1. “Best Practices” districts have “core” academic strategies that are more consistently and rigorously applied throughout the district than is the case at FUSD.
“Alignment” is the by-word at “best practices” districts. For core subjects, there are uniform curricular adoptions, and every classroom in every school in the district is required to utilize the adopted programs. They may supplement with additional materials. But they may not choose to use a different adoption. “Best practices” districts align content/performance standards, instructional materials, curriculum, interventions, assessment/evaluation, grading practices, and pro-fessional development. Teacher preparation, both at induction and inservice, is aligned, also. There is no room for doubt at any level about what students should know and be able to do. Benchmarking is done frequently, and it is consistent across the district. Teachers have assisted in developing pacing charts. And standards-based report cards are used to make sure that parents and students are clear on where the student is, compared to grade level.
2. Not all student achievement is about test scores.
While academic test scores are important as a measure of “basic” student skills, they are not the only measure of student achievement. Successful school districts are those that prepare students to be upstanding, effective members of society. It is important that schools offer students a diverse curriculum that enables them to find a good match for their skills, aptitudes and interests, and provide opportunities for them to learn how to interact effectively with others.
Even though “best practices” schools encourage all students to pursue a college placement path, they also have strong Regional Occupational Programs (ROP) and they would not dream of cutting back their music programs or their P.E. classes in tough economic times.
3. “Best Practices” schools are intensely data-driven, practice differentiated instruction and are increasingly moving towards real-time intervention strategies.
“Best practices” schools drive instruction from a continuous analysis of data. What are we doing well? What lessons are the students “getting” and “not getting”? What do we need to re-teach before we move on to the next subject of instruction? How do we need to modify our instructional practices? The data are analyzed by subject, by grade, by sub-group, even by individual student.
The technology exists today for teachers to be able to assess student performance every day. It’s possible to get real-time assessments and compare how each student is doing compared to others in the class, to others in the school, even to others throughout the district. But few schools are making effective use of this technology. The result is delayed discovery by teachers of where students are lagging, and a more difficult remedial process than if teachers were to intervene more immediately. The same data enables teachers to get real-time information on which students are ahead of the class, so that they can be moved along with challenging supplementary assignments that will fully tap their potential. Real-time data is the foundation for differentiated instructional strategies, and “best practices” districts are using the available technology to make huge improvements in academic achievement.
FUSD has state-of-the-art technology. It’s Assessment Information System (AIS) is as advanced as that of any other district in the benchmark group. What has been lacking is a comprehensive and intensive training program for teachers on the use of the system and the application of real-time intervention strategies for improvement of student achievement.
It’s worth noting that FUSD has more computers per student and per teacher that either GGUSD and LBUSD.
4. “Best Practices” schools provide extensive and consistent professional development to all certificated and classified staff.
There has been no lack of expenditure by FUSD on professional development, but for the most part the training provided has been conducted as if the District was a loose association of private practitioners, each school doing its own research on available training programs, each implementing its own training philosophies. New teachers receive a one day “orientation” program. There has been no district-wide training philosophy, no training standards, no commonly adopted training programs. This is true for administrators and for curriculum and other specialists, as well. Classified employees are rarely included in training opportunities; they train one another, as best they can.
Contrast this to GGUSD and LBUSD, where a percentage of categorical funding is set aside centrally for “core” district-wide training programs that each teacher must undergo. At LBUSD, each new teacher must undergo two years (it was three years until recently) of mandatory training – a minimum of 20 days per year. And every teacher, even those with over 30 years of tenure, must keep up with training programs selected by the district to advance district-wide academic achievement goals. That’s what it takes to build a durable, effective culture of academic improvement.
When Districts perform as poorly as FUSD in comparison with other schools with similar demographics, there are some who will point to the teachers, but as Merrill Vargo, CEO of the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC) is fond of saying, “I know of no teacher who comes to school at the beginning of the year saying, ‘I’m going to leave my “A” game at home this year.’ What really happens is that the District’s professional development programs have not kept up with the changed expectations brought about by programs like “No Child Left Behind;” or the instructional practices have not kept up with changed demographics; or the District has simply not stayed up with instructional “best practices.”
5. “Best practices” districts place high priority on creating school environments that are safe, motivate learning and are intolerant of disruption. They have strong character education programs and clear and consistently enforced student conduct policies.
Clear and uniform implementation of policies to retain students who are significantly below grade level, over time, reduces the likelihood that there are significant numbers of students who are unable to do the work as they are passed from one grade to another. “Best practices” districts understand that keeping students productively engaged in their schoolwork does more to create safe school environments than imposition of elaborate systems of punishment. They do not shrink, however, from removing students who pose a safety hazard to themselves or to others. Safety services at “best practices” districts blend the expertise of educators who can devise instructional alternatives for problem students, mental health professionals, and law enforcement professionals.
“Best practices” districts would consider it unthinkable to have a student conduct system which is solely designed to punish transgressions. Instead, they utilize a strong and consistently-applied program of character education, so that there is no doubt in the minds of students and adults alike as to what constitutes appropriate conduct. At the same time, “best practices” districts impose sanctions against inappropriate or illegal conduct. The rules and the consequences are understood by all.
In a four-year study conducted between 1999-2002 reported in the Journal for Character Education, schools with higher total character education implementation were found to have higher scores on academic measures for the year prior to their application, the year of their application and the subsequent two years. The following school character education indications were found to correlate with higher API scores and with the percentage of students scoring at or above the 50th percentile on the SAT9:
- Ensuring a clean and psychologically secure physical environment.
