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Program on Education & Society

Transforming High School Teaching and Learning:

A District-wide Design

Judy WurtzelSenior Fellow

The Aspen Institute

May 2006

The Aspen Institute Program on Education and Society

The Education and Society Program provides an informed and neutral forum for education practitioners,

researchers and policy leaders to engage in focused dialogue regarding their efforts to improve student

achievement, and to consider how public policy changes can affect progress. Through our meetings, analysis,

commissioned work and structured networks of policymakers and practitioners, the Program for over 25 years

has developed intellectual frameworks on critical education issues that assist federal, state and local policy

makers working to improve American education.

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ISBN: 0-89843-451-3Inv No.: 06-011

Transforming High School Teaching and Learning: A District-wide Design 1

3 Acknowledgements

5 Overview

7 Design Components for a District-wide Effort to Transform High School Teaching and Learning

Component #1: A New Vision of Teacher Professionalism that Supports Instructional Improvement .................................................................. 7

Component #2: A Comprehensive Strategy to Attract and Retain HighlyEffective High School Teachers .................................................................................... 10

Component #3: Clear Expectations for High School Instructional Practice .................... 15

Component #4: Anchor Standards and Aligned Assessments that Support Effective Instruction ...................................................................... 16

Component #5: Core Curriculum and Common Lessons and Tools Based on the Anchor Standards and Assessments.................................................... 19

Component #6: A System to Build Teacher Capacity .......................................... 25

29 Implications and Next Steps

31 Appendix A: 2005 Workshop Participants

33 References

35 Notes

37 Other Program on Education Publications

Table of Contents


Acknowledgements

S ince 2000, the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program has identified newapproaches for making the American high school a pathway to college and

upwardly mobile careers for all students. Prior Aspen publications, including Transforming the American High School: New Directions for State and Local Policy, proposed state and local strategies for increasing the rigor of high school while promoting a varietyof high school types and multiple pathways to post-secondary success.

This paper builds on earlier work and considers the question of how substantially toimprove high school instruction. The paper is informed by discussions and work-teampapers at a July 2005 Aspen Education and Society Workshop on this topic that broughttogether approximately 25 practitioners, researchers, grantmakers and policymakers. I amgrateful for the input of all the participants, who are listed in Appendix A. In addition, adraft of this report was used in and strengthened by the December 2005 discussions at anAspen Urban Superintendents Network meeting and at an Aspen Critical Friends groupconvened to support the Portland, Oregon School District’s efforts to implement some ofthe reform strategies discussed here.

The conversations and analysis that led to this report would not have been possible withoutthe efforts of Michael O’Keefe and Michael Cohen, co-chairs of the Aspen Education andSociety Program, Robert Schwartz and Mike Timpane, senior advisors to the program, and Nancy Pelz-Paget, program director. I also want to thank Colleen Callahan, Amy Hightower, Julianna Kershen, Jennifer O’Day, Vicki Phillips, Michelle Rhee, Stefanie Sanford, and Uri Treisman for helpful feedback on prior drafts.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the support of the Carnegie Corporation, the Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, all of whichmade this work possible.

Despite all this help, the final framing and any weaknesses of the paper are my own.

Judy WurtzelWashington, D.C.

April 2006

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/DEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5/highschools.pdf

The data on high school student perform-ance and graduation rates, particularly in

high poverty urban and rural schools, makeclear that significant increases in studentattainment and achievement are necessary ifall students are to graduate from high schoolfully prepared for post-secondary education,citizenship, and work. Much of the ground-work in high school reform to date hasfocused on organizational aspects of highschool, particularly creating a wide variety ofsmaller schools, smaller learning communities,and alternative learning pathways to engageand meet the needs of young people. A prem-ise of reformers is that personalization, rele-vance, rigor and improved instruction willoccur most readily in smaller schools.However, experience is showing that size is anecessary but not sufficient condition. Whilesmaller schools may create the relationshipsand conditions that make high quality instruc-tion possible, improved instruction andachievement does not flow directly fromthem. (AIR/SRI 2004, AIR/SRI 2005)

Given this track record, questions facingthe high school reform movement include:

• What will it take to get high schoolinstructional improvement that resultsin demonstrated increases in studentlearning?

• What supports do high school teachersneed to be successful in improvinginstruction and from where will theyget them?

• What changes affecting the professionalrole, knowledge, and skills of teachers areneeded if reforms are to be successful?

Significant improvements in student learn-ing require real change at the heart ofinstruction: the interaction of students andteachers around the content to be learned.This paper suggests a set of design specifica-tions for strengthening this interaction of stu-dent, teacher and content and increasingstudent performance across a school district.

These designs have six components. The firsttwo focus on what the job of effective highschool teaching looks like and on getting andkeeping teachers who can do this job. Theyoffer a new teacher “job description” that placesaccountability for results and the use andrefinement of effective practices at the core ofteaching and also suggest approaches forrecruiting and retaining high school teacherswho have the will and capacity to embrace thisjob description and increase student learning.The next four components describe an infra-structure for improving high school instructionthat is consistent with this new job description,that provides the concrete supports needed tohelp new and veteran teachers know what andhow to teach effectively, that enables teachers toelicit higher performance from their students,and that rests on a teacher-based system forcontinuously improving results.

These six components are:

1. A new vision of teacher professional-ism that supports instructionalimprovement

2. A comprehensive strategy to attractand retain highly effective high schoolteachers

3. Clear expectations for high schoolinstructional practices


Overview

4. Anchor standards and aligned assess-ments that support effective instruction

5. Core curriculum, common lessons andtools based on the anchor standardsand assessments

6. A system to build teacher capacity

Most of the ideas here are not new. Someschool districts and states have implementedelements. However, this paper attempts to layout a fairly comprehensive picture of highschool instructional reform and to push theconversation about high school instructionalimprovement into some new territory.

First, the paper builds on work done in manyurban districts at the K- 8 level to create systemsof “managed instruction,” that is, deliberateefforts to align common curriculum andinstructional materials, formative and bench-mark assessments, extensive professional devel-opment, and instructional leaders who supporta shared set of instructional practices. Most ofthe urban districts seeing significant gains at theelementary school level are using some form ofmanaged instruction. (Snipes, Doolittle andHerlihy 2002; Council of Great City Schools2004; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 2005).Moreover, at the high school level, theAdvanced Placement and InternationalBaccalaureate programs, available primarily forhigh performing students, have many character-istics of managed instruction. This paper consid-ers with some specificity what an effectiveapproach to managed instruction – in this papertermed “instructional infrastructure” – mightlook like if designed for all high school students.

Second, the paper suggests how theseapproaches can be developed and implementedin ways that are both consistent with and rein-forcing of a robust vision of teacher profes-sionalism. Based on the premise that teacherprofessionalism is fundamentally about individ-

ual and collective effort to improve studentoutcomes, this paper describes an infrastruc-ture for improving high school instruction thatis organized around teachers taking leadershipin identifying and refining practices and toolsdemonstrated to improve student learning.

Third, the paper recognizes the urgency ofattracting and retaining a teacher workforcethat embraces this new job description forhigh school teachers and can effect improve-ments in student learning. The paper sug-gests how mobilizing an array of humanresource strategies focused on accountabilityfor results - including rigorous approaches torecruitment, hiring, induction, evaluation,and compensation - coupled with an infra-structure for improving instruction, will helpdistricts build a highly effective workforce.

Of course, these design specifications do notfully address all of the elements critical toeffective high school improvement. How tomake students and student engagement centralto instructional improvement, how to build thecapacity of districts and outside partners toimplement the strategies suggested here, howto improve the equity of access to human andfinancial resources within a district, how todevelop and support effective high school prin-cipals, and how to build the public will to sup-port and invest in instructional improvementare all central questions that this paper doesnot attempt to tackle.

Finally, it is useful to note that this paper focus-es primarily on the district role in improvinghigh school instruction. This is because it seemsincreasingly clear that school districts are a - ifnot the - key unit for instructional improvementat scale. However, much of what is describedhere could be initiated or supported by states,by consortia of districts, or by networks ofmanaged schools within or across districts.

6 Transforming High School Teaching and Learning: A District-wide Design

Component #1: A New Vision of TeacherProfessionalism that Supports InstructionalImprovement

Much of the work in any district-wide highschool instructional improvement effort willfocus, rightly, on the nuts and bolts of stan-dards, curriculum, assessments, instructionaltools, teacher learning, and human capitaldevelopment. This paper first takes a step backto look at the culture of teaching, the contextin which instructional improvement takesplace and into which new teachers are recruit-ed. Today, educators often define professional-ism as freedom to make their own decisionsabout what, how, and sometimes even whomto teach. Yet the progress of high poverty dis-tricts and schools that are making gains in stu-dent achievement, at least at the elementarylevel, appears to be attributable, in part, toimprovement strategies that constrain teacherautonomy - that prescribe standards, assess-ments, core curriculum, instructional materialsand techniques, and tightly aligned professionaldevelopment. This approach is seen by some as“teacher proofing” and sparks complaints thattalented teachers are leaving the classroombecause they are not treated as professionals.

How can the profession navigate the terrainbetween teacher autonomy and tight prescrip-tion? If the teaching profession and teachers’concept of professionalism were organizedaround improving instruction and studentachievement, what would the principle tenetsof teacher professionalism be? What would betightly prescribed, what would be left to pro-fessional judgment, and how would profes-sional judgment be effectively exercised?

