designs for change full report-the big picture

8/9/2019 Designs for Change Full Report-The Big Picture

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Te Big PictureSchool-Initiated Reforms,

Centrally Initiated Reforms,and Elementary School

Achievement in Chicago

(1990 to 2005)


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This study and related Designs for Change research studies and resource materials

about effective urban schools and school improvement are available at www.

designsforchange.org.

A Word of Thanks

The research team deeply appreciates the cooperation of the staff, students, Local School

Council, and parents of Carson Elementary School and Earhart Options for Knowledge

School. They allowed us to observe their activities, participated in interviews, and

provided a wide range of data about their schools.

Donald R. Moore, Ed.D., provided leadership in designing and writing this study. Virgin-

ia Valdez conducted most of the statistical analyses and aided in writing the study report.

Anthony Ragona conducted the bi-variate regression analysis. Greg Mount aided withstatistical data analysis. Jean Newcomer designed and prepared the publication.

This research effort has been supported by grants from The Spencer Foundation, The

Joyce Foundation, and The Ford Foundation. Designs for Change is responsible for study

findings and interpretations, which do not necessarily reflect the views of the studys

funders.

Other foundations and corporations that have supported DFCs school improvement andpolicy reform efforts in the last fifteen years have helped create the knowledge base that

has informed this study: Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Chicago Community Trust, Chi-

cago Tribune Company, Chicago Tribune Foundation, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation,
http://www.designsforchange.org/http://www.designsforchange.org/http://www.designsforchange.org/http://www.designsforchange.org/


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Executive Summary

Key Finding: 144 InnerCity Chicago ElementarySchools Have Shown 15 Years

of Substantial SustainedAchievement Gains

Research analyzing elementary school

achievement over the past 15 years in Chi-

cago reveals 144 public inner city elemen-

tary schools all of them low-achieving

in 1990 that have shown substantial and

sustained improvement in reading test

score gains, with the typical school in this

group now reading at the national average

on the Iowa Reading Test.

These 144 Substantially Up Schools

serve nearly 100,000 students, a number

equal to the entire school system enrollment

in cities the size of Baltimore.

These successful Chicago schools are

distributed throughout the city, including

many in some of the citys poorest neigh-

tracked the progress or lack of it in

Chicago public elementary schools during

a reform process that began in 1988, when

the Illinois General Assembly shifted major

authority from the central school adminis-

tration to each individual Chicago school.

The 1988 Chicago School Reform Act

established an elected Local School Council

with the power to hire and fire its principal

and gave principals and teachers additional

authority that was unique in big cities.

In 1990, only about 20% of the almost100,000 students in the 144 Substantially

Up Schools identified in the study could

read at or above the national average, based

on Iowa Reading Test results. Today the

average for this group of schools has risen,

in almost unbroken progression, to 50%

the national average for a cross-section

of urban, suburban, and rural schools. The

number of students in these schools reading

at or above the national average has more


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for deciding which schools will be labeled

as needing improvement under the federal

No Child Left Behind law.

Although schools like Carson and Earhart

are different in many of their specifics,

researchers who have studied such ef-

fective schools in Chicago and across the

nation pinpoint some common underlying

principles.

The most consistent feature of these schools

is that all adults work as a team to improveeducation, including the teachers, parents,

Local School Council, principal, and com-

munity agencies (Adult Teamwork).

The study indicates that the most effective

and long-lasting improvements occurred

when schools took swift advantage of major

authority granted by the legislature in the1988 reform legislation, and kept building on

their success. Effective Local School Councils

hired a principal who was a strong leader,

but welcomed everyones participation.

Designs for Change has organized the

common practices of such effective schools

around Five Essential Supports for StudentLearning found consistently in schools like

Carson and Earhart:

Eff ti S h l L d hi

Most important, these effective schools can

help other schools that are not educating

their students, so that these schools can

master and carry out the Five Essential Sup-ports for Student Learning.

Further, since the schools that have im-

proved have had the flexibility to choose

an excellent principal, central and area staff

should halt interference in the principal

selection process.

The Designs for Change findings:

Lend strength to the 1988 decision

of the Illinois General Assembly to

shift significant initiative for school

improvement to the school level,

including principal hiring, school

improvement planning, and control

of funds. Now that the evidence isclear about how much schools can

improve with school-level improvement

authority, the General Assembly needs to

protect and expand this authority.

Support the decision announced by

the Chicago Public Schools earlier

this summer to remove many central

administration restrictions from 85 highperforming schools and indicate that this

program should be expanded.


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dissatisfied with the pace of test score

improvement in 1995, Chicagos Mayor was

given increased authority to intervene in an

effort to improve student performance.

Test score performance improved for

several years, but it has flat-lined under at

least three expensive central administra-

tion initiatives over the past five years, as

documented in this study:

Among the elementary schools placed

on school probation in fall 1996 or fall1997, only 6 of the 68 schools still open

reached the current Chicago probation

standard of 40% in spring 2005.

Among the 100 elementary schools that

had the highest grade retention rates in

grades 3, 6, and 8 combined in summer

1997, only 8 of the 88 schools still open

reached the Chicago probation standard

of 40% in spring 2005.

Among the 114 low-achieving

elementary schools that were assigned

Reading Specialists in fall 2001, none of

the 101 schools still open exceeded the

Chicago probation standard of 40% in

spring 2005.

Unfortunately, these programs are not be-

ing phased out, but are either being main-


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The Big Picture:School-Initiated Reforms,

Centrally Initiated Reforms,

and Elementary School Achievement

in Chicago (1990 to 2005)

Designs for ChangeSeptember 2005


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Section 1. Study Context and Purposes .....................................................................................1

Study Context: Some Key Events in the History of Chicago School Reform ..................................... 2

The Chicago Reform Act of 1988 ........................................................................................................ ........ 2

The 1995 Reform Act Amendments .............................................................................. ............................ 6

The Mayors First Leadership Team .................................................... ......................................................... 7

The Mayors Second Leadership Team ....................................................... ............................................... 8

Overview of Study Purposes ...................................... ........................................................... ............................ 9

Section 2. Patterns of School-Level Student Achievement from 1990 to 2005 .....................11

Relevant Study Methods .....................................................................................................................................11

Elementary Schools Included in the Analysis ........................................................................................11

Analyzing Chicago Elementary Schools That Had LowVersus Adequate to Good Achievement in 1990 ..................................................... ..........................11

Trend Analysis Methods for Assessing School Progress .................................................... ................12

Methods for Analyzing State ISAT Tests ..................................................... .............................................. 15

The High Stakes that Are Attached to the Iowa and ISAT Measures Studied ............................ 15

Achievement Trends of Schools that Were Low-Achieving in 1990 .................................................... 16

Iowa Reading Test Results for the Three Trend Groups ...................................................... ................18

ISAT Test Results for the Three Trend Groups ..................................................... .................................... 25

Mathematics Results for Substantially Up, Tending Up, and No Trend Schools ............................. 27

Overall Achievement Patterns for All Elementary Schools Analyzed ................................................. 29

Section 3. Distinctive Practices of Unusually Effective Urban Elementary Schools ..............33

National and International Research Has Documented thePractices of Unusually Effective Schools .......................................................................................................33

Contents


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Grade Retention .....................................................................................................................................................52

Retentions Scale and Costs in Chicago ...................................................................................................55

Impact on the Achievement of Chicagos Retained Students ......................................................... 55Impact on the Dropout Rates of Retained Students ....................................................... ....................56

School System Sidesteps Research Evidence .......................................................... .............................. 56

Alleged Motivational Benefits of the Threat of Retention for Students Systemwide ..........56

The Current Studys Analysis of Retention .............................................................................................57

Reading Specialists ...............................................................................................................................................57

Chicago Board Initiatives and the Five Essential Supports for Student Learning .......................... 63

Section 5. Key Study Implications .............................................................................................65

The Opportunity to Build on the Strengths of Chicagos Successful Schools ................................. 65

The Need to Examine the Effectiveness of Central Administration Programs ................................ 66

Impact of School-Initiated Versus Centrally Initiated Efforts to Raise Achievement ....................66

End Notes ....................................................................................................................................67

Appendix A .................................................................................................................................73


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During the period from 1985 to 2005,the Chicago Public Schools initi-ated a number ofmajor reforms aimed at

improving educational quality and student

achievement. A briefchronology of somekey events in this twenty-year reform

period is summarized in Chart 1.

