When I approached Barren County Middle School, in Glasgow, Kentucky, I was
perplexed by seeing a student in pajamas lying on a pillow on the sidewalk.
Then I realized that there was a student in front of the school steps throwing
a basketball into a very low and shaky hoop. In fact, as I looked around,
there were clusters of strangely dressed students dispersed on the lawn
and in the woods around the campus. It turned out that these students were
taking part in a poetry trail. The 7th graders in one of the school's teams
had selected poems to memorize, either alone or in a group, had painted
and constructed an outdoor set for the poems, and were ready to recite --
really, to perform the poems -- for their schoolmates as they followed the
trail.
The poems they chose were by Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Edgar Allen
Poe, May Swenson, Henry Longfellow, and the hands-down favorite, Shel Silverstein.
Oh, and the kid in pajamas on the pillow -- that turned out to be "Wynken,
Blynken, and Nod" by Eugene Field. The Poetry Trail written guide said
that it was performed by Danielle Cook, Sara Harlow, Adam Houchens, and
Jenna Shipley, and that it could be found "under the first tree beside
the school's sign." Others were performed at the flag pole, "by
the football field ditch," at the dumpster, at the baseball field,
on the front porch, "at the entrance to the maintenance closet,"
in the media center, at the cafeteria entrance -- you get the idea. Some
of the eighth graders were vocal about feeling cheated because they hadn't
had a poetry trail when they were in seventh grade.
When I asked students why they had chosen their particular poem, they gave
me thoughtful answers about wanting to honor Shel Silverstein, who had recently
died, about being able to see the poem visually and wanting to draw the
background set for it, about liking the way they could act out the poem,
or about being personally moved by the poem's message.
This was my introduction to Barren County Middle School. Why was I there?
I'll back up and start in a more orderly manner.
I am a member of the National Forum
to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform, which has been in existence for
about two years. This is a group of some 50 people who are educators, researchers,
foundation program officers, and members of key professional organizations
like the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National
Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Middle School
Association, and the National Staff Development Council. What brings us
together is a shared sense of urgency that the academic performance of too
many middle-grades students is unacceptable, and that we therefore need
to help mobilize the larger middle-grades community to create and sustain
many more high-performing middle-grades schools.
We are trying to deepen our collective understanding of what it takes to
promote middle-grades schools that improve student learning and achievement.
We have forged new collaborations and strategic alliances, for instance
among the major professional associations, which we hope will increase their
collective -- and individual -- impact on classroom practice. We are making
plans for mobilizing ourselves and others to take the necessary steps in
creating high-performing middle-grades schools. Most importantly, I believe,
we have agreed to be explicit about the values that undergird and drive
our individual and collective work.
What Is a "High Performing" Middle School?
At the heart of these values is a shared conviction that youth in the middle
grades are capable of learning and achieving at high levels. As a result,
we want high-performing schools for young adolescents to become the norm,
not the exception, so that increasing numbers of their students learn and
achieve at high levels.
What do we mean by "high performance"? I think of this visually
as a triangle. High-performing schools are academically excellent, developmentally
responsive, and socially equitable. They are academically excellent, meaning
they challenge all students to use their minds well and meet rigorous academic
standards. They are developmentally responsive, meaning they create small
learning communities in which stable, close, and mutually respectful relationships
support all students' intellectual, ethical, and social growth. They are
socially equitable, meaning they have high expectations for all their students
and are committed to helping each child produce work of high quality in
academically rigorous classes staffed by experienced and expertly prepared
teachers. High performing schools also establish norms, structures, and
organizational arrangements that initiate, invigorate, and sustain their
positive trajectory toward excellence.
It took us close to a year to develop our Vision
Statement, which I have just massacred by summarizing. After a few self-congratulatory
moments, we realized how insufficient that vision statement was without
specific examples of what we meant by academic excellence, developmental
responsiveness, and social equity. Then the work really began. We listed
from 8-10 criteria
for each of the legs of the triangle and also for "organizational structures
and processes" that support school improvement. Here is an example
of the social equity criteria, and please note how interrelated they are
with academic excellence and developmental responsiveness:
1. Faculty and administrators expect high-quality work from all students
and are committed to helping each student produce it. Evidence of this commitment
includes tutoring, mentoring, special adaptations, and other supports.