This paper suggests a definition of educa-tor professionalism that supports instruction-al improvement. This definition is based onwell-established ideas of educator profession-alism but also draws from other professions,as well as beliefs about what teacher profes-sionalism can and should be.

Elements of Professionalism

Looking at common elements of profes-sionalism across sectors, there are at leastseven elements:

First, a professional owes her primary dutyto her clients. In the case of educators, thismeans a primary duty to students.

Second, professionals are accountable to theprofession for results. At the grossest level ofaccountability, each profession has a defini-tion of malpractice and the profession itselfhas standards and procedures for sanctioningand ultimately ejecting from the professionthose who commit malpractice.

Third, in each profession there exists a body ofspecialized knowledge and agreed upon standards ofpractice and specific protocols for performance.These standards of practice and protocols gen-erally have a causal relationship to client out-comes. Thus, these norms and protocols arebased on either evidence about effectiveness inimproving results for clients or, in areas whereevidence is either unclear or not dispositive, cod-ified agreement by the profession about prac-tices and protocols most likely to benefit clients.

Fourth, a professional has a duty to improveher own practice. Thus, professionals receive

New Vision of Teacher Professionalism 7

Design Components for a District-wide Effort to Transform High School Teaching and Learning

initial training in the specialized knowledge oftheir field and then are expected continuouslyto improve their own practice so that theybecome more expert practitioners and remainup-to-date in the advancements of their field.

Fifth, a professional has a duty to improvecommon or collective practice in the profession.For example, in medicine, hospital deaths trig-ger a morbidity/mortality conference wherethe staff responsible for the patient and othersin the hospital meet to determine whetherprofessional protocols were followed, how toimprove adherence to protocols, and whetherthe protocols should be reconsidered in lightof new evidence.

Sixth, professionals are expected to exerciseprofessional judgment. While professional prac-tice is governed by standards and protocols,professions require professionals to considerthe specific characteristics and needs of theirclients.

Seventh, professionals whose practiceinvolves human improvement (therapists,social workers, teachers, doctors) must seek tofoster productive client behaviors that lead to suc-cessful outcomes. They cannot mandate com-pliance, except under extraordinarycircumstances, but must develop relationshipsand work with clients to ensure compliance.

These definitional elements suggest thatprofessions are not laissez-faire in either theduties or obligations they assign to profes-sionals or the standards of practice to whichprofessionals adhere. At the same time, pro-fessionals are not automatons who blindlyfollow professional rules. They exercise theirown professional judgment and at the sametime seek to improve their practice for thebenefit of their clients and profession.

Implications for Practice

In what situations should professionalduties, obligations, standards and specific pro-tocols be tightly prescribed, and when shouldthey be looser to provide significant latitudefor professional judgment or experimenta-tion? The key elements of professionalismabove suggest that professions must bedemanding and specific regarding duty toclients and accountability for client out-comes. But what about specific practices suchas how to perform an operation or how toteach phonemic awareness? When is it appro-priate to tightly define the practices of pro-fessionals and when is it not?

In general, professional practice should bemore tightly prescribed when:

• There is clear evidence about what practiceslead to good outcomes for clients.

• There is a substantial knowledge base aboutmore and less effective practices.

• The professional is less expert. Those whoare new to the profession should begranted less room for professional judg-ment than those who have been in theprofession and gained experience andmastery and/or advanced certification.

• Consistency matters. For example, ifmany separate professionals andprocesses are responsible for the ulti-mate outcomes for the client, often it isessential that professionals abide byshared standards and protocols toensure the best client outcomes.

• Outcomes are poor. In contexts whereclient outcomes are particularly bad,professionals should be expected totightly follow professional norms andprotocols whenever they exist in anattempt to improve outcomes.


• Client risk is high. When the risk toclients is high - say cardiac surgery orreading instruction - the necessity offollowing standard practices is greaterthan where risk is low - say athlete’sfoot or violin instruction - where idio-syncratic practice may be acceptable.

Conversely, practice may be less tightly pre-scribed when:

• The evidence and knowledge base aboutwhat works is less clear.

• The professional has more experience andexpertise to inform his or her profes-sional judgment.

• Consistency is less important.

• Outcomes are strong.

• Client risk is low.

• The context of practice is particularlyuncertain or problematic. For example,the context of practice may renderstandard practices less effective thanthey might usually be or make standardpractices impractical, thereby support-ing the development of new standardsfor these contexts.

However, even when practice is less tightlyprescribed, idiosyncratic and laissez-faire prac-tice is not the standard. Because professionalshave a responsibility to improve their ownwork and the collective work of the profession- all in the aim of improving client outcomes -professionals should be engaged in plannedinquiry, research and evaluation to continuallyimprove their own and the profession’s knowl-edge and use of effective practices. Thus, pro-fessionals should be expected to engage inorganized efforts to initiate, implement andevaluate new approaches and to share theirown effective practices with others.

In this definition of professionalism, fol-lowing agreed upon standards of practice andspecific protocols is not demeaning or limit-ing, rather, it is an essential element of beinga professional and improving both outcomesfor clients and individual and collective prac-tice. It sees common practices not as limitingbut as necessary to building the profession.

A New Vision of Teacher Professionalism

What does teacher professionalism looklike if it is organized around these ideasabout the nature of professionalism?

In this vision of teacher professionalism,teachers identify their students as their pri-mary clients and are accountable for increas-ing student performance. The professionidentifies and prepares its members in theknowledge, skills, and standards of practicethat are most likely to lead to increased stu-dent learning. At the same time, the profes-sion holds its members accountable and willdiscipline or eject from the profession thosewho are unable to improve student learning.

In this vision, fostering productive studentbehavior is central to teachers’ professionalduty. Teachers cannot force students to dotheir homework and learn. However, teach-ers are responsible for using their relationshipwith students and school structure to developproductive student behaviors.

In this vision, teachers exercise professionaljudgment about how to carry out their teach-ing each day in order to achieve the best pos-sible learning outcomes for their students. Inexercising professional judgment, teachersbase their decisions on evidence about whatworks for students in general as well as forthe particular students in their classroom thatyear. Where evidence is not compelling,

New Vision of Teacher Professionalism 9

teachers work in their own classrooms andwith others to test out and evaluate the effec-tiveness of practices in improving studentoutcomes. When student performance isweak in essential building blocks of learningor where student mobility is high, teachersare particularly rigorous about using agreedupon practices and protocols to acceleratelearning and ensure consistency for students.

In this vision, teachers have a duty toimprove their own practice - which meansthat participation in professional develop-ment, coaching, classroom observation andcontinued learning is an essential part of theteaching job, not an optional activity. “Goingpublic” with student learning data and class-room practice is a core value that teachersshare and incorporate into their own practiceand their work with other teachers.

In this vision, teachers also have a duty toimprove common practice, which includesworking with other teachers in an effort tolearn from them, to help them learn, and tocontribute to the collective knowledge aboutwhat works for students. In addition, the pro-fession has a duty to organize itself in ways thatbetter enable educators to develop, refine, applyand share knowledge of effective practices.

In this vision, teachers’ commitment toimproving student outcomes and their individ-ual and collective practice positions them ascentral actors in developing the school and dis-trict-wide infrastructure for instructionalimprovement. Teachers serve as developersand evaluators of their tools of practice – cur-riculum, assessment, lesson plans, professionaldevelopment – and feed a school-wide, district-wide and profession-wide effort to increaseknowledge and improve practice. Teacherautonomy is not a value or goal in itself.Instead, it is a resource for improvement.

Autonomy, when strategically deployed withinthe context of professional practice, createsthe opportunity for innovation, improvement,empowerment and commitment.

What steps would a district take to createthe culture, capacity and systems necessaryto turn this rhetoric about teacher profession-alism into a culture and infrastructure for realinstructional improvement in classrooms?How would it attract, support, retain, moti-vate and empower a teacher workforce thatembraces this new definition of the teachingprofession? And, how would it do this inhigh schools where notions of teacher inde-pendence and allegiance to department anddiscipline are so entrenched? The followingfive design components are a beginningattempt to answer those questions.

Component #2: A Comprehensive Strategyto Attract and Retain Highly Effective High School Teachers

Given the picture of teacher professional-ism sketched here, some teachers would say,“That is not the job I was prepared and hiredto do.” They would be right - this new visionfor improving results for students creates newexpectations and accountability for teachersand their work. Many teachers may alreadyaspire to this new vision of professionalismand instructional improvement and embraceit; many may come to endorse it if they findit helps them be more effective in the class-room; some will reject it.

While it is essential to invest in and supportcurrent teachers who have the will and capaci-ty to improve student learning, districts shouldalso direct significant resources to securing aneffective pipeline for a next generation ofteachers equipped for this new teaching job.


Schools are human resource intensive organi-zations and the bulk of school spending goestowards salary and benefits. In many urbandistricts, over 10 percent of the teacher work-force leaves annually. Given this investmentand turnover, an intense focus on hiring thebest teachers possible and creating supports,evaluation systems, career ladders and com-pensation systems to reward and retain effec-tive teachers can over just a few years radicallychange the quality of a high percentage of adistrict’s workforce. Equally important, suchfocus can move changes in district culture andconceptions of teacher professionalism to the“tipping point.” This section points to high-leverage strategies for tackling this challenge.