- Promoting and modeling fairness, equity, caring, and respect.
- Students contribute in meaningful ways to the school and community.
- Policies and practices in place to promote a caring community and positive social relationships.
It is noteworthy that GGUSD and LBUSD have a far lesser rate of expulsions than does FUSD. In 2002-03, FUSD expelled significantly more elementary school kids (111 of them) than was the case for all K-12 expulsions at either LBUSD or GGUSD. Los Angeles Unified, which had 746,000 students, expelled 374 of them, while Fresno Unified, with roughly one-tenth as many students, expelled 439 students.
GGUSD and LBUSD have a rigorously applied zero tolerance policy towards certain kinds of offenses, particularly for secondary school students. But the bias in “best practices” schools is toward progressive discipline and towards keeping kids in school. They have on-campus truancy centers (generally in partnership with the local police department). Suspensions are served at on-campus facilities. In short, their management of disruptive conduct is aligned with their overarching student achievement goals.
6. Special needs children, who can best be served by Special Education or by Alternative Education programs, have borne the brunt of a confusing array of legal requirements, of well-meaning but inadequately implemented strategies such as inclusion in regular classroom, and of out-and-out defaults of recognizing their needs and providing appropriate services.
Time constraints have not allowed the Task Force to do justice to these very important topics. It is clear, however, that there are many children whose special needs are not such that they qualify for Special Education, but who cannot be served at this point in regular classrooms. The magnitude and severity of this problem is huge, and its implications are immense. This is a first-tier issue; not a lower-tier issue.
7. “Best practices” districts create a tight nexus between Student Support Services and “Academic Goals.”
James confided in his teacher that he has decided to kill himself. He is ten years old. Upon referral to one of the handful of school social workers in the district, it is discovered that he is weary of being responsible for the care of his four younger siblings while his mother deals with her bouts of mental illness by calming herself with alcohol. The school social worker connects his mother with mental health treatment and arranges transportation. The preschool siblings are enrolled in a preschool program. Child Protective Services monitors the well-being of the children. James can finally act like a normal ten-year-old.
In urban districts like FUSD, GGUSD and LBUSD, it is important to understand that many students come from home environments that leave much to be desired. One of the Task Force members designed this graphic to paint the picture.
Some would suggest that these challenges are beyond the scope of the District’s educational mission. Yet these children show up at school every day. What is the option? The costs to society are immense when we fail to attend to people’s needs early on in their life—costs in dollars for health care, mental health care, crime suppression and incarceration, public assistance, and other costly programs, in lost productivity in our economic system, and in diminished capacity to be effective parents for the succeeding generation.
Again, “alignment” is the by-word. Alignment of central support services to support student achievement is more than just a catch-phrase. All the pieces have to fit together. And all are data-driven. Resources are not distributed based on where there is a friendly and cooperative principal, as is sometimes the case in Fresno Unified. Rather, they are distributed after careful study of quantitative and qualitative information regarding student needs.
8. Well-maintained facilities are a given at “best practices” districts.
One former superintendent at GGUSD was a Marine. For him, well-maintained facilities were an article of faith, and the culture has stuck to this day. But there are no former Marines in the history of LBUSD, where well-maintained facilities are also an article of faith. “Best practices” districts know that the environment in which teachers teach and students learn is important to the outcome of the educational process.
In a “best practices” district, when it is necessary to cut the budget, you don’t hear Board members use the catch-word pledge to “keep cuts away from the classroom,” because those districts take a long-term view of what is required to achieve the District’s goals. Facilities maintenance is considered a condition for learning, not a dispensable service. The long-term interests of the taxpayers in providing proper maintenance of district facilities is a “given,” not subject to short-term evisceration in order to make it through the year.
Fresno Unified has “kept cuts away from the classroom” in ways whose terrible consequences will be felt for years to come. Consider:
Since 1991, the number of Maintenance personnel has increased by 12, during a period in which facilities square footage has increased by nearly 2 million square feet with the addition of multiple new schools, portables, library media centers, administrative buildings, and cafeterias. This is about 1/3 more square footage than at the beginning of 1992 – an increase equivalent in size to 37 elementary schools, 19 middle schools, or 6 high schools.
Worse yet, over 40 Maintenance positions are supported not by the District’s General Fund, but rather by chargebacks to restricted sources, such as bond measure proceeds. When these restricted sources dry up, there will be no source of funding for these positions.
Equipment replacement funds earmarked for all the equipment in the entire District (i.e. TV’s, VCR’s, overhead projectors, camcorders, etc.) have dwindled to $26,000 for the past two years, a reduction from over 1 million dollars in the early 1990’s. Now we either don’t replace equipment, or essential equipment is being repaired beyond its useful lifecycle. The District’s Grounds and Maintenance white fleet is aging, with 29 vehicles from the 1970’s, 77 from the 1980’s, 38 from the 1990’s and 20 from the 2000’s. Many of the larger more expensive vehicles like the stinger, dump trucks and water truck are from the 70’s.
Mowers, backhoes, front loaders, bobcats, etc. are aging, and there are no identified funds to replace them in the foreseeable future.
Gardening had 40 personnel in 1992 and they have 40 today. That is despite a significant increase in gardening area.
9. “Best practices” districts have eliminated some of their multi-track year-round schools and are targeting elimination of all year-around schools.