One set of changes resulted from the 1988

decision of the Illinois state legislature to

radically restructure the Chicago school

system, shifting some key school deci-

sion-making and improvement authorityto the school level.1 This legislative change

resulted from a grassroots movement that

began in 1985 to develop a detailed frame-

work for the 1988 legislation, which was

ultimately supported by a broad coalition

of school reform, parent, business, and

community groups.2

These changes created a school-based de-

cision-making structure that was unprec-

edented in big cities, but resembled the

CHART 1.Some Key Events in the

Chicago School Reform Timeline

Study Context and Purposes

1S E C T I O N


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CHART 2.Percentage of Low-Income Students in the 20 U.S.

Big City School Systems with the Largest Enrollment


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transforming what had been a highly cen-

tralized system into a system in which many

key decisions were made at each school.8

This fundamental restructuring resultedfrom an organizing and legislative advo-

cacy campaign carried out by a coalition of

school reform, business, parent, and com-

munity groups and was the culmination of a

reform effort that began in about 1985.9

Among the key changes that the 1988 law

made were the following:

Local School Councils. Created an

elected Local School Council (LSC) ateach of Chicagos schools. These LSCs

were composed of six elected parents,

two elected community representatives,

Council, abolishing the lifetime princi-

pal tenure that had previously existed.

New Principal Powers. Gave principals

a pivotal school leadership role and moreauthority in establishing and carrying

out instructional and budget priorities,

as well as in hiring and supervising

school staff. Principals were permitted

to hire any certified teacher for an

open teaching position, without regard

to teacher seniority, which enabled

proactive principals to shape a cohesiveschool staff.

New Teacher Powers. Gave teachersa greater decision making and advisory

voice, through their two seats on the

Local School Council and a teacher

committee that worked with the

principal on curriculum and school

improvement (the Professional Personnel

Advisory Committee).

Infusion of Funds, Targeted toLow-Income Schools and Under

School Control. Required that, over a

five-year period, state money that was

generated based on a schools enrollment

of low-income students (State Chapter1 funds) must be increasingly placed

under school control and must be made

supplementary to a fair share of other

In the early 1990s, the Local

School Council at Earhart

Options for Knowledge

School set the goal of creating

a school where student

achievement surpassed manysuburban schools. As described

in Section 3, Earhart succeeded.


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school-level initiative, of enforcing

critical systemwide standards in such

areas as civil rights, and of creating a

systemwide framework of educationalobjectives and assessments.

Educational policy analysts recognized the

scope of this legislative change. Stanford

political scientist Michael Kirst observed

that this is the biggest change in American

school control since the 1900s.It is the

most dramatic change in any school system

I can think of. It is absolutely precedent-

breaking.12[emphasis added]

One way in which Chicago school reform

differed from school-based decision-mak-

ing reforms that had been carried out

in other cities in the past was that major

authority was actually shifted to the school

site in Chicago, and that this shift of author-ity was embodied in state law (and thus

not subject to being taken away by the

decisions of a subsequent school district

administration). In other school-based man-

agement reforms, the transfer of authority

to the school site was small and/or ambigu-

ous and resulted in little change in school-

level practice.13

The most controversial aspect of the Chica-

go restructuring plan was to allocate a ma-

about 110 of these small districts were in the

Chicago Metro Area, with some of them just

a few blocks outside of Chicagos borders.

While the Chicago metro area is well-knownfor its high school districts that consist of

one or two high schools, 57 of the small dis-

tricts in the Chicago Metro Area are K-8 dis-

tricts that enroll fewer than 700 students.15

Proponents argued that such small school

districts (with elected lay school boards)

were a good model for the proposed Lo-

cal School Councils planned for Chicago,

because such small school districts gener-

ally functioned well. They cited research

evidence indicating that the achievement of

students in general and low-income students

in particular was higher in small school

districts, rather than large ones (controlling

for student background).16

Proponents argued that parents and commu-

nity residents had substantial organizational

leadership experiences in their churches,

jobs, and other community institutions and

would respect and complement the knowl-

edge and skills of their schools teachers

and administrators. Proponents envisionedthat successful Local School Councils would

typically help foster teamwork among all

the adults who could make critical contribu-

Elected school boards

in small Illinois school

districts were a model

for Chicagos Local

School Councils.


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and as many parent and community

candidates ran in low-income schools as

in middle-income schools.19 Chicagos

Local School Councils constituted thelargest concentration of elected officials

of color in the United States, with 2,500

African American and Latino LSC

members.20

Early studies of teacher and principalattitudes towards the new system carried

out by the Consortium on Chicago School

Research at the University of Chicagoshowed that teacher and principal

attitudes were generally positive. For

example, 63% of teachers agreed or

strongly agreed in spring 1991 with the

statement that Since reform, I am more

optimistic this school will improve.21

And in a study of principal attitudes

towards reform carried out in spring

1992, 62% of principals agreed or strongly

agreed with the statement that Since

reform, this school is getting better. In

contrast, only 29% of principals agreed or

strongly agreed with the statement that

Since reform, there is more conflict in

this school.

22

A more extensive Consortium study that

analyzed the first three years of reform im-

plementation indicated that about 31% of the

evolving in ways that can lead to major

improvements in student learning?

We answer yes.25

At the same time, the Consortium study in-

dicated that about 34% of Chicagos elemen-

tary schools operated under conditions of

consolidated principal power or sus-

tained conflict and had improved little.26

The Consortiums researchers labeled these

schools schools left behind by reform.

How best to improve these schools has beena continuing source of controversy from

1990 to 2005. The impact of three efforts

to improve these schools left behind by

reform by the Mayors education team that

was appointed after 1995 are analyzed in

Section 4. The Interpretive Summary in Sec-

tion 5 makes recommendations about how

these schools can be improved, based on thefindings of the current study.

Finally, a Consortium study of a city-wide

cross-section of Local School Councils indi-

cated that many of the stereotypes of LSC

members and their competence were inaccu-

rate. Based on an analysis of a representative

cross-section of Local School Councils, theConsortium concluded that:

50%-60% of LSCs were high functioning

i i t th i k ibiliti

Is the restructur-

ing of the Chicago

public school systemevolving in ways that

can lead to major

improvements in

student learning?

We answer yes.

Consortium on ChicagoSchool Research, 1993


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Although the Republicans were impressed

by some documented school-level improve-

ments that had occurred as a result of the

1988 Reform Act and were sympathetic tothe ideology of local control, they were

also highly critical of continuing corruption

in the school systems central office, the lack

of major systemwide test score gains at that

point, and the school systems continuing

financial crises.

Further, legislators responded to the Chi-

cago Mayors complaint that the process for

selecting the central school board that was

established by the 1988 Reform Act left him

with inadequate authority to select Board

members, even though the public held him

accountable for school quality and student

achievement.

As a result, the General Assembly made

several major changes in the Chicago School

Reform Act in May 1995. The basic struc-

ture ofschool-level decision making was

kept intact; indeed, principals were, for the

first time, given clear authority over school

custodians and food service staff. However,

the state legislature gave Chicagos Mayora major role in making crucial systemwide

decisions, which included the following:

The Mayor was granted authority to

over wages and benefits, but not over

working conditions.29

The Mayors First Leadership Team.In

June 1995,Chicagos MayorDaley appoint-ed his former Budget Director, Paul Val-

las, as the school systems Chief Executive

Officer, and his former Chief of Staff, Gery

Chico, as President of the school systems

Board of Trustees.