Recruit aggressively and then hire selectively.

It is a given that urban districts seek to hiretalented new high school teachers who areexperts in their content area, who have atleast a novice competency in the district’sstandards and instructional goals, the use ofdata to inform instruction, and effectivemethods for working with the high schoolpopulation in the district, and who want tobe accountable professionals committed toimproving their practice in the context ofurban schools. However, it is also a giventhat very few newly minted teachers, regard-less of the route by which they enter teach-ing, possess this ideal set of attributes.

Creating an aura of selectivity will help dis-tricts attract the highest performing candidates.This necessitates a very large applicant pool, sothat teaching positions become sought afterand a stringent selection model can yield thehighest number of potential candidates. Inorder to ensure that there is a large enoughpool of high quality candidates, a districtshould aggressively identify and recruit from a

variety of sources – including well-preparedgraduates of teacher preparation programs,mid-career professionals with significant workexperience and strong content knowledge,promising non-education majors through pro-grams like Teach For America, and high per-forming veteran teachers from outside thesystem, including those not currently teaching.With a larger pool, a district can then limitemployment offers only to candidates whomeet rigorous entry requirements.

Accountability for the human resourcesdepartment is one strategy for changing whatare sometimes perceived as intractable hiringproblems. Concrete targets such as the num-ber of applications received per vacancy, thequality of applicant pool and hired teachers,the timeline on which school level place-ments are offered and accepted, and principaland applicant customer service surveysshould determine the evaluation and ongoingemployment of human resources staff.

Invest in Induction

Regardless of their route to the classroom,new teachers do not enter equipped with allthe necessary tools to be successful in increas-ing student achievement. Induction is a criticallever for ensuring that new teachers developclarity about expectations for students and forteachers, ascribe to professional norms andschool culture, become competent with theinstructional strategies and tools used in theschool and district, and learn to address thespecific instructional challenges posed by theirstudents. The experience of districts imple-menting induction programs suggests thedesirability of the following elements for allnew teachers over a three year period: encul-turation in desired district and school norms;inclusion in on-going professional develop-

Attract and Retain Teachers 11

ment; expert mentoring in their content area;training in areas that pose specific difficulty fornew teachers; and reasonable class loads thatmake all else in this list possible.

More specifically, if a district is attemptingto create the professional culture and instruc-tional infrastructure described in these designcomponents, it is essential to induct newteachers into this culture and to introducethem to these new ideas of how a profession-al relies on an instructional infrastructureinformed by evidence of effectiveness. Theinfrastructure for supporting instructionalimprovement sketched out in Components#3 through #6 – clear expectations forinstructional practice, anchor standards andaligned assessments, and a core curriculumand common lessons and tools – are equallyimportant for new teachers as for existingteachers. Every teacher, no matter howsmart, energetic or well-prepared, can benefitfrom (and, hopefully, contribute to) thisshared platform for individual and collectiveimprovement of practice and achievement.Incoming teachers, who have not yet solidi-fied their professional habits, may be earlyadopters of these views and advocates forthem within schools. The design and contentof a formal induction program should becrafted with this in mind.

New teachers should be integrated intoon-going instructional improvement and pro-fessional development activities focused oncommon content and shared teaching chal-lenges, such as those described underComponents #5 and #6 below. By partici-pating in this work from the first days on thejob, new teachers see that working with col-leagues around improving practice is anessential element of the teaching job.

In addition, each new high school teacher

should have a trained mentor who teaches in hisor her discipline. This is essential for mathemat-ics and English/Language Arts teachers andimportant for all. Mentors should have a rea-sonable number of mentees so they observe,advise, and team teach with each new teacherat least several times a week. The interactionbetween the new teacher and the mentorshould focus on improving instruction, partic-ularly increasing engagement, alignment andrigor in the common lessons and commonstudent tasks that ground the district’simprovement efforts. Mentors should be cho-sen based on their effectiveness in the class-room, knowledge of content pedagogy andability to facilitate adult learning and shouldbe specifically trained in how to effectivelysupport new teachers.

New teachers often will need early and on-going training in key areas where they are par-ticularly under-prepared. For many newteachers, content pedagogy, classroom manage-ment, and use of student assessment data toimprove instruction are critical areas of need.

To support the development of confidenceand expertise, and to provide the time neededfor these induction supports, new teachersmust have a reasonable teaching load. Ideally,new teachers would split their time betweenclasses they teach on their own with the sup-port of a mentor, classes they team teach withthe mentor, and specialized training for newteachers. Over three years, new teacherswould transition into a full time teaching load.For example, in year one, new teachers mightteam teach two of their classes with theirmentors, and in year two team teach one classwith their mentors. In the third year theymight continue to plan with their mentors butno longer team-teach. Teachers and mentorswould have common planning time duringschool day. Regardless of whether a reduced


course load is attained, new teachers shouldnever be assigned the hardest to teach classesor a large number of class preparations.

Finally, induction programs should be regu-larly evaluated regarding their success on twobasic criteria: whether teachers’ participationis associated with improved outcomes for theirstudents and whether participation increasesthe retention of teachers who are most effec-tive in improving student outcomes.

Offer tenure only to teachers who demon-strate effectiveness

Even if districts recruit aggressively, hireselectively, and support new teachers inten-sively, not until a teacher has a track record inthe classroom is it possible to know whethera teacher is effective in attaining gains in stu-dent achievement. Thus, a key to workforcequality is rigorous evaluation of teachers intheir initial years of teaching. At the end ofthe teacher’s provisional contract (usuallythree years), districts should attempt the dis-cipline of offering on-going employment onlyto teachers with demonstrated effectivenessin producing student learning gains.

There are many factors that make it diffi-cult for districts to attain this discipline.Among them is the fact that highly accuratemeasures of teacher effectiveness do notexist. While value-added modeling has greatpotential to identify the effectiveness of indi-vidual teachers in boosting student achieve-ment, research suggests that value-addedmodels are not yet sufficiently accurate to beused for teacher accountability. (McCaffreyand Koretz, 2004) Moreover, the types ofannual standardized assessments needed togenerate value-added modeling often do notexist at the high school level. Teachers, notsurprisingly, are skeptical of using either

value-added models or test scores as the soledeterminate of evaluation and tenure deci-sions. Second, the primary tool for evalua-tion, principal observation, can be subjectiveand based on limited “snapshots” of teaching.On the other side of the equation, a negativeevaluation even of a non-tenured teacher canimmerse the principal in time-consumingdocumentation and review processes.Moreover, the challenge and cost of recruit-ing, hiring and inducting quality candidates isso daunting that principals and central officestaff are often loath to dismiss a borderlineteacher when they know that the ensuingvacancy will be difficult to fill.

Despite these challenges, districts abdicateresponsibility for the overall effectiveness oftheir workforce – and teachers lose the prom-ise of membership in a profession grounded inimproving instruction and achievement – if dis-tricts fail to establish a fair but high bar foroffering on-going employment. While workingwith the research community to develop andvalidate more robust and accurate measures ofnew teacher effectiveness, districts can current-ly develop reasonable procedures for tenuredecisions. These procedures should have clearexpectations about teacher performance andrequire evidence from a range of sources,including student achievement data and princi-pal observation. When coupled with objectivemeasures of student achievement, observa-tions from mentors or coaches, as is used insome peer assistance and review systems, canbe particularly powerful. At the high schoollevel, mentors and coaches are often more like-ly than a high school principal to regularlyobserve the new teacher, understand the con-tent standards and lessons to be taught, and beable to gauge the new teacher’s ability toimprove instruction based on feedback andsupport. (Goldstein and Noguera, 2006)

Attract and Retain Teachers 13

Districts can make it more likely that therewill be high standards in the tenure decisionprocess by providing clear guidance about theevidence to be considered and the level ofteacher proficiency expected in evaluations,training for principals and others in how tocoach and evaluate around performance,extra support from central office staff in con-ducting and documenting effective evalua-tions, and a responsive human resources staffwho will aid principals in filling vacanciesquickly if a weak teacher is not renewed.

Create career ladders and compensation sys-tems to retain highly effective teachers

High achieving individuals want to knowthat there are adequate opportunities foradvancement within their careers. Elementsof a career ladder that seem likely to meetthose needs include opportunities for teach-ers to stay in the classroom but also assumeincreasing levels of responsibility within theirschools (and the district), positions that areschool-based but are focused on providinginstructional leadership and support to allteachers, and pathways to principal positionsfor strong teachers who also have aptitudeand skills in management, operations, andfinance. The instructional infrastructuredescribed in Components 3 to 6 depends, inpart, on well-constructed career ladders sinceit depends heavily on teacher leadership indesigning, evaluating, and improving instruc-tional tools and practices.

High-achieving individuals also want to beheld accountable and rewarded for their suc-cesses. Differentiated pay can be one elementof a larger set of incentives for professionalperformance in the classroom. There are avariety of approaches to configuring differen-tiated pay regimes – awards to entire school

staffs, to teams of teachers, and to individu-als. Some incentive systems are based on stu-dent performance (standardized test scores,value added modeling, or a broader array ofstudent performance data), some on teacherperformance (e.g., demonstrating increasedknowledge or skills), and some on a combina-tion of both. There is no hard evidence yetdemonstrating which approaches most effec-tively create the right mix of incentives forproductive behaviors by individual teachers,school staffs and principals that lead toincreased student learning. However, ifincreasing student achievement is the corevalue of our schools and the teaching profes-sion, at least some portion of differentiatedpay determinations should be based on stu-dent performance. The increasing prolifera-tion of varying types of differentiated payinitiatives provides an important opportunityfor careful research on how to craft the mixof incentives in ways that motivate andreward effective practices.

