuses). The leadership in some schools-among them Noe, Highland, Kammerer and Meyzeek-were asking hard questions of themselves and their schools before the district's current reform efforts gained real momentum.
All these schools (and others) experimented with efforts to break down the divisions among students created by academic tracks and magnet programs. Some tried blended classes, or looked for ways to mix students together in non-academic settings, or ended the practice of assigning teachers only to one track of kids. And many took their lumps from middle-class parents who felt these changes would put their kids at some disadvantage. Some backed off from their blending experiments, or modified them, or took them "underground."

"Tracking is part of the politics of this community," says one middle school principal. "There's just no getting away from that." A significant number of middle school principals would prefer more "blended" classes-with a wider range of student achievement levels-the principal says. Some have tried it and met resistance from parents and teachers.

"It may work well in one grade or not in another," says one principal, who described a blending experiment that worked well in sixth grade and was supported by middle class parents. "They bought into it, and they felt that it was effective and the kids were learning." But when the experiment continued into seventh grade, with a different team of teachers, the parents eventually rebelled. "Teacher skills are the real variable," the principal concludes. "It takes above-average teacher skills to blend different ability levels successfully. It's really about teacher quality and preparation."

Why is blending important? Why do many of the district's most thoughtful education leaders worry about the negative effects of tracking by ability or achievement levels? They've seen the effects of sorting: lower expectations for the "low-track" kids, a tendency to sacrifice creative, exciting teaching strategies in favor of "seatwork" that keeps kids under control but fails to challenge them intellectually.

Holly Nolan, who taught for 17 years before becoming dean and then principal of Highland Middle School, is convinced from her own teaching experiences that teachers can learn to teach blended classes successfully. She's also convinced that teachers can learn how to offer the same "exciting" teaching to their "regular" classes, even within a tracked school.

"If you want to, you can learn how to work with those kids," she says. "To me, all the strategies that we use in Advance classes-the creativity, the projects, the things that require kids to use what they're learning-that's just good teaching. That ought to be going on for all kids."

Nolan concedes that kids who are behind or may not fit the traditional profile of a high-ability student "might not catch on quite as quickly. They might need more direction and more structure. You can't just give them the work and they go with it. But they can do it. You just have to get it down so they understand what you are talking about, a piece at a time."

Highland's teachers are moving rapidly in this direction, Nolan says. Like other JCPS middle schools, the Highland teachers spent two days at the end of May and additional time in the summer studying their curriculum in relation to the district's new performance standards. Each school gave special attention to one of the "basics"-reading or writing-as a tool to help teachers in every grade and subject area focus on a common objective: raising the performance of low-achieving students.

Highland's teachers also began work on interdisciplinary lessons built upon the district's academic standards. The lessons will include activities and assessments that give teachers more detailed information about whether students are learning what they're expected to learn. The units take into account students' different learning styles and achievement levels, Nolan says, and they will all culminate in an activity that will not only be fun for students but will require them to demonstrate the knowledge and skills they've learned-to "perform against the standards."

District-school partnership

Sherry DeMarsh, who helps oversee middle school reform efforts in the district, says Highland's summer experiences were similar in many ways to the work of other middle school faculties this summer. "Schools are a different stages in working with their curriculum and our new performance standards," she said, "but I think the days in May and the summer were extremely productive."

DeMarsh cites several key factors that help explain what she perceives as the growing momentum to change teaching practices in ways that will raise the performance of underachieving students. "Principals have been real serious about their leadership," she says. Both Superintendent Stephen Daeschner and Assistant Superintendent Sandy Ledford, who oversees middle schools and the district's professional development programs, "have really emphasized the principal as leader of these changes."

Teachers, she says, are responding to "very focused professional development that supports them while allowing them to make decisions about the best way to address problems in their own schools."

The district's new performance standards have begun to permeate the system. When middle schoolers received their student planners this fall, they found a summary of each standard listed in the front, with a message to parents making the case that "high standards mean student success."

The performance standards are one of four components in the district's "STEPS" program, designed specifically "to help students step from novice to proficient" on the state's testing system. The JCPS school board has recently approved four additional professional development days for middle schools this year, a move that DeMarsh and Nolan say will make a large difference in teachers' opportunities to absorb new ideas and put them into practice.

"It's a fabulous development," says Nolan. "The teachers are really welcoming it. It gives you a chance to stay on top of things, because no matter how hard you've worked in the summer and how much you think you've accomplished, it's easy for all the new ideas and plans to get waylaid once school gets started. Once the kids arrive, everybody's just going like crazy-their hair's blown back. We need the chance every so often to stop and regroup, and that's what those four much-needed days will give us."
#