The Mayors team essentially chosenot

tobuild on the accomplishments of theschool-based improvement efforts carried

out over the previous five years. Vallas

characterized these efforts as a failed exper-

iment that led to confusion and corruption

and did not improve student achievement.

In a February 1996 interview with Catalyst

magazine, for example, Vallas asserted:

I am inundated with complaints about

local school councils from parents,

teachers and principalsand other local

school council members. Investigate this,

investigate that. Patronage, nepotism,

people declaring custody over kids so

that they can remain on local school

councils. People intimidating parents.Its a continual onslaught. I believe

they are, to quote Shakespeare, much

ado about nothing.30

In 1995, the state leg-

islature gave Chicagos

Mayor a major role in

making crucial system-

wide decisions, while

keeping school-level

decision making intact.


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In spring 1997, the Central Board required

students at grades 3, 6, and 8 to attend

summer school if they scored below a

minimum level on the Iowa Test of Basic

Skills in either reading or math, and

required students who failedto makesufficient test score progress by the end of

summer school to repeat a grade (about

10,000 on average at these three grade

levels in subsequent years).32

Since many of the leaderships educational

reforms have been test-driven, there hasbeen great pressure on schools to focus on

raising test scores on the particular tests on

which critical decisions about each school

hinged.33 This pressure some-

times creates school-level

conflicts between (1) sticking

with longer-term strategies to

restructure the school and im-

prove instruction (as described

in Section 3 of this report)

and (2) placing the primary

focus on short-term tactics

for improving test scores on a

particular test (such as devot-

ing large amounts of timeto test prep materials for a

particular test).34 These issues

are discussed in greater detail

the mayor took over the schools. While

the Mayor did not take over the schools,

Chicagos Central Board and administration

were given some key powers that are notexercised by the leadership of most other

big city school systems (such as sweeping

authority to reconstitute schools and actu-

ally dismiss, rather than transfer, teachers

and principals at these schools). This situa-

tion has created ongoing conflictbetween

Local School Councils and advocates for

local school initiative, on the one hand, andan aggressive central administration, on the

other.

The Mayors Second Leadership Team.

In summer 2001, the Vallas-Chico team

was eased out by the Mayor, and replaced

by a team headed by Arne Duncan (Chief

Executive Officer) and Michael Scott (BoardChair), who were initially more accommo-

dating to school-level decision making. The

new team developed a systemwide im-

provement plan (Every Child, Every School)

with wide participation, which was accept-

able to most advocates for local control and

which was released in August 2002.36

The stated priority of the second leader-

ship team has been to focus on improving

instruction above all else A top initiative


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Since spring 2004, the leadership teams

strategy has shifted to a top-down focus

and a renewed hostility to Local School

Councils.Standards for placing schools on proba-

tion were dramatically tightened in spring

2004, and 167 elementary schools and 45

high schools were placed on probation in

fall 2004. Placing these schools on proba-

tion allowed the central administration to

severely limit the decision-making rights

of LSCs and principals in these schools.38

However, in contrast to previous probation

efforts, schools were not given additional

resources, but instead were required to

spend their discretionary funds on similar

staff and activities citywide (for example,

each elementary school was required to hire

two Reading Specialists).39

In July 2004, Mayor Daley announced that

he would implement a major new initia-

tive called Renaissance 2010, in which 60

low-achieving schools would be closed, to

be replaced by 100 charter schools, small

schools, and performance schools most

without Local School Councils and manywithout unionized teachers.40 This initia-

tive has been actively resisted by a coalition

of Local School Council members, com-

To analyze elementary school

achievement test data that illuminate

the impact of the shift of educational

decision making to the school level as a

result of the 1988 Reform Act (Section 2).

To analyze research evidence about

school-level educational practices that

help account for the major sustained test

score improvements of a sizable group

of elementary schools from 1990 to 2005

(Section 3).

To analyze elementary school

achievement test data that illuminate

the impact of three initiatives of the

Mayors leadership team: school

probation, student grade retention, and

the assignment of Reading Specialists to

low-achieving schools (Section 4).

The Iowa Tests were administered to Chi-cago elementary students from 1990 to 2005

in grades 3 to 8 in reading and math. These

Iowa Test results provide the only year-to-

year test measure available to help judge

the progress of elementary schools

with respect to the shift to school-

based decision making, school pro-

bation, student grade retention, andReading Specialists. Analyzing Iowa

Reading Test results and their implica-

h l h f h

This study draws on test

score data to analyze

the impact of the 1988

Reform Act, schoolprobation, student

grade retention, and

the Reading Specialist

Initiative.


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Patterns of School-Level StudentAchievement from 1990 to 2005

2S E C T I O N

Relevant Study Methods

This analysis builds on a previousDesigns for Change study focused onanalyzing multi-year test score trends of

Chicago elementary schools from 1990 to

1997.41 That study identified 111 elementary

schools with a substantial trend ofim-

proved reading achievement from 1990 to

1997, including 87 elementary schools that

were low-achieving in 1990.

The current study analyzes elementary

school patterns of test score achievementfrom 1990 to 2005. For reasons explained

below, the heart of the analysis examines

multi-year test score trends from 1990 to

2003 using a regression analysis focused on

analyzing each schools Iowa Reading Test

scores for grades 3 to 8 combined. Both the

previous study and current study em-

ployed methods for analyzing multi-year

test score trends developed by the research

department of the Chicago Public Schools.42

Some Key Section 2 Findings

144 Chicago elementary schools that were low-achieving in

1990 showed a sustained upward trend on the Iowa ReadingTest from 1990 to 2003 (Substantially Up Schools).

The number of students in these Substantially Up Schools

reading at or above the national average more than doubled

from 21.4% in 1990 to 45% in 2003.

Based on year 2000 national norms recently adopted by Chicago,

these 144 Substantially Up Schools reached the national average

of 50% in 2004 and 2005.

These 144 elementary schools serve nearly 100,000 students

as many students as attend the Baltimore Public Schools.

These schools are 87.2% low-income a larger low-income

percentage than any big city school system in the nation.

All of these 144 Substantially Up Schools had Local School

Councils that chose their principals and had unionized teachers.

In 1990, not one of these Substantially Up Schools exceeded the

current Chicago probation standard of 40% on the Iowa Reading


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baseline year for judging progress subse-

quent to the Chicago School Reform Act of

1988).

Thus, the current analysis followed the prac-tice of DFCs previous research on Chicago

elementary school achievement by dividing

the elementary schools into two catego-

ries, based on whether or not 40% of their

students scored at or above the national

average on the Iowa Reading Test in grades

3 to 8 combined in 1990 (see Chart 3):

Low Achievement in 1990.Less than

40% of students scored at or above the

national average in 1990 on the Iowa

Reading Test in grades 3 to 8 combined.44

Adequate to Good Achievement in

1990. 40% or more of students scored

at or above the national average in 1990

on the Iowa Reading Test in grades 3 to 8

combined.45

As reflected in Chart 3, 85% of the 433

elementary schools analyzed (368 schools)

fell into the Low Achievement category

in 1990, while 15% of the elementary

schools analyzed (65 schools) fell into the

Adequate to Good Achievement category.

As reflected in Chart 2 in Section 1, Chicago

elementary schools that were in the Low

Achievement category in 1990 served a sub-

stantially larger percentage of low-income

students (i.e., 90.4%) than any of the 20 big

city school districts in the United Stateswith the largest student enrollments.