One particularly important element of dif-ferentiated pay concerns low-performingschools. These schools tend to have difficultyattracting qualified applicants and their teach-ers rapidly leave for schools with fewer poorand minority students, leaving the schools torefill the slot with another inexperienced orunqualified teacher. It is the most accom-plished teachers who should be encouraged toteach in the lowest performing schools. Highstandards should be set for who can teach inthese schools, and then these teachers shouldbe compensated in a way that makes thesepositions highly sought after by teachers likelyto be effective in these position.

While all teachers willing to teach in a high-poverty, low-performing school should initial-ly get increased compensation, over timethose increments should become contingent


on demonstrated effectiveness – not just“combat pay” for walking into the classroom.For example, in a high-poverty schoolembarking on major restructuring and newstaffing, the base pay of the teachers might beraised significantly - perhaps by 45 percent -with a bonus potential based on studentachievement of 5 percent. This structurewould be flipped over the course of a five-year plan so that eventually 45 percent ofteachers’ salaries would be available in per-formance-based bonus and 5 percent in basepay. This model would allow the district tomaintain salary increases only if studentachievement goals are met. Of course,increased compensation alone will not be suf-ficient to attract or retain the teachers in theseschools. Compensation needs to be part of acomprehensive approach that addresses prin-cipal leadership, working conditions and addi-tional supports for the students in the school.

Component #3: Clear Expectations for High School Instructional Practice

Thus far, this paper has sketched a vision ofteacher professionalism grounded in individualand collective responsibility for improvinginstructional practices and student outcomesbased on evidence of effectiveness. It has alsosuggested strategies for recruiting and retaininghighly capable people who embrace and candeliver on the vision. While these are essentialingredients to transforming high school teach-ing and learning, they are not sufficient.

Prior efforts to reform high schools havefailed, in part, because teachers have eitherbeen left too much on their own to do the dif-ficult work of developing curriculum, assess-ments and other tools to improve instruction,or the district has taken a top-down, prescrip-tive approach that has been met with resist-

ance by teachers and principals. This papersuggests that the district creates the frame-work and tools for instructional improvementwhile promoting a culture of teacher profes-sionalism and expertise that makes teacherscentral actors in shaping and carrying outinstructional improvement. This approachrequires districts to provide additional sup-ports to improve teaching, but also demandsnew roles and accountability for teachers. Itis an approach to improving instruction that ismore likely to attract and retain the highlycapable people we want in teaching – and tohelp all teachers be more effective in the class-room. The remainder of this paper sketchesthe initial outlines of what this approachmight look like in practice.

A starting place for building a district-wideinfrastructure to improve high school instruc-tion is clear expectations for high schoolinstructional practice. Efforts should begrounded on clear, research-based premisesabout high school instruction that produceshigh student performance – and should thencontinually test those premises throughresearch and evaluation. Premises aboutinstruction must go beyond generalities; theyshould offer an explicit picture of effectiveinstruction that communicates to teachers,students, administrators, parents and otherswhat teaching and learning should look like.Such clear guidance on instructional practicescoupled with clear academic achievementgoals (discussed in the next section) providesthe target towards which the rest of the workof improving instruction is aiming. (Davidand Shields 2001; Bransford, Brown andCocking 1999; Connell and Broom 2004)

In general terms, visitors to high schoolclassrooms should be able to observe teachersand students engaged in high-quality content,producing high-quality work, and learning

Clear Expectations for Instructional Practice 15

from and teaching each other. There are fourcore elements of these expectations:

• The nature of the work. The workobserved should be rigorous andaligned to standards. The work of stu-dents and teachers is meaningful bothwithin the course at hand and in termsof students’ long-term development.The assignments, activities and prod-ucts promote deeper learning, demandrevision and reflection, illuminate link-ages to the world of work and civic life,and require application to meaningfulcontexts. They reflect academic stan-dards deemed important by the districtand state and provide opportunities forall students to master the content andmethods of the state assessments.

• What students are doing. Students are theprimary workers in the classroom.Students work individually, in groupswith other students, and with teachers.Students are engaged in meaningfulwork that is explicitly connected toprior work, and they also understandhow their work fits into the particularcourse, their high school education andthe larger world. Students are activelyengaged behaviorally and emotionally,as well as cognitively. An examinationof the products of students’ workshows clear evidence of student learn-ing, and students as well as teachers areknowledgeable about what constitutesgood work. Students review their ownperformance data and understand howthey are doing in the course. Over thecourse of their high school careers, stu-dents take on increasing responsibilityfor their own learning.

• What teachers are doing. Teachers use avariety of teaching formats to guide

and support student learning, such asdirect instruction; work in small, inten-tionally constructed groups; one-on-one work with students; andindependent student work where stu-dents have access to teachers. Theteaching being observed is obviouslyplanned, knowledgeable and engagingto students. Lessons have clear intro-ductions and closures, and reflect bothindividual planning and collectiveinquiry about students’ learning.Teachers are comfortable with lessondesign and materials they are using.Teachers monitor student learning anduse data to inform their instruction andto differentiate instruction to assurethat all students have the support theyneed to succeed.

• The classroom norms. High expectationsfor achievement and behavior, intellectualengagement and risk-taking, transparen-cy and mutual respect are the core normsof behavior that obviously permeate allinteractions between teachers and stu-dents. Students are citizens of their class-room with a corresponding voice in theaffairs of the classroom and responsibilityfor abiding by classroom norms.

Component #4: Anchor Standards andAligned Assessments that SupportEffective Instruction

Clear expectations for high school instruc-tion should be coupled with clear goals forstudent learning and effective ways of meas-uring progress towards those goals. The cur-rent structure of standards and assessments inmost states and districts does not supporteffective high school instruction. First, highschool standards are too vast, overwhelming


teachers and students with encyclopedicrequirements and long lists of discrete topicsthat are not clearly linked to achieving collegeand career ready performance. The breadth ofthe standards results in teachers racing tocover material rather than teaching for depthof understanding, or selectively coveringmaterial based on individual preferences.Second, formal and informal high schoolassessments rarely demand meaningful evi-dence of student mastery of important con-tent. Third, current assessment systemsgenerally fail to provide a clear picture ofongoing progress compared to standards.

A district attempting to redesign standardsand assessment to support high schoolinstruction could address these challenges bydeveloping “anchor standards” and an alignedassessment system that asks for meaningfulevidence of student mastery of the anchorstandards, provides a clear picture of ongoingprogress towards mastery, and allows analysisof student growth and teacher performance.

Use anchor standards to distill encyclope-dic standards and drive student learningand instruction

The idea of “anchor standards” means thatstates and districts would move from a long listof standards for each subject to a limited num-ber of core standards that define the essentialelements of what students must know in eachdiscipline. Parsimonious anchor standardsshould reflect the essential knowledge that isrequired for the next level of learning and thatis useful in multiple disciplines (for instance,writing and data analysis). The anchors mustbe sufficiently clear that students, parents andeducators can grasp their meaning, understandwhat it takes to demonstrate proficiency, andengage in purposeful work.1

The anchors must also be sufficiently rigor-ous to prepare our students for college,upwardly mobile careers and successful lives.This will require a review of the AmericanDiploma Project (Achieve 2004) and othersources, plus a gap analysis with current statestandards and assessments. Graduation require-ments and local college entrance requirementswould then need to be aligned with these stan-dards, which would require substantial collabo-ration with higher education.

Anchor standards should also build coher-ently on third through eighth grade work insimilar subjects. At some point, a district orstate would need to “backward map” thisanchor structure that describes high schooland graduation standards to the beginning oflearning in the district in order to provide avivid picture of how the disciplines grow. Inaddition, the anchors must be connected tothe districts’ instructional goals.

It is important to remember that anchorstandards can be revised as a district clarifiesits understanding of the disciplines and howthey develop and how anchors in diversedomains relate to one another. The anchorscan also be revised based on student perform-ance data that reveals weaknesses and theanchors’ instructional effectiveness. For exam-ple, results may demonstrate that there isinsufficient coherence between grades. Or, asstudent performance grows, superior anchorsmay be required to stretch that performanceto a higher level. The anchors are a center-piece of the intellectual engagement of edu-cators and students throughout the district.

Given that a district’s anchors must align withstate standards and assessments, developinganchors that fit the description above is chal-lenging. However, depending on state context,districts can make substantial strides. Moreover,

Anchor Standards 17

district leaders can be advocates within theirstates for state standards (and aligned assess-ments) that are rigorous while also sufficientlyparsimonious to support the focus and prioriti-zation inherent in the notion of anchors.Current state policy efforts to align high schoolstandards and assessments with the real expec-tations of colleges and the work force are animportant start in developing effective anchorstandards and assessments at the state and dis-trict levels. (Achieve 2005)

Build an assessment system aligned to theanchor standards

Anchor standards can be the basis of a systemof assessments designed to improve instruction.Of course, assessments serve multiple purposes:to determine student mastery of standards foraccountability purposes, to provide data onwhether student learning is “on track” towardmastery, and to provide data on student learningand instructional processes that allow educatorsand students to understand what is working, forwhom, and what needs to be changed. No sin-gle assessment can effectively serve all these pur-poses. (Stiggins 2004) This paper suggests acomprehensive assessment system that isaligned to the anchor standards. This systemwould include formal assessments (includinglarge-scale state standardized tests, end-of-courseexams and portfolios for graduation), interimbenchmark tests and ongoing formative assess-ment embedded in classroom tests, and activi-ties and student work.

