A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia's Public Schools From Impressions to Evidence (2011) / Chapter Skim
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2 Education Reform in the United States
2 Education Reform in the United States
Pages 19-30
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From page 19... ...
Standards-based reform -- the establishment of rigorous content and performance standards for what students should know and be able to do and the alignment of curriculum, assessment, and other elements of the system to those standards -- has become an organizing principle for most states' and districts' efforts to improve, as well as for federal programs and policy, beginning with the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 (see, e.g., Goertz, 2007; Hamilton, Stecher, and Yuan, 2008; Smith and O'Day, 1991; Zavadsky, 2009)
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From page 20... ...
The idea that all students should be held to the same high standards was put to the test as a growing body of achievement data -- from both the National Assessment of Educational Progress and state assessments -- documented the persistent disparity in academic performance among students with different racial, ethnic, and socieconomic backgrounds. The legal responses to these disparities have ranged from disputes over racial preferences in selection processes and the use of busing to desegregate schools to numerous school finance lawsuits, such as Abbott v.
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From page 21... ...
REFORM IN URBAN DISTRICTS Urban school districts, which frequently have high concentrations of students at risk for school failure, are at the forefront in the challenge of defining and ensuring equity, and many have also been pioneers in school reform. Persistently low levels of achievement, struggles to recruit and retain both effective teachers and principals and other leaders, and the needs of families in high-poverty neighborhoods are among the challenges that face these districts.
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From page 22... ...
. To select its winners, the Broad Foundation analyzes a range of district data, including student achievement results, graduations rates, and district management and performance data.6 The study found that the five winners shared a long-term commitment to the reforms they adopted, and that all have "[clear definitions of]
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From page 23... ...
. They have used data, including comprehensive student information management systems, to guide their decisions and have emphasized professional development for teachers and principals.
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From page 24... ...
In each case, the city has decided that centralized authority will allow district leaders to better coordinate across units; recruit and manage personnel; impose tighter control over finances; and provide more equal learning opportunities for students. These cities have hoped the new structures will also solve problems associated with entrenched interest groups who gain power through school board elections in which relatively few people vote.
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From page 25... ...
However, they do not, by themselves, bring about educational improvements. THE CONTEXT OF REFORM Ideas about mayoral control, charter schools, vouchers, privatization of instructional services through for-profit firms, and other managerial innovations reflect the continuation of a long-standing American quest to solve a fundamental dilemma: how to reconcile the nation's democratic ideals, its insistence on high academic standards, and its belief in the virtues of economic efficiency and productivity.
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From page 26... ...
According to one characterization of this issue, developers use schools as the initial and critical site for boosting urban real estate values. Middle- and upper-income, mostly white, residents relocate to newly upgraded urban centers, and public housing is often abandoned, pushing poor black and Hispanic/Latino residents out of central cities (Fenwick, 2006)
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From page 27... ...
. Ensuring Effective Teachers for All Students: Six State Strategies for Attract ing and Retaining Effective Teachers in HighPoverty and HighMinority Schools.
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From page 28... ...
. The Role of Districts in Fostering Instructional Improvement Lessons from Three Urban Districts Partnered with the Institute for Learning.
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From page 29... ...
. Building SchoolBased Teacher Learning Com munities: Professional Strategies to Improve Student Achievement (Series on School Reform)
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