Trend Analysis Methods for Assess-

ing School Progress. As in DFCs earlier

study of test score trends, the researchers

employed a procedure developed by the

research department of the Chicago Public

Schools that employs a bi-weight regres-

sion analysis to analyze multi-year school

test score trends.46 This procedure allows

researchers to gauge the extent of change

over a period of years using a trend line

for each school. This particular type of

regression analysis minimizes the effect of

unusual variations in results for any indi-

vidual year.47

The key school statistic employed has been

the schools year-to-year percent of students

scoring at or above the national average

on the Iowa Reading Test in grades 3 to 8

combined, which has been a high stakes

measure in Chicago since fall 1996 that has

been used, for example, to place elemen-

tary schools on probation and to evaluate

principals.


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Ideally, we would have liked to carry out

this multi-year trend analysis for the period

from 1990 to 2005. However, the Chi-

cago school system introduced a differentnational norming sample in spring 2002,

which it now uses to calculate the Iowa Test

achievement results of Chicago students.

(In spring 2002, Chicago switched from

comparing Chicagos students to a national

cross-section of students who took the Iowa

Test in 1988 to a national cross-section of

students who took the Iowa Test in 2000.)

This change means the combined percent

of students scoring at or above the national

average at a typical elementary school that

tests students in grades 3 to 8 is increased

by about 3.5%, simply by the introduction

of these new national norms. The school

systems adoption of these 2000 nationalnorms (and their unwillingness to publish

complete data that would allow researchers

to translate student or school scores be-

tween the 1988 and 2000 norming systems)

made it impossible for DFC to carry out

multi-year trend analysis beyond spring

2003, for reasons explained in the accompa-

nying End Note.48

Using available data, DFC (1) conducted a

trend analysis of Iowa Reading Test results

Down. Since there were no Tending Down

Schools from 1990 to 2003 and only one Sub-

stantially Down School, the analysis focused

on schools that were Substantially Up, Tend-ing Up, or No Trend (see Chart 5-a):

A Substantially Up School gained at

a rate of at least 1.5% per year in its

percentage of students scoring at or

above the national average from 1990

to 2003 (an increase in the percentage of

students scoring at or above the national

average at a rate of atleast 19.5% from 1990

to 2003).

A Tending Up School

gained at a rate

between 1.0% per year

and 1.49% per year

in its percentage ofstudents scoring at

or above the national

average from 1990 to

2003 (an increase in the

percentage of students at or above the

national average at a rate of at least 13%

from 1990 to 2003).

A No Trend School gained at a rate ofless than 1.0% per year in its percentage

of students scoring at or above the

national average from 1990 to 2003 (an

Carson sixth-grader works on

her digital portfolio, as part of an

interactive project with museum

experts on Peru.


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CHART 4.

Distribution of Illinois K-8 Schools Rankedby Percentage of Low-Income Students


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Chart 4 further emphasizes the heavy

concentration of low-income students in

the Chicago elementary schools in all three

trend groupsthat were low-achieving in1990. Chart 4 depicts the number of Illinois

elementary or middle schools serving some

combination of grades K-8 with various

percentages of low-income students in the

2003-2004 school year.

Chart 4 shows, for example, that Illinois had

448 schools serving some combination of

grade K-8 students that served 0% to 5% low-

income students and 200 K-8 schools that

served 95% to 100% low-income students.

The Chicago elementary schools that were

low-achieving in 1990 are represented by

the dark blue, green, and orangebars that

are clustered on the right side of Chart 4.

Chart 4 reflects the fact that 58% of IllinoisK-8 schools that serve more than 75% low-

income students are included in the 368

low-achieving Chicago K-8 schools that are

being analyzed in this study.

Methods for Analyzing State ISAT Tests.

In addition to the Iowa Tests, Chicago began

to administer state-wide tests called theIllinois Standards Achievement Tests (ISAT

Tests) in reading, math, and other subjects

i i 1999 d ti t d i i t

have complete ISAT data) to assess the ISAT

Test progress of the groups of schools that

were Substantially Up Schools, Tending Up

Schools, and No Trend Schools on two ISATtests described below.

The High Stakes that Are Attached to

the Iowa and ISAT Measures Studied.Chicago elementary schools may currently

be identified as deficient based on Chicago

standards (probation), Illinois standards

(academic early warning list and aca-

demic watch list), or federal standards

(school in need of improvement).

The three indicators of Iowa and ISAT

school-level scores that are the focus of

the current analysis have become criti-

cal in making these high stakes decisions

about Chicago elementary schools, and this

high stakes pressure was intensified bythe Chicago Board through its decision to

dramatically raise its probation standard in

fall 2004.

Thus, the current study analyzed three

test results that are central in determin-

ing whether particular schools are judged

adequate or deficient according to Chicago,Illinois, and federal standards:

Iowa Reading Results.The percentage

The three test results

analyzed are the basis

for the most critical

decisions made about

Chicagos K-8 schools

each year.


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ISAT Reading Results.The percentage

of students meeting or exceeding

standards on the ISAT Reading Test

and the ISAT Math Test are the current

criteria for determining whether an

Illinois elementary school has made

adequate yearly progress under the

federal No Child Left Behind Act.

In spring 2004, at least 40% of a schools

students had to meet or exceed state

standards in reading (based on results

for grades 3, 5,and 8 combined) andin math (based on results for grades 3,

5,and 8 combined), in order to make

adequate yearly progress.

These standards applied not only to

the student body as a whole but also to

several subgroups within the student

body.

In spring 2005, this minimum standard

for ISAT Reading and Math in Illinois

was raised to 47.5%; however, detailed

school-by-school results to judge which

schools have met these criteria have not

yet been publicly released by the Illinois

State Board of Education.

Schools that fail to meet adequate yearlyprogress criteria for two years in a row

or more are designated schools in need

of improvement and are subject to a

subjects and all grades in which ISAT

Tests are administered. If40% of a

Chicago schools students do not meet

or exceed the cutoff for ISAT Overall,

the school will be placed on Chicago

probation (unless the school meets the

Iowa Reading Test standard described

previously).

Thus, the three school-level test scores that

are the focus of the current analysis are cen-

tral to the test-based school accountability

systems in Chicago and in Illinois. All Chi-cago elementary schools are under intense

pressure to improve these particular scores.

Further, these three test scores are impor-

tant indicators that can enable the public to

analyze each schools academic progress,

since they include both of the major read-

ing tests administered to Chicago elemen-tary school students, as well as the states

major indicator of achievement that cuts

across individual subjects.

Achievement Trends ofSchools that Were Low-

Achieving in 1990Of critical interest are the achievement

trends of the 85% of Chicago elementary


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CHART 5.

Achievement Score Trends for Chicago K-8 Elementary Schools thatWere Low Achieving in 1990 and Were Substantially Up, Tending Up,

or No Trend on the Iowa Reading Test from 1990 to 2003


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Progress Over Time. Does the trend

group (such as Substantially Up

Schools) show a pattern of sustained

improvement over time, does it remain

fairly flat over time, or does it decline?

Absolute Level of Achievement.

Are groups of schools achieving at an

adequate pace to meet critical cutoff

scores within a reasonable timeframe,

even if they have been making some

progress? A set of schools that begins

at very low levels of achievement mustmake substantial consistent gains to

catch up. Even an upward movement

for a few years can still leave a school or

group of schools far below minimum

standards (such as Chicagos probation

standard). Chart 10-a, for example,

shows that 104 of Chicagos Substantially

Up Schools (73% of them) are meetingthe Chicago probation standard on the

Iowa Reading Test, while only 14 of

Chicagos No Trend Schools (13% of

them) are meeting this standard.

As discussed earlier, it is also important to

examine multi-year patterns of scores and

not to focus on short-term losses and gains

between particular years. Meaningful pat-

terns begin to emerge when one examines

scores over a period of four years or more.

system, they would be the 26th largest

school system in the nation (about the

same size as Baltimore or Milwaukee, as

shown in Chart 7-a).50

The Substantially Up Schools were 87.2%

low-income a larger percentage of

low-income students than the 20 big city

school districts in the United States with

the largest enrollments, as reflected in

Chart 2 and Chart 7-b.