Specifically, at the high school level, formalassessment would include end-of-courseexams in the core disciplines that are alignedto the anchor standards. These formal assess-ments ideally would provide not only reliableoverall scores for each subject but also reliablesub-scores at the anchor level. As part of a for-

mal assessment system, students would berequired also to produce a portfolio thatdemonstrates mastery of important and cul-minating anchor standards by the time theyexit high school. The portfolio would supple-ment on-demand assessment with a substan-tial effort requiring perseverance, in-depthstudy in several disciplines, individual choice,applied learning, real world contexts and inter-disciplinary connections. If portfolios are pub-licly examined by school and communitymembers, the process not only helps studentssee the worth of their work but also helps par-ents and the community to better understandthe high standards students are achieving.2

Another element of an effective assessmentsystem is interim assessments of learning,such as end-of-unit tests that assess a subsetof the anchors every few months, to gaugewhether students are “on track.” Theseshould be able to predict performance on theend-of-course test.

In addition, a district should develop robustformative assessment practices that comple-ment and align with formal interim and end ofcourse tests. Classroom work, projects, quizzesor essays, homework, daily observations andeven teacher questions are types of informalformative assessment that powerfully informteachers and students about what students haveand have not learned. With effective protocolsand training, teachers can gain a level of assess-ment literacy such that their questioning, class-room and homework assignments, andinformal observations of students are alignedwith a clear sense of proficient performance,giving teachers and students clear feedback onwhat has been learned and aiding teachers inadjusting their instruction and students inadjusting their learning to reach proficiency.(Black and Wiliams 1998; Black and Wiliams2004; Stiggins 2004; Symonds 2003)


Creating the system of high school assess-ment described here poses significant chal-lenges and cautions about the quality andalignment of the assessments; the timelinessand usefulness of the data for instructionalimprovement; the capacity of schools, staffand students to make use of the data; and theamount of time devoted to testing.Nonetheless, the power of effective assess-ment practices to promote increased learningsuggests that the challenge must be taken.

Component #5: Core Curriculum, CommonLessons and Tools Based on the AnchorStandards and Assessments

A district’s instructional expectations, anchorstandards and aligned assessments can providea focus for classroom, school and districtinstructional improvement efforts. But, reflect-ing on the definition of professionalism underComponent #1, how far beyond this infrastruc-ture for standards-based reform should districtsgo in specifying specific strategies and tools forinstruction? What is adequate support for theworkforce, and what is over-prescription thatcramps effective professional discretion? Beloware thoughts on how a district might create aninstructional program for high school improve-ment in which common curriculum andinstructional tools are a platform for improve-ment and innovation and are also consistentwith a robust vision of teacher professionalism.

Professionals need tools to do their work anda work context that allows them to evaluateand improve the effectiveness of their practice.(Cohen and Ball 2000) A primary tool is a corecurriculum. An effective core high school cur-riculum would be aligned to the state stan-dards and district anchors and assessmentsystem and relate powerfully to the entrancerequirements of college and universities. The

curriculum would define essential content andstudent activities as well as those that areoptional. For essential content and tasks, thecurriculum would provide guidance on pacing.In addition, the curriculum would be clearlylaid out and understandable to teachers and, atsome level, to students, parents and communi-ty leaders. (Grossman and Thompson 2004)

A core curriculum is not an end in itself butrather a tool in service of larger goals. A corecurriculum of this sort can enhance bothexcellence and equity. It grounds professionalconversations and teacher work within andacross schools. It helps educators see andinternalize common expectations for studentperformance, increasing the likelihood thatexpectations, rigor and student outcomes areconsistent for all students within and acrossschools. Moreover, in districts with highlymobile high school student populations, a corecurriculum aids consistent academic progressand more equitable outcomes for students.

While a core or “spine” high school curricu-lum with the above characteristics is essentialfor instructional improvement, it alone does notprovide a sufficient focus for deep and powerfulefforts to improve instruction. One potentiallypowerful tool to support instructional improve-ment is common lessons. Because common les-sons are perhaps the newest idea in this set ofdesign specifications, this paper describes whatthese common lessons might look like and howthey might function in some detail.

Create common lessons to ground improve-ment efforts

A district working with exemplary teacherswould develop a small set of common lessonsfor each core content area and grade level thatall teachers must teach. The required commonlessons would be short (approximately one

Core Curriculum, Common Lessons and Tools 19

class period) and use a relatively small amountof total instructional time (perhaps 10-20 per-cent or one or two classes every two weeks,depending on the district’s needs). These com-mon lessons would define both the content tobe taught (processes, concepts and facts) andspecific pedagogical practices to be used (forexample, modeling, think aloud, inquiry proto-col, close reading, questioning, cooperativesmall groups, project-based learning, etc.).

The common lessons are not discrete activi-ties but rather embedded in larger units ofstudy and in the core curriculum. Each com-mon lesson has a sample unit map that indicateshow teachers and students make meaning ofthe content while actively working toward alarger intellectually challenging product. Eachcore lesson includes a limited scope of permuta-tions, detailing how to prepare students for andto extend the lesson (see Diagrams 1 and 2,developed by Julianna L. Kershen).


Diagram 1: Sample Unit Map

Grade 11 English/language arts Unit of Study: Critical Literary Analysis

Grade 11 English/language arts Core Lesson:

Close Reading and Annotation of “The Flowers” by Alice Walker applying a historical

critical lens

Core Lesson Product: Literary Criticism Essay

Week 1

o introduce

concept of

“critical lens”

o practice close

reading

o core lesson

“The

Flowers”

o choose longer

text for

analytic

reading using

a historical

critical lens

Week 2

o record thinking

in response to

reading

o share beginning

inferences

about textual

analysis using

historical lens

o begin to record

theories about

text using

historical lens

o begin to collect

evidence in

support of

theories

Week 3

o refine theories

based on classroom

conversations

o core lesson

“Sinners in the

Hands of an

Angry God” by

Jonathon

Edwards

o continue to collect

evidence in support

of refined theories

o begin to collate and

organize evidence

around analytic

assertions

o write first draft of

essay

o review model of

progressing student

work

o discuss individual

work & model

Week 4

o continue drafting

essay, revising

for content

o have revised

essay peer and

teacher reviewed

o review model of

exemplary

student work,

compare current

draft to model

o set revision goals

o complete longer

text

o complete a

revised draft

o discuss grading

rubric


1

Diagram 2: Sample Scope of Core Lesson Permutations

Grade 11 English/language arts Unit of Study: Critical Literary Analysis

Grade 11 English/language arts Core Lesson:

Close Reading and Annotation of “The Flowers” by Alice Walker applying a historical

critical lens

Core Lesson Product: Literary Criticism Essay

Scaffolding Experiences Extensions

• Anticipation guide which asks students

to consider opinions and experiences

related to injustice, shock, horror,

confliction

• Pre-teaching of target vocabulary

words (words considered difficult for

readers to discern even after applying

contextual reading strategies)

• Close reading/examination of Picasso’s

“Guernica”

• Think/write/share: What is the history

of lynching in the United States?

• Close reading/examination of images

of lynching, Tulsa Race Riots, Rodney

King/LA riots, Emmett Till case

• Think/write/share: What is innocence?

How does a person come to lose their

innocence?

• Think/write/share: How have your past

experiences shaped who you are today?

Explain how you believe the past

shapes both the present and the future.

• (Teacher may choose from the

scaffolding list)

• Extended Writing & Conversation

Prompts:

o How does Walker’s use of

diction create the tone of the

narrative? Provide evidence to

support your assertions.

o Considering the larger historical

context within which “The

Flowers” is placed, what can

you surmise to be Walker’s

purpose for writing the story?

Provide evidence to support

your assertions.

o Imagine “The Flowers” was

written for publication only

overseas. Choose an intended

audience and explain how they

might interpret this text as a

narrative representative of

American history.

• Complimentary Texts using Historical

lens:

o Autobiography of Malcolm X

o Go Tell It on the Mountain

o Their Eyes Were Watching God

o Core lesson “Sinners in the

Hands of an Angry God”

o “The Crucible”

o The Scarlet Letter

o I Know Why the Caged Bird

Sings

o Hunger of Memory

o Cry, the Beloved Country

o Things Fall Apart

A critical element of the common lessonsis their focus on the production of high-quali-ty student work that helps both teachers andstudents evaluate their mastery of the stan-dards. These, along with other high-qualitystudent work tasks, can provide students aclearer sense of purpose in their studies.They also provide highly public and clearsamples of student work for each anchor ateach level of performance to guide educators,students, parents and the community.

