New book details large-scale strategies that led to academic gains in Broad prize-winning school districts
2/12/2010
A new book that details concrete, data-backed examples of successful large-scale reform in the nation's most improved urban districts is now available from Harvard Education Press. Bringing School Reform to Scale describes specific district-wide operational and instructional reform strategies that author and researcher Dr. Heather Zavadsky shows together led Broad Prize -winning school districts to outpace their peers in raising student achievement - not just in individual schools - but across numerous schools, district-wide.
Of particular use to state and district leaders seeking federal funds under Race to the Top or the Innovation Fund, Bringing School Reform to Scale describes the years of intentional, sustained efforts undertaken by Broad Prize-winning school districts in Boston, Long Beach, Calif., Garden Grove, Calif., Norfolk, Va., and Aldine in Houston to improve teaching and learning and to align practices across all organizational levels of a school system, something that can be done in any district given the right knowledge and tools.
Aimed at superintendents, chief academic officers, education school professors, school board members and elected officials or advocacy organizations looking to produce large-scale, dramatic student achievement gains, this book shows what systemic district-wide improvement looks like on the ground, warts and all, and the outcomes that are possible.
In light of anticipated ESEA reauthorization, the book also contains valuable lessons for policy-makers. Among them, Zavadsky shows: 1) the single most important contributor to the success of these districts was their efforts to put in place a clear, direct, and rigorous curriculum aligned with high standards and supported at various layers throughout the system, 2) data-driven teaching and testing empowered teachers and led to student gains, and 3) stable school district governance, in the form of mayoral control or a unified school board, was critical to success.
"The analysis of the five high-performing districts points to practices, beliefs, systems, and structures that have led to dramatic turnarounds. The compilation of this work provides a road map toward scalable reform,” said William R. Hite, superintendent, Prince George's County Public Schools, Md.
Heather Zavadsky is director of policy and communications for the Institute for Public School Initiatives for the University of Texas system. She led research teams through site visits and analysis of Broad Prize districts from 2002 to 2006.
The $2 million Broad Prize is an annual award that honors the five large urban school districts that demonstrate the strongest student achievement and improvement while narrowing achievement gaps between income and ethnic groups. The Broad Prize is sponsored by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation , a national venture philanthropy focused on dramatically improving urban K-12 public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.
To order Bringing School Reform to Scale, a volume in the new Educational Innovations series by Harvard Education Press, visit:
http://www.hepg.org/hep/book/110/BringingSchoolReformToScale