As reflected in Chart 5-a, the Substan-

tially Up Schools increased the

percentage of their students at or above

the national average from 21.4% in 1990

to 45.0% in 2003 (based on 1988 national

norms). Thus, the number of students in

these Substantially Up Schools reading at

or above the national average more than

doubled over these 13 years.

Based on 1988 national norms for the

Iowa Tests, the typical Substantially

Up School was approaching the

national average of50% in 2003. (The

national average of 50% compares these

Substantially Up Schools with a national

cross-section of urban, suburban, and

rural schools.)

Based on the 2000 national norms for

the Iowa Tests that Chicago adopted

Chicagos 144

Substantially Up

Schools that werelow achieving in 1990

more than doubled

the percentage of their

students reading at

or above the national

average in 13 years.


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CHART 6.Latest Achievement Scores for Chicago K-8 Elementary Schools that

Were Low Achieving in 1990 and Were Substantially Up or No Trendon the Iowa Reading Test from 1990 to 2003


30/85

state tests (the IGAP Tests) were the

major accountability measure on which

educators and the public focused.

Under the Mayors leadership team, theIowa Test became the overriding focus for

placing schools on probation, for student

grade promotion, and for principal evalu-

ation after fall 1996. From 1996 to 2003, the

gap between the Substantially Up Schools,

on the one hand, and the Tending Up

CHART 7-a.

Student Enrollment Comparisons

Schools and No Trend Schools, on the other,

continued to widen substantially on the

Iowa Reading Test.

Indeed, Chart 5-a indicates that the city-wide improvement in Iowa Reading Test

scores from 1995 to 2003 was due in large

part to the increased test scores of the Sub-

stantially Up Schools (which had already

improved their average test scores signifi-

cantly before the Mayor was given new

Chicagos Substantially

Up Schools, which

showed a consistent

trend of improved

reading scores from

1991 to 2005, serve

as many students as

the Baltimore Public

Schools.


31/85

powers, with this improvement occurring

in a period when the Iowa Reading Test

was a low-stakes test).

One interpretation of this finding (theevidence for which is discussed in Section

3) is that the Substantially Up Schools had

attained a level ofcoherent social organiza-

tion by 1995 that allowed these schools to

respond to the new demands for increased

test score achievement by increasing educa-

tional quality, while the No Trend Schools

lacked this coherent social organization and

focused on implementing such limited strat-

egies as drilling students for the Iowa Tests.51

One indication of the degree of test score

improvement in the Substantially Up

Schools from 1990 to 2003 is that based on

1988 national norms in 1990 not a single

Substantially Up School exceeded the Chi-cago probation standard of 40% that was

mandated for the Iowa Reading Test begin-

ning in fall 2004 (see Chart 8). Yet by 2005,

104 of the 142 Substantially Up Schools still

open exceeded the 40% standard, and 19

more were within five percentile points of

the 40% standard based on 2000 national

norms (see Chart 8).

At a time when the Mayors school lead-

hi t d b f th

for a period of years and then dropped off.

Clearly, the overall results for Substantially

Up Schools are encouraging, but many of

these schools must still improve markedly.

In contrast to the achievement gains of

the Substantially Up Schools, Chart 10-a

indicates that only 14 of the 109 No Trend

Schools still open in spring 2005 exceeded

the current Chicago probation standard

of 40% on the Iowa Reading Test in 2005.

Further, of the 95 No Trend Schools that

were below the probation standard, 84 of

these No Trend Schools were more than 5

percentile points below the 40% probation

standard.

One possible explanation for the gains of

the Substantially Up Schools from 1990 to

2003 is that these schools attracted more

advantaged students over time, and thatthese more advantaged students helped

account for the improved test scores of the

Substantially Up Schools. This is undoubt-

edly true in some schools. However, from

1990 to 2003 the overall percentage of

low-income students in these Substan-

tially Up Schools rose from 78% to 87% (a

9% increase), and the percentage of white

students in these Substantially Up Schools

declined from 16% to 13% (a 3% decrease).52

The 144 Substantially

Up Schools have

brought about major

improvements in

student achievement

with elected Local

School Councils and

unionized teachers.


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CHART 8.

Distribution of 1990 and 2005 Iowa Reading Scores for ChicagoK-8 Elementary Schools that Were Low Achieving in 1990 and WereSubstantially Up on the Iowa Reading Test from 1990 to 2003


33/85

lunch can include a range of incomes, and

it is probably true that the students attend-

ing the No Trend Schools were (on average)

somewhat poorer than the students in the

Substantially Up Schools.

However, Charts 2 and 4 dramatize the fact

that the Substantially Up Schools had one

of the highest concentrations of poverty

among big cities in the nation. There is a

great deal of overlap between the economic

conditions of the Substantially Up Schools

and No Trend Schools with some No

Trend and Substantially Up Schools located

within a few blocks of each other.

Still another possible explanation of the

gains of the Substantially Up Schools is that

they benefited from the initiatives of the

Mayorsleadership team. This possibility is

analyzed in Chart 9. As Chart 9 indicates:

Only 13% of Substantially Up Schools

were placed on probation in 1996 or 1997.

Only 12% of Substantially Up Schools

were among the 100 K-8 schools with

the highest rates of grade retention in

summer 1997.

Only 3% of Substantially Up Schools were

assigned a Reading Specialist in fall 2001.

I t t

munity can carry out that contribute to the

progress of Substantially Up Schools (see

analysis in Section 3).

No Trend Schools. The fifteen-yeartrend of increased Iowa Reading Test scores

for the Substantially Up Schools contrasts

sharply with the pattern of achievement on

the Iowa Reading Test indicated in Charts

5-a and 6-a for the No Trend Schools.

Charts 5-a and 6-a indicate that the No

Trend Schools:

Made no achievement gain from 1990 to

1995.

Registered an increase of about 8% from

1995 to 1999 (during the time that the

Iowa Test became the key high stakes

test in Chicago).

Made no substantial achievement gainfrom 1999 through 2005 (i.e., their Iowa

Reading Test scores flat-lined from

1999 to 2005).

The pattern of test scores for the No Trend

Schools depicted in Charts 5-a and 6-a has

repeatedly been documented by research-

ers studying standardized test score trends,

as described in a review article that ap-

peared in Education Week:

Test scores follow a predictable cycle

In schools that follow a

test prep strategy, test

scores rise quickly for

several years, and then

flat-line.


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CHART 9.Percent of Schools Substantially Up, Tending Up, and No Trend Chicago

K-8 Elementary Schools that Were Low Achieving in 1990 and Were:

Placed on Probation in Fall 1996 or Fall 1997

Among the 100 K-8 Elementary Schools with the Highest GradeRetention Rates in Grades 3, 6, and 8 Combined in Summer 1997

Assigned a Reading Specialist in Fall 2001


35/85

are asked and sometimes even the

precise questions they drill students

on how to perform well on the tests.53

Mayor Daleys leadership team was explicitin encouraging teachers to drill students on

the specific format and types of questions

that appeared on the Iowa Reading Test.54 A

committee of the National Research Council

studied standardized testing in Chicago in

the late 1990s, and the Committees Chair

summarized the Committees conclusions

about Chicago test results as follows:

The NRC Committee concluded that

Chicagos regular year and summer

school curricula were so closely geared

to the ITBS [the Iowa Test] that it was

impossible to distinguish real subject

mastery from mastery of skills and

knowledge useful for passing thisparticular test.55

The No Trend groups pattern of short-term

gain followed by flat-lining is consistent

with the familiar pattern observed by test ex-

perts when tests like the Iowa Reading Test

are employed under high stakes conditions

and teachers respond primarily by drilling

students for one specific high stakes test.

The end result for the No Trend Schools is

h l % f h d i N T d

One important reason for comparing Iowa

Test and ISAT Test results is that research-

ers who study testing have frequently

found that when students and teachers are

pressed to improve scores on a particular

achievement test under high stakes condi-

tions, students raise their scores on this

particular high stakes test for several years.