Another critical element of the common les-sons is that they can be designed to supportachievement of anchor standards that areimportant for students’ academic developmentin situations where student achievement is cur-rently low and teacher knowledge and skills toboost achievement may be lagging. Thus, thecommon lessons and associated student taskswould be designed based on student perform-ance data and teacher input. For example, todevelop common lessons in Algebra I, districtstaff might identify the content domains andissues in algebra that pose the most difficultyfor students and contribute most to theachievement gap. Based on this analysis, teach-ers, teacher leaders and district staff woulddevelop common lessons. There might be atleast one embedded formative assessment permarking period directly connected to the com-mon lessons. There can be particular value indrawing the assessment from existing systemsfor which there is normative data (e.g., Mars,Agile Mind, Balanced Assessment).

The purpose of having a small core numberof common lessons and student tasks is toprovide a concrete and shared instructionalfoundation - both in content and pedagogy -for district improvement efforts. Common les-sons and tasks focus energy, attention, timeand teacher talk on important and rigorouscontent and student work and concrete and

specific strategies for ensuring studentsachieve mastery of the content. The commonlessons and tasks thus serve several functions.

First, they are the focus and fodder for pro-fessional discussions, data analysis and staffdevelopment throughout the district. Forexample, by analyzing student work resultingfrom common lessons, teachers and districtstaff can determine whether there are sharedand commonly held high expectations forstudent work and whether grading alignswith formal assessment results. Similarly,grade level or department meetings can focuson specific strategies for teaching a particularnovel or helping students master a specificscientific principle because all the teacherswill be working with students on some com-mon lessons and tasks.

Second, where there exists a substantialknowledge base about the content and prac-tices that will enable students to master thestandards, these lessons translate that knowl-edge base into concrete work for students andteachers, thus providing effective lessons andmodeling characteristics of effective lessons.

Third, they are the foundation for continualfocused innovation by school and district staffaround revising the anchors, the assessments,the curriculum, and instructional supports. Forexample, teachers can share their experiencewith the lessons; teachers, schools and districtscan analyze the effectiveness of various lessonsand then modify them based on that data.

Finally, they present problems that teachersfind worth solving and thus can galvanizeboth teachers’ commitment to the work andchanges in teacher practice. People in anyfield resist changing their practices unlessthey can see that change will lead toimproved results on matters that are impor-tant to them. Common lessons present issues


that matter to teachers - student performanceon important tasks - and a structured forumfor seeing how changes in practice lead toimproved results.

Common lessons, along with a commoncurriculum, are a particularly important sup-port for new teachers who often struggle intheir first years to develop curriculum andlesson plans as well as developing other class-room skills. However, because common les-sons are a central vehicle for individual andcollective improvement of instruction,accomplished teachers benefit from imple-menting them - both in improvements totheir own practice and in the contributionsthey can make to improving the lessons andthe work of their less accomplished peers.

Essential to the idea of common lessons isindividual and collective improvement ofinstruction. Teachers are expected to deliverthese common lessons, but the arbiter of suc-cess ultimately is student performance – notfidelity in delivering the lesson. Common les-sons are not an end in themselves but rathera tool for achieving a larger goal. Thus, ifexemplary teachers can show that otherapproaches lead to greater student success,those variations should be examined and, iffound worthy, shared with other teachers.

These design specifications suggest that 10-20 percent of instructional time be allocated tocommon lessons. One might ask, if requiring10 percent or 20 percent of lessons to be com-mon is good, is not requiring 80 percent of les-sons to be common even better? Obviously, themove in some districts to mandate highlyscripted and tightly paced curricula is oneapproach to answering that question. However,there are several reasons why higher levels ofprescription in the number of common highschool lessons may not be effective today.

First, it is reasonable to tightly prescribewhat teachers should do only when we knowthat what is prescribed is effective for stu-dents. In core high school content areas, noevidence base exists that would allow districtsto prescribe with certainty a full set of com-mon lessons that are guaranteed to improvestudent learning.

Second, given the trend toward differentia-tion in high schools – career academies,theme schools, etc. – and in the varied needsof different student groups, prescribing dis-trict-wide a high percentage of common les-sons impedes schools’ ability to address theircore focus and their students’ needs.

Third, if a teacher is not highly effective, ascripted curriculum may provide some usefulsupports but it will not make the teacher high-ly effective. This is because high school instruc-tion is not the direct transmission ofknowledge into the open minds of adolescents.Learning results from the constant and activeinteraction of student, content and teacher.Learning how to create that productive interac-tion requires teachers to know not just how todeliver lessons but why learning is occurring ornot and for whom, and then how to adjustwhen needed. Teachers develop this expertisethrough developing their own lessons, tryingdifferent strategies, and modifying content andpedagogy to meet the needs and interests ofthe students in front of them. Thus, core les-sons are only part of a larger instructionalimprovement plan which includes time forteachers to discuss instruction and perform-ance, to practice routines, to compare and useprotocols, etc…. Requiring wholesale imple-mentation of a years’ worth of lessons thusbecomes counterproductive, both, in thelonger term, regarding deep changes in teach-ing practice, and in the shorter term, riskingoverwhelming and alienating school staffs.


Finally, attracting highly capable teachersinto the profession is difficult if teachers arenot given the opportunity to exercise appro-priate professional judgment, to teach con-tent that is meaningful to them, and to givetheir students some voice and ownership ofwhat is taught and how. If we want a profes-sion in which teachers embrace the vision ofprofessionalism described in Component #1,they must be treated as professionals in theexecution of their practice.

Nonetheless, districts might well develop alarge number of additional high-quality les-sons. They could have in place repertoires ofeffective curricular units and teaching strate-gies by content area that incorporate whathas been learned from demonstrably success-ful peers. These could be made available toteachers, and some might be required to beused by teachers who are not obtaining satis-factory student results.

Provide additional instructional tools

Beyond curriculum and common lessons,professionals need additional tools to improvetheir productivity and effectiveness. Tooldevelopment and selection can be a strategicapproach to building knowledge and consen-sus around good instruction. The elements ofthe instructional infrastructure described thusfar – anchor standards and assessments andcommon lessons – are themselves tools.

However, assisting teachers in improvinginstructional practice generally requires abroader array of concrete tools that guideand support teachers in their day-to-daytasks. For example, teachers can benefitfrom effective techniques, protocols, rubrics,curriculum materials, technology and datasystems that increase their effectiveness indeveloping student tasks, engaging the inter-

est and effort of their students, writing les-son plans, grading and analyzing studentwork, understanding and making use of stu-dent performance data, re-teaching for mas-tery, observing other teachers, deepeningtheir content knowledge, expanding theirrepertoire of proven instructional strategies,and on and on.

Districts, using teams of teachers and otherexperts, can evaluate tools for student andteacher learning based on alignment withtheir expectations for instructional practice,their anchor standards and curriculum, theevidence base for effectiveness, a clear under-standing of implementation challenges, andcost and cost-effectiveness. Based on thesescreenings, districts can provide schools andteachers with a menu of tools that meet theevaluation criteria. The degree of choice thatschools and teachers have in selecting toolsmay vary depending on the context; for exam-ple, there might be a district-wide protocol forlooking at high school student work if that isa centerpiece of professional developmentefforts but there might be several protocolsavailable for peer observation that teacherteams might choose from depending on gradelevel, discipline area and interest. In somecases, where quality tools do not exist (andthere is clearly a need for more tool develop-ment to support high school instruction), dis-tricts may want to develop tools themselves.

Regardless of the array of tools, the develop-ment, selection and implementation of tools isitself a vehicle for building knowledge and con-sensus around good instruction. Teachersshould be involved in the development andselection processes. Then, once tools are select-ed, teachers will adapt those materials andinstruction to their particular students and cir-cumstances. At the school level and in subject-matter teams across schools, teachers should


have on-going opportunities to learn aboutthese tools and how best to use them in theirparticular context.

Component #6: A System to Build Teacher Capacity

If a district has followed the argument thusfar, it has considered developing clear guid-ance about the characteristics of effectiveinstruction that should be seen in classrooms,developing anchor standards and assessmentsthat exemplify those expectations and studentlearning goals, creating common lessons andstudent tasks that provide concrete directionaround content and pedagogy as well as ashared body of experience and work, andfinally selecting additional tools to supportinstructional improvement.

The concurrent challenge any district con-sidering this set of design specifications mustaddress is creating the professional culture andbuilding the capacity of teachers to achievethese expectations every day in every highschool classroom. Part of this capacity build-ing work is described in Component #2,which laid out human resource strategies forrecruiting highly capable people into teaching,effectively inducting them, and then rigorouslyevaluating teacher performance and rewardingand retaining only those who are able to pro-duce student learning gains. Another elementof building teacher capacity is the effective useof teacher expertise in the design of theinstructional infrastructure. A third element ison-going professional development designedto – and ultimately evaluated on its ability to –increase teachers’ efficacy.

Because so much has been written abouteffective professional development, this paperlimits its focus to two knotty design issues

specific to high school: (1) how to build onthe strengths of both small learning commu-nities and the discipline areas; and (2) how, inthe high school context, to provide sufficienttime for teachers to work with the right peo-ple under the right conditions.

Build on the strengths of both the smalllearning communities and the disciplineareas

Traditionally, high school faculties are organ-ized by departments and high school teachersfeel a primary allegiance to their departmentand discipline area. High schools have some-times failed to engage teachers sufficiently intaking ownership of their responsibilities forthe overall development of individual andgroups of students. Too often, students movefrom class to class experiencing high school asfragmented, incoherent and impersonal.

