Achieving High Educational Standards for All Conference Summary (2002) / Chapter Skim
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6 Linking Research and Practice
6 Linking Research and Practice
Pages 86-101
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From page 86... ...
Nevertheless, he expressed his opinion that substantial achievement gains reflecting improvements in the quality of instruction will be soon forthcoming. His rationale for this optimistic assessment is twofold.
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From page 87... ...
on teacher professional development as providing a scientific basis to "conduct meaningful evaluations of teachers." He also cited Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (National Research Council, 1998b) as "providing an extremely valuable summary of decades of research on beginning reading." Good Ideas, Inventions, and Innovations Stringfield further elaborated on the reasons for his optimism about the future of education reform by referring to the work of Peter Senge
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From page 88... ...
He argued that lasting improvements in the performance of organizational goals occur only when good ideas and inventions are transformed and systematized into innovations that work consistently and reliably. Drawing parallels to the history of both medical and education research, Stringfield used Senge's illustration from aviation history on how the Douglas Corporation incorporated inventions developed for the ultimately unsuccessful Boeing 257 aircraft into its design of the innovative DC-3.
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From page 89... ...
Stringfield cautioned, however, that even the best reform models depend on good implementation and that, invariably, every national reform model is recreated or cocreated at the school level by local educators: The easiest thing for a central administration [of a school district] to do when they have a failing school is to bring in an outside model and put it in.
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From page 90... ...
Stringfield noted that "all of us make dozens of small mistakes a day. In highly reliable organizations, areas in which mistakes can cascade are monitored very closely." He added that various reform models agree that success in basic reading and math skills is critical to students' long-term success in school.
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From page 91... ...
Stringfield noted that, as a member of the Baltimore City School Board, he has worked to implement the principles of highly reliable organizations in the city's school districts. One still would not need to look very far to find serious problems in Baltimore's schools, yet he presented data documenting substantial improvement in the reading skills of Baltimore's elementary school students over a period of three years as evidence that the district's efforts to implement the principles of highly reliable organizations were beginning to produce results.
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From page 92... ...
Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools Louis Gomez discussed his work as a provider of technical assistance although he would prefer to be considered a partner rather than a provider. From his base at Northwestern University, he codirects the Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools a collaboration involving the Chicago Public Schools, Northwestern University, the Detroit Public Schools, and the University of Michigan.
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From page 93... ...
Phyllis Hunter is a consultant to the Texas Reading Initiative. She also had worked for several years as reading manager for the Houston Independent School District (HISD)
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From page 94... ...
The Texas Reading Initiative is providing teachers with that information as well as various forms of technical assistance to help teachers to use it effectively. "SWEATING THE DETAILS" Robert Slavin, chairman of the Success for All Foundation and codirector of Johns Hopkins University's Center for the Social Organization of Schools, observed in his conference presentation: Any intelligent educator or policy maker is fully aware that to make a serious difference in student achievement, you need better curricula, better instruction, better professional development, better parent involvement, and you need better services for children at risk.
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From page 95... ...
The program provides schools with curriculum materials, instructional strategies, and extensive teacher professional development and follow-up training. It also includes one-onone tutoring for young children who are struggling to read, as well as Parent involvement programs.
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From page 96... ...
I think every program on earth has that phenomenon. But even if you average across good implementers and poor implementers, you will find in study after study after study that students in Success for All schools learn more than do students in matched control schools." Other studies describing the design and performance of Success for All can be found at |
From page 97... ...
The most dramatic gains were registered by students who participated in the program for three consecutive years and by students with limited English proficiency. Because of a high rate of geographic mobility among neighborhood residents, many children transfer in and out of Crockett Elementary School each year and therefore did not receive continuous instruction under the program.
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From page 98... ...
Rather than choosing to implement different whole-school reform models in different schools, Superintendent Lam set out to work systematically with all of the schools in Providence. Her goal was to transform commonly heard rhetoric, like "all children can learn," "closing the gaps," and "achieving high standards for all," into reality a distinctly uncommon reality, particularly in school districts like Providence.
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From page 99... ...
Referring to her previous work as superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District she recalled that a major focus of her work in Texas was to oversee the widespread implementation of Success for All and other New American Schools reform models (Berends et al., 2001~. Comparing that with her rather different focus in Providence, she felt compelled to add "I do like baked apples just for the record but I also like chocolate souffle!
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From page 100... ...
If you try to teach or learn factual material without thinking without making it active instead of inert you can't get anywhere. That was one of the very earliest findings of cognitive research that simple memorization tasks required active meta-cognitive work.
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From page 101... ...
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