However, when these students are given a

different test that covers generally the same

subject matter, their gains disappear.56

Thus, one way to determine whether the

sustained Iowa Reading Test gains of the

Substantially Up Group reflect genuine

learning (rather than simply test prepara-

tion for the Iowa Reading Test) is to ex-

amine how the Substantially Up Schools

performed on the ISAT Reading Test and

ISAT Overall Test.The following research findings help clarify

this issue:

In 1990, the three trend groups differed

only slightly on the Iowa Reading Test

(for example, 21.4% at or above the

national average for the Substantially

Up Schools, compared with 18.5% forthe No Trend Schools, as indicated in

Chart 5-a). Thus, if the subsequent Iowa

Reading Test gains for the Substantially

Significant gains on

the ISAT Tests forthe Substantially Up

Schools buttress the

view that their Iowa

Reading Test gains

reflected genuine

learning.


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CHART 10.Distribution of 2005 Scores for Chicago K-8 Elementary Schools

that Were Low Achieving in 1990 and Were Substantially Up andNo Trend on the Iowa Reading Test from 1990 to 2003


37/85

Trend Schools on the Iowa Reading Test

in 1999 was also reflected in a sizeable

difference between the two trend groups

on both the ISAT measures by 1999.

The difference between the Substantially

Up Schools and No Trend Schools on

the two ISAT tests continued to widen

somewhat from 1999 to 2003. On the

ISAT Reading Test, the gap grew from

14.9% in 1999 to 18.6% in 2003. On the

ISAT Overall Test, the gap widened from

12.5% to 19.0% (see Charts 5-b and 5-c).These widening gaps reflect the fact

that the Substantially Up Schools made

larger gains from 1999 to 2003 on both

ISAT Tests, as compared with the No

Trend Schools.

Differing scores on the ISAT Tests cre-

ated major differences in the number of

schools in the Substantially Up and No

Trend groups that met the cutoff stan-

dards on ISAT Reading Tests that served

as a key part of the basis for federal, state,

and Chicago sanctions in spring 2004 and

spring 2005. These differences are depicted

in Chart 10.

On the ISAT Reading Test in spring 2004,113 of the 140 Substantially Up Schools

still open and for which we could obtain

Substantially Up Schools on the Iowa Read-

ing Test reflect genuine learning and are

not simply the result of drilling students for

a specific test.

In addition, the fact that more than 70% of

Substantially Up Schools scored above vari-

ous cutoffs for Chicago, Illinois, and federal

sanctions enables these schools to avoid

the loss of autonomy and the stigma that

are associated with being labeled a proba-

tion school or a school in need of im-

provement or being placed on the states

academic early warning list or academic

watch list.

At the same time, between 27 and 38

schools in the Substantially Up group

failed to meet one or more of these cutoffs

(see Chart 10). And even those Substantially

Up Schools with 40%-50% of their studentsmeeting particular cutoffs demonstrate a

major need for further improvement, a

point discussed further in Section 5.

Mathematics Results forSubstantially Up, Tending Up,

and No Trend SchoolsAlthough this study has primarily focused

on reading achievement, we also con-

On the ISAT Reading

Test in spring 2004,113

of 140 Substantially

Up Schools met federal

reading standards. In

contrast, only 23 of 113

No Trend Schools metfederal standards.


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CHART 11.Latest Achievement Score Trends for Chicago K-8 Elementary

Schools that Were Low Achieving in 1990 and Were Substantially Up,Tending Up, or No Trend on the Iowa Math Test from 1990 to 2003


39/85

The following major patterns are apparent

in the math results presented in Chart 11:

A very positive finding is that many

more schools that were low achieving in1990 were in the Substantially Up trend

group on the Iowa Math Test than on the

Iowa Reading Test (253 schools in math

versus 144 in reading). This larger group

of Substantially Up Schools showed

steady improvement from 1994 on and

had reached 50% (the national average)

by 2003.

Further, only 54 schools were in the

Tending Up group on the Iowa Math

Test and only 59 schools were in the

No Trend group on the Iowa Math Test.

However, the Tending Up and No Trend

groups showed the dismaying pattern

of leveling off in 2000 and flat-lining in

subsequent years on the Iowa Math Test.

Overall AchievementPatterns for AllElementary Schools

AnalyzedBased on analyses of the achievement levels

and trends for both (1) elementary schools

that had Low Achievement in 1990 and (2)

elementary schools that had Adequate to

Good Achievement in 1990 (see Chart 3),

we classified the 433 elementary schools

analyzed into four groups. (Trend analy-

ses for Adequate to Good Schools were

carried out, but are not presented in this

report.) These four groups reflect long-term

achievement patterns of these 433 schools

on the Iowa Reading Test from 1990 to

2003. This analysis is presented in Chart 12:

CHART 12.Nature of Iowa Reading Test Progress from 1990 to 2003

(Includes Schools with Low Achievement in 1990 andSchools with Adequate to Good Achievement in 1990)


40/85

Substantial Trend of Progress.166elementary schools (38% of the total)

were Substantially Up on the Iowa

Reading Test from 1990 to 2003 (i.e. they

increased their percentage of students ator above the national average at a rate

of 19.5% or more from 1990 to 2003). Of

these 166 schools that were Substantially

Up from 1990 to 2003, 144 had Low

Achievement in 1990 and 22 had

Adequate to Good Achievement in 1990.

Maintained Good Achievement(50%or more at or above the national averagein 2003). 38 schools (9% of the total)

maintained good achievement and had

50% or more of their students at or above

the national average in 2003. These

were primarily schools that began with

Adequate or Good Achievement in 1990

and maintained it, although they werenot Substantially Up from 1990 to 2003.

Limited Trend of Progress(less than50% at or above the national average

in 2003). 110 schools (25% of the total)

were in the Tending Up trend group, but

still had less than 50% of their students

achieving at or above the national

average in 2003.

No Trend of Progress(less than 50% ator above the national average in 2003)

As the map in Chart 13 indicates, schools

that have shown a Substantial Trend of

Progress and have Maintained Good

Achievement are distributed across Chi-

cago, including many of the citys poorest

neighborhoods. Often schools that have

made substantial progress are within a few

blocks of schools that had unacceptable

achievement and failed to improve. At the

same time, some neighborhoods have no

Substantially Up Schools or Schools that

have Maintained Good Achievement on theIowa Reading Test.

If schools that have improved significantly

are employing a distinctive set of practices,

the city can build on this success and adapt

these lessons to schools that are failing to

improve. This issue is the focus of Section 3.

Nearly half of Chicago

K-8 schools showed

a Substantial Trendof Progress or

Maintained Good

Achievement between

1990 and 2003.


41/85

Ebinger

Onahan

NorwoodPark

Wildwood

EdgebrookSauganash Solomon Clinton

Stone

Decatur

Rogers

Armstrong, G Field

Kilmer

Hayt

SwiftHitch

Farnsworth

Prussing

Smyser

BridgeDever

Reinberg

Gray

PortagePark

Schubert

Canty

Dore

Pasteur

Clark, M Sumner

Dvorak

Nobel

Falconer

Scammon

Belding

PalmerVolta

Jamieson

Budlong

Chappell

PeirceTrumbull

Goudy

Hibbard

Coonley

ClevelandBell

HamiltonBlaine

Audubon

Brentano

Darwin Goethe

Yates

Pulaski

Jahn

Cameron LafayetteDe Diego

SabinPritzker

Ryerson ChopinColumbus

Pickard

RuzSaucedo

BrightonPark

Gunsaulus

CarsonBontemps

Graham

Evergreen

Greene, N

Holden

Cooper

JungmanOrozco

GalileoJackson, A

TalcottOtis

Mitchell

Peabody

LincolnNewberry

BurleyHawthorne

Inter-American

Disney

LaSalle

Franklin

Haines

PershingMcClellan

Mayo

McCorkle

ColmanBeethoven

ParkmanBeasley

Overton

WoodsonNorth

Carter Carnegie

Ray

Murray

Harte

Dirksen

Kellman

King

Chavez Canter

Kinzie

Alcott

Arai

Andersen

Bateman

Burr

Carpenter

Casals

Chase

Drake

FarrenEdwards

Finkl

Greeley

Healy

Hughes, C.