Addressing this widely perceived weakness oftraditional comprehensive high schools, manycurrent high school reform efforts have createdsmall schools or small learning communities inwhich a small cadre of teachers know studentswell and share responsibility for the success oftheir students. These schools have often“blown up” the traditional departments, placedteachers in interdisciplinary teams, and fos-tered interdisciplinary teaching. However, evi-dence emerging from these small schools andsmall learning communities is that teachers –particularly, but not limited to, mathematicsand science teachers – now feel the lack of adepartment and disciplinary peers with whomthey can work to improve instruction in theircontent area. (AIR/SRI 2004, AIR/SRI 2005)

The challenge for high schools is then tocreate ways of teachers working and learningtogether that leverage the best attributes ofsmall learning communities and the best

Build Teacher Capacity 25

attributes of structures that build subjectknowledge expertise. This suggests providingtime for teachers in small learning communi-ties to work together around the students theyshare and time for teachers in the disciplineareas to work together around discipline-spe-cific challenges in content and pedagogy.While doing so poses some formidable logisti-cal and resource challenges, failure to do soleaves teachers without the supports they needfor effective teaching.

Working together as a small learning com-munity or small school faculty to examinestudent performance, student work and stu-dent engagement helps teachers strengthenengagement, alignment and rigor in their les-son planning and delivery. Teachers’ vestedinterest in how their shared students performprovides a good reason for them to becomevested in their colleagues’ practice.Opportunities are created for teachers whoshare the same students to see those same stu-dents’ work produced in different settings andthereby learning more about their studentsacademically and personally. This activity canalso help create space for exploring and devel-oping cross-disciplinary projects to enhancestudent engagement and understanding intel-lectual and academic concepts. With regularcommon planning time available to eachsmall learning community during the schoolday, as well as peer observation of classroomsin other small learning communities, dialogueand action planning can become part of theevery day life of the school.

This should be complemented by time andsupport for every teacher to be a member ofa subject matter community. These subjectmatter communities could be within schools,but might also go across schools, particularlywhere schools are quite small. The subject-matter communities’ functions may include:

• to look at issues of vertical alignment;

• to develop common understanding ofperformance at grade level;

• to deepen teacher knowledge of essen-tial subject matter content;

• to determine what must be re-taughtthat year and how to improve lessonsfor the following year;

• to select and develop expertise in usinginstructional resources and tools; and

• to solve particularly vexing instruction-al issues at grade level by analyzing andidentifying strategies used in class-rooms where students are performingat the highest levels, including issuesaround particular content, content ped-agogy and needs of particular groupsof learners in the content area.

Moreover, different content areas pose specif-ic challenges and a district’s instructional infra-structure and professional developmentinvestments must be attuned to those. Forexample, one of the challenges inEnglish/Language Arts in low performing highschools is to improve the teaching of readingwithin the context of the curriculum. MostEnglish teachers are not prepared to teachcomprehension strategies as part of teachingliterature. Drawing on the model of the BayArea Writing Project, the English team in eachschool might select a member to become areading resource person for the team. This per-son would participate in high-quality profes-sional development in adolescent literacy tosupport the team. Their role would be to helptheir colleagues build focused instruction ofreading skills in their lessons. They could alsobecome part of a network of teacher leaderswith expertise in adolescent reading.

Whether working with teachers in their


content area or with teachers in their smalllearning communities, teacher learning shouldbe grounded in the districts’ anchor standardsand assessments, expectations about instruc-tional practices, and common lessons and stu-dent tasks. This provides a powerful androbust engine to feed and make meaningfulthese professional development processes.

Provide sufficient time for teachers to workwith the right people under the right conditions

Teacher learning in their content area and intheir small learning community will be mosteffective if it is supported by the right peopleunder the right conditions. Recent researchsuggests peer observation, dialogue and coach-ing are effective methods to improve instruc-tion. While there are various configurationsfor deploying coaching expertise, one model atthe high school level would be to organizecoaching resources around teams of teachersin the same content area. Thus content teamsmight be supported by school-based coacheswho are drawn from a cadre of accomplishedteachers and staff developers. Coaches, whomay be lead teachers who have a part-timeclass load, might work with all teachers intheir discipline area in the school, facilitatingstaff development around the learning targetsfor the year, including leading discussions ofstudent work, doing demonstration lessons,providing “at-elbow” coaching for teachers,

curriculum planning with their colleagues, andwork on instructional strategies during com-mon planning time.

In addition, there could be a district levelcoach for each discipline whose primaryresponsibility is building the capacity of thelead teachers in that discipline across a num-ber of schools. District capacity might alsoinclude district-based specialists in contentspecific literacy who support coaches, men-tors and lead teachers.

Doing this work requires significant time forteachers and for instructional leaders.Scattered professional development daysthroughout the year are not sufficient to sig-nificantly improve instructional effectivenessof the current workforce. Common planningtime, reduced class loads for teacher/coaches,and regular time for professional developmentbuilt into the contracted day is essential.

Moreover, if coaches have optional 12-monthcontracts, they can work on common lessonsand assessments, plan staff development, workwith district and outside specialists to under-stand their content deeply so they can teachadults well, and develop expertise and reper-toire that enables them to assist coaches andteachers who work with special education andELL students. Coaches should be accountablefor delivering on this sizable investment andshould be evaluated based on improvement instudent outcomes and rigorous examination ofa portfolio of teacher and student work.

Build Teacher Capacity 27

This paper has laid out an ambitious set ofdesign specifications for a district-wide

instructional improvement effort. Yet, asnoted at the beginning, these specificationsdo not address some critical issues that anydistrict seeking to do this work would have toconfront. Three notable omissions from thispaper – and from much of the high schoolreform conversation – are flagged here.

First is the role of students. While instruc-tion is the interaction of teachers, studentsand curriculum, these design specificationsfocus primarily on teachers and content. Ingeneral, high schools have failed to sufficient-ly engage students as learners and leaders intheir own schools and to expect real work andhigh levels of performance from them. Thesespecifications do not consider relevant ques-tions such as: What supports are needed forstudents? How can students best be enabledto take progressively more responsibility fortheir own learning? What changes are neededin how adults view and work with students?

Second is the connection of instructionalimprovement to the broad purposes of school-ing: preparation for further education, civicparticipation, work, and satisfying and mean-ingful lives. How does instructional improve-ment in the core academic areas connect tothese larger purposes? Preparation for lifeafter high school takes place in the classroom,in extracurricular activities, in school activitiesthat connect students to work, service andtheir communities, and in out-of-school set-tings. How should these experiences be con-nected? How can instruction be organized sothat students see schooling as meaningful andas something at which they can succeed?

Third is the marshalling of resources neededto move forward on large-scale instructionalimprovement. Moving from the written pageto district implementation would require newforms of school district capacity and an infu-sion of intellectual capital and new instruc-tional resources. It would require substantialsupport for teachers and leaders across the sys-tem and qualified outside partners. Outsidepartners would include local institutions ofhigher education, technical assistanceproviders who can supplement the district’scapacity to do this work and act as “criticalfriends” to the effort, and formative evaluatorswho can document the effort and provideinsights for mid-course corrections. A districteffort would require ongoing conversationswith students, families and the community todevelop public will to support these changes.

An effort of this sort also requires trade-offsand hard decisions about how to best focusresources. For example, should the district cutthe traditional district central office budget toredirect resources toward instructional sup-ports? How should the district balanceresource allocation between the poorest per-forming high schools, which often have theleast capacity to improve, and mid-performingschools where investments might spur rapidimprovements? Could the district focus onteaching essential and rigorous core coursesand create dual enrollment options with localcommunity colleges for industry specificcareer and technical courses? How should thedistrict audit its current professional develop-ment investments and invest going forwardonly in efforts aligned with current prioritiesand tied to accountability for results?


Implications and Next Steps


An effort of this sort would be appreciablyeasier to undertake in a supportive state set-ting. State policy in a broad range of areaswill affect district work. These include therigor and focus of state standards and assess-ments, the existence of anchor standards andassessments, professional development poli-cies and funding, and accreditation and certi-fication standards. An effort of this sortmight also be aided if it is undertaken byconsortia of districts. For example, if districtsshare anchor standards, they can share assess-ments, common lessons and the tools toincrease their “buying power” or leverage toget higher quality and prices from providers.The districts can share research and innova-tion in refining the anchors. At the mostambitious level, the anchors and supportingtools can become the operating system thatconvenes the best work in high school reformand provides a platform for continualimprovement and innovation.

Finally, an effort of this sort would alsorequire sustained and difficult conversationsamong teachers and teacher organizationsabout the fundamental cultural issue of howteachers view their obligations and duties totheir students, to each other and to the pro-fession. Unless the profession addresses theseissues, building the instructional infrastruc-ture described here may lead to improvement

but not to the radical transformations neededtoday. In fact, these suggested reforms might,like many before these, hit the wall of cultur-al and institutional resistance and inertiaunless they are grounded in a new vision ofteacher professionalism that supports instruc-tional improvement

Despite these and other challenges, there isreason to be optimistic that these design com-ponents lay out a promising approach to highschool instructional improvement. There areseveral urban districts that are testing outaspects of this work already. For example,Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois, arelaunching redesigns of high school instructionthat build on many of the ideas here. If sever-al districts were to embark on similar efforts,there could exist a network for learning aboutthe implementation and improvement ofthese ideas and the development of theinstructional tools to support them that couldhave significant potential for high schoolimprovement in these districts and nationally.3

Moreover, if states examined the state policyrole in improving high school instruction andtook on the policy challenges inherent in pro-viding an effective state context to support theimplementation of these design specifications,they might significantly accelerate reforms intheir most challenging schools and districts.