2. Students may use many and varied approaches to achieve and demonstrate
competence and mastery of standards.
3. The school continually adapts curriculum, instruction, assessment, and
scheduling to meet its students' diverse and changing needs.
4. All students have equal access to valued knowledge in all school classes
and activities.
5. Students have on-going opportunities to learn about and appreciate their
own and others' cultures. The school values knowledge from the diverse cultures
represented in the school and our nation.
6. Each child's voice is heard, acknowledged, and respected.
7. The school welcomes and encourages the active participation of all its
families.
8. The school's reward system demonstrates that it values diversity, civility,
service, and democratic citizenship.
9. The faculty is culturally and linguistically diverse.
10. The suspension rate is low and proportionate to the school's population.
I chose to share the social equity criteria with you because I think they
demonstrate, in and of themselves, the inextricable relationship among the
three legs of the triangle and how mutually reinforcing they are. If you
want high academic performance, you must be responsive to students' physical,
emotional, and social development, to their family, their culture, their
learning strengths and the impediments to their learning.
If it were possible to raise academic performance only by setting standards
and testing, testing, testing, we would be on the rapid road to success.
If it were possible to raise academic performance only by establishing houses,
teams, and advisory groups, we would have already succeeded and you wouldn't
have a Clark grant. But in reality, school improvement is more complex than
any intervention on any single dimension can achieve. So, we need it all
-- and especially for children mired in poverty and its associated ills
-- we need the press for improved curriculum and higher standards, the essential
personalization of the school climate, and the insistence upon all children
having access to the best of what schools have to offer.
Selecting "Schools to Watch"
Setting the criteria for high performance was not a simple task, and once
again, we were momentarily self-congratulatory about having achieved agreement
and even consensus about what turned out to be 37 criteria. We did not celebrate
long, however, because we realized that people would rightly ask us where
they could see such high-performing middle-level schools. Where could they
see schools that meet our academic, developmental, and fairness criteria,
schools that support high performance and can articulate for others what
they are doing, why they are doing it, what they are accomplishing, and
therefore what they will do next. Where could they see schools we can learn
from, meaning schools that know how to teach adults as well as young adolescents
-- and teaching adults is much the harder job.
As a result, the National Forum established what we call a "Schools
to Watch" subcommittee. Note that we aren't calling the schools
"exemplary," for two reasons. First, if someone tells me that
this is an exemplary school, I will probably observe it to find the chinks
in the armor, the holes in the whole, the Achilles heel. Calling something
"exemplary" brings out the perverse in too many of us. Second,
the 37 criteria are tough. I don't know if there will ever be a school that
performs well on all 37 simultaneously. Rather than trying to set a metric
of exemplary performance, we decided to talk about schools that bear watching,
schools to watch, because they are on an exciting and sustained trajectory
towards high performance on most of the criteria and are mindful and deliberative
about the others.
So, how did I get to Barren County Middle School? The process wasn't scientific
in the least. We polled our membership for nominations of schools to watch.
We invited about 50 nominated schools to apply for consideration as a school
to watch. We received 27 applications. We decided we had the funds to document
three schools, one rural, one suburban or small urban, and one inner-city.
Based on their applications and the data they sent to us, we selected seven
schools for one-day site visits conducted by a minimum of three and sometimes
as many as five Forum members. I got to go to four of the seven schools
with variously composed three-person teams. So far, we have chosen two of
the three schools. We are in the process of selecting the third, which will
be an inner-city school.
Jefferson
Middle School, which has been in existence for over 20 years, has 736
students in grades 6-8. It is in Champaign, Illinois, which is a medium-size
city (or perhaps, small urban). Of the 736 students, 218 are eligible for
free or reduced-price lunch, 500 are Caucasian, 197 African American, 22
Asian, 5 Latino/Hispanic, one Native American, and 11 "multi-ethnic."