Irving

Jordan

LeMoyneLinne

Logandale

Lovett

Lowell

MarshallMiddle

McAuliffe

McCormick

McCutcheon

McPherson

OriolePark

PilsenPlamondon

Ravenswood

Schiller

Seward

Stockton

Twain

Walsh

Whittier

Boone

Garvy

Hale

Byrne

Sheridan

Ogden

Sayre

Thorp,O

Edison

PetersonAlbany

Park

WoodsonSouth

Ward, J

De la Cruz

Grant

CHART 13.

Substantially Up Schools and Schools that Have Maintained

Good Achievement on the Iowa Reading Test (1990-2003)


42/85


43/85

Distinctive Practices of Unusually

Effective Urban Elementary Schools

3S E C T I O N

Some Key Section 3 Findings

For more than 40 years, researchers in the United States and world-

wide have conducted careful studies to understand the practicesof unusually effective schools schools that serve large

percentages of low-income students but significantly outperform

schools serving similar student bodies.

In the early 1990s, Designs for Change reviewed this research and

identified a set of distinctive practices found in unusually effective

urban elementary K-8 schools. Designs for Change organized these

distinctive practices around Five Essential Supports for Student

Learning, which DFC currently describes as:

1. School Leadership Focused on Success for All Students

2. Social Supports for Learning (School Culture)

3. Family and Community Partnerships Support Learning

4. Adults Collaborate and Learn

5. Quality Learning Activities (with a Special Focus on Literacy)

Extensive research carried out in Chicago during the past decade by

the Consortium on Chicago Research, Designs for Change, and other

researchers further clarifies the distinctive practices of unusually

effective urban elementary K-8 schools that are related to these Five

As documented in Section 2, the re-search study identified 144 Substan-tially Up Schools that were low achieving

in 1990. These grade K-8 schools serve as

many students as the Baltimore PublicSchools and have a higher poverty rate

than the students attending any of the 20

big city schools in the U.S. with the largest

student enrollments.

Yet, Chart 6-a documents that the typical

school in this group has risen from 21.4%

at or above the national average on theIowa Reading Test in 1990 (based on 1988

national norms) to 50% in 2005 (based on

2000 national norms). In other words, the

typical Substantially Up School has reached

the national average.

National and InternationalResearch Has Documentedthe Practices of UnusuallyEffective Schools


44/85

schools schools that serve a large per-

centage of low-income students, but where

students achieve substantially better than

schools serving similar student bodies. For

example, reviews of this research appear in

The International Handbook of School Effec-

tiveness Research and in Unusually Effective

Schools: A Review and Analysis of Research and

Practices.58

In Section 3, we (1) briefly summarize the

practices of unusually effective urban el-

ementary schools and (2) provide profiles oftwo such neighborhood schools in Chica-

go: Earhart Options for Knowledge School

and Carson Elementary School.

Both Earhart and Carson are

neighborhood schools with an

effective Local School Council

who have been active leadersin improving their school and

in involving families and the

community in school improve-

ment. Both Local School Coun-

cils hired and supported a

principal who was the catalyst

for transforming the school.

Both schools are now achiev-

ing significantly above national averages

on the Iowa Tests in reading and math and

unusually effective schools, in order to help

researchers, educators, Local School Coun-

cil members, and others to understand this

research and apply it in improving Chicago

elementary schools.60

The result of this effort was a framework

for analyzing and carrying out school

improvement, called the Five Essential

Supports for Student Learning, which

has been widely employed in Chicago. It

is important to understand that the Five

Essential Supports for Student Learning arenot simply a summary of research carried

out by Designs for Change, but rather a

framework that summarizes the findings

ofscores of studies of unusually effective

schools from Chicago, other U.S. cities, and

other countries.

The Consortium on Chicago SchoolResearch has employed this framework

to shape its own research and has refined

this framework through its own extensive

studies of Chicago schools and classrooms

during the past decade. Here is what the

Consortium concludes about the Five

Essential Supports for Student Learning:

The Consortium has conducted

extensive, in-depth studies of Chicagos

public schools since 1990 This

Earhart teachers not only have

high academic expectations,

but develop warm caring


45/85

beneficial to consider each support in

relation to the others.

The Essential Supports are most likely to

develop in schools where relational trustsuffuses working relationships across the

school community.61

In April 1998, Designs for Change pub-

lished its initial research study of achieve-

ment trends in Chicago elementary schools

from 1990 to 1997.62 As part of this study,

Designs for Change analyzed teacher and

student survey data from the Consortium

on Chicago School Research to determine

whether Substantially Up Schools carried

out a set of distinctive practices, which

differed from the practices of No Trend

Schools at a statistically significant level.63

The practices identified through this

Designs for Change research in 1998 aredepicted in Chart 14, and are organized

around the Five Essential Supports for Stu-

dent Learning. For example, the DFC study

indicated that the Substantially Up Schools

had active Local School Councils as well

as principals who acted on a clear vision

for improving their school, while involving

others in developing and carrying out this

vision. And these effective schools had a

high level of collaboration among staff, as

In the balance of Section 3,

we present an overview of

the Five Essential Supports

for Student Learning and re-

lated educational practices,

ending Section 3 with brief

profiles of Earhart and Car-

son that illustrate how two

unusually effective urban

elementary schools carry out

the Five Essential Supports

for Student Learning.One of the ironies of Chicago

school reform in 2005 is that

Chicago has scores of effec-

tive schools (like Earhart and

Carson) that typically oper-

ate in obscurity and are not employed as

a source of expertise to help other schools

improve, while the school system leader-

ship spends millions in the effort to create

the very model schools that already exist

in Chicago in abundance.

Five Essential Supports forStudent Learning

Research about the distinctive practices

of unusually effective urban elementary

schools like Earhart and Carson can be or

Carson kindergarten students

read and act out the story of the

Three Little Pigs in Spanish.


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CHART 14.What Makes Schools with Substantially Improved

Reading Achievement Stand Out?*


47/85

A common thread runs through all Five

Essential Supports: Adult Teamwork to Im-

prove Student Learning and Development.

Each is described in turn below.

Essential Support 1. School Leadership

Focused on Success for All Students.

The Local School Council (LSC) is a signifi-

cant source of leadership in the school that

conscientiously carries out its mandated

responsibilities for principal selection and

evaluation and for involvement in schoolimprovement planning and budget de-

velopment. The LSC also fosters parent

involvement and builds helpful relation-

ships with community agencies. Many LSC

members volunteer in the school.65

The LSC also organizes politically when

Central Board decisions have the potential

to aid or harm the school.

The Local School Councils most critical

decision is to take great care inhiring an

excellent principal, and to continue to sup-

port a principal who proves to be effective.

Even if they choose a good principal, the

Local School Council remains actively in-

volved in refining and maintaining a school

vision, helping shape school improvement

and budget priorities, carefully evaluating

The principal carefully monitors all aspects

of activity in the school to ensure appropri-

ate implementation of the schools improve-

ment strategy, while encouraging broad buy-

in to the schools objectives and practices.

The principal carefully selects and mentors

staff who have the necessary expertise and

commitments to implement the schools

vision. Thus, teacher turnover is generally

low, and teachers stay long term

to develop skills and experience

that enable them to significantlyincrease their contributions.

The principal (and/or school

leaders acting with the principals

strong support) provide active

educational leadership to teachers

in the classroom and are commit-

ted to educational developmentfor all staff and for other key

school community leaders.