Melissa BartlettHigh school teacher and member

North Carolina State Board of Education

Susan BodaryExecutive Assistant for Education

to the Governor of Ohio

Colleen CallahanDirector of Professional Issues

Rhode Island Federation of Teachers

Linda J. ChaputChief Executive Officer

Agile Mind, Inc.

David ColemanCEO

The Grow Network/McGraw-Hill

James ConnellDirector, Institute for Research and

Reform in Education

Bridget CurranSenior Policy Analyst

National Governors Association

Pam FisherDirector

Great Maine School Project

Pam GrossmanProfessor

Stanford University School of Education

Carlton JordanSenior Associate

The Education Trust

Julianna L. KershenTeacher

Boston’s English High School

Jennifer O’DayPrincipal Research Scientist

American Institutes for Research

Michael O’Keefe President

Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Co-chair, Aspen Education &

Society Program

Nancy Pelz-PagetDirector

Aspen Education & Society Program

Vicki PhillipsSuperintendent

Portland Public Schools

Janet PricePrincipal

Brooklyn Preparatory High School

Michelle RheeCEO and President,

The New Teacher Project

Stefanie SanfordSenior Policy Officer

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Bob SchwartzHarvard Graduate School of Education

and Senior Advisor, Aspen Education &Society Program

Appendix A: 2005 Aspen Workshop Participants

Improving High School Teaching: The Toughest Nut to Crack?


Uri TreismanDirector

University of Texas Charles A. Dana Center

Edna VarnerSenior Program Consultant

Chattanooga Public Education Foundation

Constancia WarrenSenior Program Officer

Carnegie Corporation

Gov. Bob WisePresident

Alliance for Excellent Education

Judy WurtzelSenior Fellow

Aspen Education & Society Program


Achieve, Inc., 2004. Ready or Not: Creating a HighSchool Diploma That Counts, Washington, DC.Report from the American Diploma Project.

Achieve, Inc. and the National GovernorsAssociation, 2005. An Action Agenda forImproving America's High Schools. Washington, D.C.

American Institutes for Research and SRIInternational, 2004. The Gates FoundationNational School District and Network GrantsProgram, Year 2 Evaluation Report.

American Institutes for Research and SRIInternational, 2005. The Gates FoundationNational School District and Network GrantsProgram, Year 3 Evaluation Report.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, High-Performing School Districts: Combining Pressure,Support, Alignment and Choice, 2005. Atwww.gatesfoundation.org.

Black, Paul and Dylan Wiliam, 1998. Insidethe Black Box: Raising Standards throughClassroom Assessment, Phi Delta Kappan.

Black, Paul and Dylan Wiliam, 2004. WorkingInside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning inthe Classroom, Phi Delta Kappan.

Bransford, John D., Ann L. Brown, andRodney R. Cocking, editors, 1999. How PeopleLearn: Brain, mind, experience and school,Washington, D.C., National Research Council.

Cohen, David and Deborah Lowenberg Ball,2000. Instructional Innovation: Reconsidering theStory, The Study of InstructionalImprovement Working Paper.

Cohen, Michael, 2001. Transforming theAmerican High School: New Directions for Stateand Local Policy, Washington, D.C., AspenInstitute and Jobs for the Future.

Connell, J. P. and Broom, J. (2004). TheToughest Nut to Crack: First Things First's (FTF)Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning.Report prepared for the US Department ofEducation. Philadelphia: Institute forResearch and Reform in Education.

Council of Great City Schools, 2004. Beatingthe Odds IV: A City-by-City Analysis of StudentPerformance and Achievement Gaps on StateAssessments. Washington, D.C.

David, Jane and Patrick Shields, 2001. WhenTheory Hits Reality: Standards-Based Reform inUrban Districts. Final Narrative Report, MenloPark, CA, SRI International.

Goldstein, Jennifer and Pedro A. Noguera,2006. A Thoughtful Approach to TeacherEvaluation. Educational Leadership,Association for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment.

Grossman, Pam and Clarissa Thompson2004. Curriculum Materials: Scaffolds for NewTeacher Learning?, University of Washington,Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy.

McCaffrey, Daniel, Daniel Koretz, J.R.Lockwood, and Laura Hamilton (2004).Evaluating Value-Added Models for TeacherAccountability. Santa Monica, CA, D.C., Rand Corporation.

Neufeld, Barbara and Dana Roper, 2003.Coaching: A strategy for developing instructional

References

capacity, Aspen Institute Program on Educationand Annenberg Institute for School Reform.

Snipes, Jason, Fred Doolittle and CorinneHerlihy, 2002. Foundations for Success: CaseStudies of How Urban School Systems ImproveStudent Achievement, MDRC for the Councilof Great City Schools.

Stiggins, Rick 2004. New Assessment Beliefs for

a New School Mission, Phi Delta Kappan.

Symonds, Kiley Walsh 2003. After the Test:

How Schools are Using Data to Close the

Achievement Gap, Bay Area School Reform

Collaborative.


1. See the work of Douglas Reeves on“power standards” and explicit examplesand Powerpoint presentations on theeffort Pennsylvania has made in develop-ing anchor standards and assessments at:http://www.pde.state.pa.us/a_and_t/site/default.asp?g=0&a_and_tNav=|630|&k12Nav=|1141|

2. For example, the Rhode Island Board ofRegents requires students for graduationto demonstrate proficiency in core con-tent knowledge and applied learningskills. Districts must choose two of fourstrategies for assessing applied learning:digital portfolio, exhibition, certificate ofinitial mastery or end of course assess-ments. For more information seewww.ride.ri.gov/highschoolreform.

3. The Aspen Institute Education Program issupporting an initial set of efforts in thisdirection. As an outgrowth of its UrbanSuperintendents Network, the programhas formed a “critical friends group” tooffer strategic advice to Portland leader-ship as they undertake a high schooltransformation effort that reflects many ofthe ideas in this paper. In addition, in part-nership with Achieve, Inc. and theUniversity of Texas Charles A. DanaCenter, Aspen is facilitating a cross-districteffort that is testing out how the ideasaround instructional improvement out-lined here could be implemented in thecontext of Algebra I.


Notes

Strong Foundation - Evolving Challenges,2006. This case study of urban educationreform examines the extent of instructionalimprovement in the Boston Public Schoolsand identifies challenges the district mustaddress to reach higher levels of performance.

The Cleveland Literacy System: AComprehensive Approach To ChangingInstructional Practice, 2005. This report illustrates how one urban districthas positioned formative assessment, linkedto a clearly specified curriculum, as a keylevel in efforts to improve classroom practiceand student learning.

Remaking Career and Technical Education forthe 21st Century: What Role for High SchoolPrograms?, 2005, by Richard Kazis. This report from JFF and the Aspen Institute’sEducation and Society Program summarizeswhat we know (and don’t know) about thevalue of high school career-focused education--and it proposes a reform agenda for highschool career and technical education.

Review of Selected High School ReformStrategies, 2005, by Jennifer Husbands andStacy Beese.This paper is a comprehensive overview ofhigh school reform.

Coaching: A Strategy for DevelopingInstructional Capacity-Promises andPracticalities, 2003, by Barbara Neufeld andDana Roper. This paper reviews the research and describeswhat coaching is, what coaches do, the kinds

of supports coaches need, and the potentialbenefits to both educators and students.Jointly published by the Aspen Institute andthe Annenberg Institute for School Reform.

Rethinking High School: The Next Frontier ForState Policymakers, 2003, by Patricia W. McNeil. This report provides a useful comparison offour state high school reform efforts.

Transforming the American High School: NewDirections for State and Local Policy, 2002, byMichael Cohen. Developed in conjunction with Jobs for theFuture, this report is an analysis of the impli-cations for policy action required to trans-form American high schools.

Transforming American High Schools: EarlyLessons and New Challenges, 2002, by RobReich. This paper presents an overview of the con-clusions and recommendations of threerelated Aspen workshops on transforminghigh school.

Mission Possible? Incremental and RadicalAction Agenda for Transforming the AmericanHigh School, 2001. This report summarizes the outcome of the2001 Aspen Workshop on the American HighSchool.

Task of Transformation: The American HighSchool in the New Century. Summarizes the outcome of the 2000 AspenWorkshop on the American High School.


Other Publications of the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program

All publications are available at www.aspeninstitute.org/education

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/DEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5/educationStrongFoundationCase.pdf

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/DEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5/ClevelandLS_comp_approach_8F.pdf

http://www.jff.org/JFF_KC_Pages.php?WhichLevel=1&lv1_id=4&lv2_id=0&lv3_id=0&KC_M_ID=58

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/DEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5/HSPAPER0704.PDF

http://www.annenberginstitute.org/images/coaching.pdf

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/DEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5/ECSRethinkingHighSc.pdf

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/DEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5/highschools.pdf

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/DEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5/MISSION%20POSSIBLE.PDF

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/DEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5/ECStransforminghsearlylessons.pdf

The mission of the Aspen Institute is to foster enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. Through seminars, policy programs, conferences and leadership development

initiatives, the Institute and its international partners seek to promote nonpartisan inquiry and an appreciation for timeless values.

The Institute is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Its international network

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