Barren County Middle School
is in the rural community of Glasgow, Kentucky. It has 570 students in grades
7 and 8. Of these 570 students, almost all of whom are Caucasian, 255 are
eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Five years ago, the school system
merged four junior high schools to create Barren County Middle School, which
was the county's first middle school.
I'd like to share some observations with you, while assuring you that we
are going to return to the selected schools for more extended site visits
to verify what we saw and to create what we hope will be richly useful descriptions
of these schools' practices, how they implement them, and what they are
and aren't accomplishing. What I am about to share are at best preliminary
observations.
Some Preliminary Observations
First, these schools know and articulate the academic outcomes they seek.
In some cases, the outcomes are prescribed by the state or district; in
some cases, the faculty has adopted the outcomes recommended by their various
disciplines. For instance, Jefferson Middle School in Champaign, Illinois
has aligned its curriculum with the Illinois State Goals and Learning Standards
as well as with NCTM, NCTE standards and the California model for social
studies. Teachers have spent time mapping the curriculum to achieve consistency
in content matter and between the content matter and desired outcomes.
Second, these schools are taking deliberate steps to help students achieve
those outcomes. They are making strategic changes in curriculum, teaching,
and school services. For instance, because of the school's excellent reputation
for serving students with special needs, 22 percent of Jefferson Middle
School's students are now classified as special education students. The
school goes to extraordinary lengths to integrate these students quite seamlessly
into the regular classroom. With the exception of math, there is no ability
grouping within classes. Resource teachers co-teach with other team teachers
to provide non-academic support and, when necessary, wrap-around services.
Adults are everywhere, in the form of teachers, community tutors and mentors,
and parents. The ratio of adults to students feels -- and is -- quite high.
Teachers make adaptations for students who need them, but they expect the
same level and amount of work from all the students. Increasing numbers
of teachers require that students re-do work until it meets standards.
At Barren County Middle School, where students are otherwise heterogeneously
grouped, the school has instituted a special component called "Academic
Connections," to help students prepare for Kentucky's tests. It meets
in three levels to help each child achieve to and beyond standard. The school
has divided students according to their stanine scores. Students get special
help they need specifically for their skill levels. More high-poverty students
make gains on the tests than in any other Barren County school. At the same
time, this school is enriching and deepening its curriculum. It has adopted
and is receiving professional development in the curriculum "Different
Ways of Knowing," which is a standards-based, interdisciplinary, arts-infused
curriculum responsive to tenets of multiple intelligences and constructivism.
Third, the schools have set benchmarks for implementing their strategies
and hold themselves accountable for specific results. I cannot stress too
much the importance of data in the lives of these schools. At Jefferson
Middle School, teachers submit their academic and behavioral expectations
to the principal, who okays them prior to their being discussed with parents
and students. The school makes decisions based upon numerous sources of
data, many of which are quantitative. It is inventive in collecting and
manually analyzing school-level data that the district doesn't collect.
The district has not used the same test across the past few years, so it
is difficult to get longitudinal data.
The school's home-grown analysis shows that it does a nice job of improving
academic performance across the three years the students are in the school.
Teachers meet and go over students' scores to interpret the data. By hand,
they pull out information about each child not meeting state goals and they
put supports in place for those children. While the district has not established
the ability to disaggregate students' scores by race, the school has paid
attention to this on its own, as well as gender and Title 1 status. As a
result, the school knows where it is succeeding and falling down on the
job. It knows, for instance, that it has discrepancies between the scores
of Caucasian and African American students that it needs to continue working
on, and as a result, it is adopting a new math curriculum that it hopes
will help raise students' math performance. Having patrolled its data meticulously,
the school is changing its approach to teaching reading and is reorganizing
its daily schedule so that an additional 40 minutes a day will be devoted
to teaching reading.
Jefferson Middle School has collected a different kind of data, as well.
In two years, all Champaign schools will become schools of choice. In anticipation,
Jefferson contracted with the University of Illinois to survey all fifth
grade parents to see what thematic emphases parents want in schools of choice.