Active teacher leaders and other

staff leaders shape and carry out

the schools educational priorities

and practices. This staff leader-

ship includes shaping strategies to strength-en the schools instructional programs

and professional development, as well as

i th h l t th d k

Earhart principal Patricia Walshdiscusses their end-of-the-year

writing projects with third-

grade students.


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for coordinating a long-term restructuringprocess. They mentor other members of the

school community who master these skills.

Essential Support 2. Social Supports

for Learning (School Culture). The

school community consistently creates and

maintains a school environment (school cul-

ture) that effectively supports high studentattendance, a safe atmosphere conducive

to learning, and the engagement of all stu-

dents in challenging educational activities.

Students move beyond externally imposed

discipline to learn self-discipline. The

schools physical environment, educational

materials, and technology are carefully

assembled and maintained to support

learning.

h h h h

Essential Support 3. Family and Com-

munity Partnerships Support Learning.

Families and community agencies are im-

portant partners in planning and carrying

out the educational program.

A critical first step is to ensure that when

parents enter the school (often bringing

negative past experiences with schools),

they are treated with respect and the issues

that brought them to school are resolved.

The school seeks to draw parents into aset ofincreasing levels of involvement, a

process which often begins with participa-

tion in school activities such as childrens

performances, classroom visits, and Report

Card Pick-Up Day and can progress to

adult education classes at the school, volun-

teering, and participation on school com-

mittees or the Local School Council.

Parents collaborate with the school to sup-

port childrens learning at home. School

staff send home a steady stream of home-

work assignments, with which parents are

asked to assist their children.

Essential Support 4. Adults Collabo-

rate and Learn. Principal leadership and

shared teacher beliefs facilitate a high level

ofcollaboration, trust, and peer support

A first-grade teacher

team at Carson prepares

recommendations about

how to ensure balance and

diversity in student classes for

the next school year.


49/85

The members of the school community de-

velop effective partnerships with sources

of external assistance (for example, univer-

sities and nonprofit assistance organiza-

tions). They also participate in networks

with peers in other school communities to

share ideas. At the same time, the schools

key strategies for educational improvement

continue to depend upon (1) a core group

of leaders within the school community

who remain active over an extended period

of time and (2) mutual trust and collabora-tion among school community members.

Other key stakeholders in the school com-

munity besides staff (including the Lo-

cal School Council and other parent and

community leaders) collaborate with the

staff to assess current practices, to plan for

improvement, and to foster a shared sense

of responsibility for the school and its stu-

dents. The Local School Council and other

parent and community leaders active in the

school participate in educational develop-

ment programs and assistance that help

them carry out their school improvement

responsibilities effectively.

Essential Support 5. Quality Learn-

ing Activities (with a Special Focus

on Literacy). The school staff, with the

struction in word analysis and comprehen-

sion, the development of reading fluency,

strong support for independent reading,

and regular opportunities to write. The

school also emphasizes the development of

speaking and listening skills. Regular learn-

ing activities outside school target reading

and language development.

A Common Thread: Adult Teamwork to

Improve Student Learning and Devel-

opment. A common thread runs through

the implementation of the Five EssentialSupports for Student Learning in unusually

effective grade K-8 schools that serve a sub-

stantial percentage of low-income students.

All adult members of the school commu-

nity (including the Local School Council,

parents, the principal, teachers, other school

staff, community agencies, and volunteers)achieve a high degree of Adult Team-

work to improve student learning and

development.

These adults demonstrate high levels of

mutual trust and unselfish assistance to

each other. They exhibit a high level of

skill in accomplishing tasks by working asgroups. They exhibit what social scientists

have called a high level of social capital.66


50/85

CHART 15.

Box Plot for Cooperative Adult Effort for School Improvement(Adult Teamwork). Elementary Schools on Probation in Fall

1996 Compared with Elementary Schools that Were SubstantiallyUp from 1990 to 1997


51/85

Mutually Reinforcing Sourcesof Evidence

The mutually reinforcing sources of evi-

dence summarized above underscore theconclusions that:

The Five Essential Supports for Student

Learning accurately organize crucial

practices of unusually effective urban

elementary schools that successfully

educate a large percentage of low-

income students.

Effective practices identified previously

by employing the Five Essential Support

frameworktypically characterize the

distinctive practices of the Substantially

Up Schools depicted in Chart 5 and

listed in Appendix A.

Chicago has a unique opportunity to

further analyze the practices of its largenumber of unusually effective schools and

to devise strategies for drawing on these ef-

fective schools as resources to help improve

each other and to improve schools that are

failing to educate their students.

In the balance of Section 3, we present brief

profiles of two of these unusually effective

Chicago K-8 schools that successfully edu-

cate student bodies with a large percentage

of low-income students.


52/85

Address: 1710 East 93rd St.Neighborhood: Calumet Heights

Principal: Patricia WalshLSC Chair: Climtonia Evans

Students in 2003-04: 291 enrolled100% African American77% Low-Income

Grades Served: K-8Attendance Rate: 97%

EARHART SCHOOL FACTS

Surpassing the Suburbs

Spend a day at Earhart, and you will conclude

that words like self-discipline and confidence

have taken on a reality in students lives and are

not just school slogans.

One piece of supporting evidence

is that Earharts standardized test

scores were above the state-wide

average for students meeting and

exceeding state standards in ev-

ery subject at every grade level

in 2004.

Much public concern has rightly

been focused on the racial

achievement gap. Earharts eighth graders had

a higherpercentage of students meeting

and exceeding state standards in reading and

writing than was achieved by white students

statewide in 2004, and Earhart eighth graders

matched white students statewide in math.

Evanston and Oak Park are two school districts

that have devoted substantial effort to closing

average.) Earhart achievement has remained

extremely high to the present time. In 2005,

75% of Earhart students met or exceeded the

national average on the Iowa Reading Test (see

chart).

Earhart admits all students from its neighbor-

hood who want to attend (currently about 70%

of Earharts student body). The balance are

selected through a lottery among applicants

from outside the neighborhood.

A notable strength of Earharts history is that

the school maintained its exceptionally high

levels of achievement while making a success-ful transition from the schools original princi-

pal to current principal Patricia Walsh in 1998.

When she became principal, Walsh maintained

many features of the existing educational

program, while putting her own stamp on the

schools continued improvement.

Central to Walshs views about Earhartsstrengths are its curriculum standards and

academic climate.Students wear impeccable

School Profile:Earhart Options for Knowledge School


53/85

Further, students find that the structure and

the press to excel academically at Earhart are

balanced by a personal concern for their emo-tional well being, with teachers viewing a stu-

dents emotional growth as integral to learning.

Principal Walsh works with the staff to focus

Earharts school improvement plan on helping

students master state learning standards, as

opposed to teaching to the test.

She spends 70% of the time that students arein school in classrooms, observing teachers

and advising them. She presses for constant

collaboration and analysis among teachers,

aimed at determining What is working? and

What needs work?

My parents taught me at an early age to

achieve and seek excellence in everything Idid, says Walsh. I believe it is my professional

responsibility to ensure that our youngsters are

exposed to similar values. I will never settle for

less.

In language arts, Earhart teaches both word

analysis (phonics) and literature from kin-

dergarten on. And students write carefully

revised compositions each month that are dis-

played throughout the school.

A major year long project illustrates how the

spelled out in a year-

long plan for Amelia

Earharts School WideTechnology Research

Project: The Wonder-

ful World of Puppets

a plan and related

calendar of events

were shared with the

entire school commu-

nity at the beginning

of the school year.

Earharts LSC remains

very active. Encourag-

ing parent involve-

ment through volun-

teering and through

helping organizestudent performances

and sports programs

have been a major

recent focus, according to out-going LSC Chair

Anita Howard-Smith, who has recently com-

pleted her studies to become a school nurse.

Earharts Iowa Reading Test

Achievement (1990 to 2005)

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

National Average

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

designs for change full report-the big picture

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