They have analyzed the data by race and gender, socio-economic status, and
qualifications for Title 1, gifted, and special education. Staff work in
preparation for choosing the school's thematic emphasis must be within the
areas parents most desire, which seems to be coming down to career exploration,
fine arts and foreign languages, or the environment.
At Barren County Middle School, data about students' academics and behavior
are not only collected but are shared strategically. Cross-disciplinary
teams of teachers have common planning periods daily during which one of
their tasks is to collect high, medium, and low student work and lesson
plans that support student work. This collection is submitted to the school-based
decision-making council as part of what they call a "Vital Signs Report."
The process emphasizes student products rather than only process. Once every
nine weeks, content leaders hold content-area meetings to evaluate student
work and progress in an "Impact Check." This information is forwarded
to the school-based decision-making council, as well. In what is the most
inventive mechanism for sharing data with parents that I have come across,
the school has instituted an "Information on Demand" system in
which parents can call in using a PIN to get information about their child's
attendance, behavior, homework, and academic grades.
Fourth, each school has developed the capacity to concentrate its energies
on important focus areas. As a result, the changes in these schools are
burrowing deeply into the entire culture of the school. They are not only
superficial adjustments. I mentioned the "Vital Signs Report"
at Barren County Middle School. In a monthly meeting, teachers produce evidence
of student work that is documented in the "Vital Signs Report."
They are not expected to know magically how to do this. Teachers in teams
and content groups receive help in the collection and review of evidence.
But in what is perhaps a more challenging and significant shift, teachers
no longer talk about "what I cover," but rather "what kids
should be able to do." As a result, the school is becoming increasingly
coherent, embedding standards of knowledge and skills in the dailiness of
school life.
I'd like to give you an example of this ability to focus by returning to
Jefferson Middle School's reading program. I mentioned that the school is
adopting a new program and is reallocating time for focused reading instruction.
In addition, to support the new reading program, the school's business partners,
Target, Pepsi, and Barnes and Noble, will concentrate their efforts on reading
improvement, being trained as tutors, and donating Walkmen, Accelerated
Reader Program equipment, novels on tape, and incentives. The business partners
are mobilized, as are the Urban League and Boys and Girls Clubs. In addition,
teachers are collecting trend data per child, as much as they are able to,
volunteering their time in the off hours to see if there was a year when
something happened that caused the students' reading problems. This effort
is supported by the school librarian, who is the school's union steward.
This is an interesting example of the integration of almost everything that
is going on in the school. It also demonstrates the connections among my
four observations: articulating academic outcomes, taking deliberate steps
to help students achieve those outcomes, holding oneself accountable for
specific results, and concentrating energies on important focus areas.
Improving, But Not Perfect
This is not to say that all is well in either of these schools. While their
academics are improving, they are not stellar. The schools struggle to close
the achievement gap between middle-class and poor children. Jefferson is
puzzled by its suspension rate, which it decreased by one-third in one year
but which still remains racially out of whack. The school has adopted a
computerized discipline program, so that it can look at the numbers, race,
and teachers involved in the suspension incidents. After looking at the
pattern, the administrators counsel the teacher, if needed, or the support
team looks at the student's behavior and academic achievement to evaluate
what needs to happen. Even so, the suspension rate for African American
students remains disproportionately high. Jefferson is puzzled but not daunted.
It is now designing an internal study to demonstrate that student referrals
will go down as their reading ability improves.
So, some academic and behavioral outcomes remain disappointing despite a
strikingly high level of focused analysis and effort. But these are schools
to watch because they are vigorously on the move toward high performance.
They are driven by a shared vision that through nurture and challenge, every
student will make significant academic and behavioral progress through his
or her years in middle school.
Jefferson's principal, at the risk of comparing herself to Glenda the Good
Witch, tells her faculty as they stretch to improve their practice and their
students' achievement, "You always had the power."
You can read diaries by principals Michelle Pedigo (Barren County Middle Schools) and Carol Stack (Jefferson Middle School) here at MiddleWeb.