Introduction

In November and December, 2000, a team of three researchers visited thirteen schools in the Kansas City, Missouri School District to gather data for a qualitative evaluation. The group of schools selected for this evaluation included eight elementary schools-- Attucks, Chick, East, Franklin, Gladstone, Richardson, Satchel Paige, and Swinney; three middle schools--Kansas City Middle School of the Arts, J. A. Rogers, and Paul Robeson; and two high schools--Paseo Academy and Lincoln College Prep.

One researcher spent a school day at each elementary school, and a team of two researchers visited each middle and high school for a school day. At each school, the researchers interviewed the principal or another administrator designated by the principal, observed in classrooms, and talked informally with teachers and children. In the elementary schools, researchers observed in classrooms at each of the grade levels in the school; in each classroom they observed an entire lesson or a significant portion of a lesson. In the middle and high schools, researchers observed in some classrooms in each core curriculum area--language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies--at each grade level, as well as other curriculum areas, such as foreign language, computers, or the arts, as time permitted.

The visits focused on the issues of implementation of the KCMSD Core Curriculum, the implementation of the professional development plan negotiated in 1998, and the use of assessment tools aligned with the Core Curriculum and MAP. More specifically, the research questions that guided the evaluation were:

1. To what extent is the Core Curriculum being implemented in schools in the KCMSD? Do teachers have the materials necessary to implement the Core Curriculum?

2. Are school personnel being provided with professional development that supports their continued improvement, and is that professional development in keeping with the KCMSD Professional Development Plan negotiated in 1998?

3. Do schools have in place assessments that can be used to document students' progress toward the Show Me Standards and the Core Curriculum? Are the assessments that are used aligned with the MAP?

Interview and observation data from the schools were used to develop a set of case studies, one for each school, that are presented later in this report. Care was taken in the development of the case studies not to include information in descriptions of classroom observations that would identify or place in jeopardy any individual teachers or students. Principals of the schools were invited to provide feedback and/or corrections to drafts of the case studies. The comments of principals were considered in developing the final drafts of the case studies.

The three researchers, faculty members in the College of Education at Roosevelt University in Chicago, are all experienced at gathering data through interviews and observations. A protocol was developed by the researchers and used to structure the site visits. A copy of the protocol is found in Appendix A.

Summary of Findings

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The Core Curriculum of the KCMSD addresses what students should know and be able to do. It "asks students to apply knowledge in different contexts" (The School District of Kansas City, Missouri, p 6). It also affirms that learning is an active process of making meaning and building concepts and understanding in the "Rationale and Guiding Principles" for each of the disciplines it addresses (pp. 8, 75, 127, 157, 193, and 243).

This evaluation was not intended to be a curriculum audit; it is simply not possible, in the small amount of time spent in schools and classrooms, to determine whether the content of the curriculum is being implemented in classrooms in the KCMSD. Rather, researchers sought to determine whether the intent of the Core Curriculum, with its focus on active learning, meaning-centered learning, and application of knowledge in meaningful contexts, is being implemented in classrooms. Analysis of the interview and observation data found the following:

· All schools reported using the Core Curriculum as an integral part of the teaching and learning process. Some schools reported using the document as a basis for determining quarterly, monthly, or weekly objectives for grade levels or curriculum areas.

· Several principals described the new Curriculum Designer software and the alignment of the Core Curriculum and the MAP as a valuable tool that has the potential to help teachers in their schools implement the Core Curriculum more fully.

· Observations showed that the intent of the Core Curriculum, however, is not being implemented consistently across schools, across classrooms, or even across disciplines in the same classrooms. The case studies describe classroom practice that ranges from drill and practice with little meaning or connection to rich, meaning-centered activities in which children learn and practice knowledge in authentic ways.

· In some schools, there seems either to be a lack of understanding of the intent of the Core Curriculum or no expectation that it be implemented.

· The Core Curriculum is standards-based. Teachers still do not understand the difference between standards-based and objective-based curriculum, as evidenced by their use of the Core Curriculum document to develop the behavioral objectives that are posted in most classroom.

· The implementation of the Balanced Literacy project and the Principles of Learning seem to make a difference in the implementation of the intent of the Core Curriculum.

- In the two elementary schools and one middle school visited where the Balanced Literacy project and the Principles of Learning are nearly fully implemented, there is a strong focus on meaning-centered learning that has reached beyond reading and writing to teaching and learning in other disciplines. In these schools, students are becoming active agents in their own learning.

- In the elementary schools where the Balanced Literacy project and the Principles of Learning are implemented even partially, students have more opportunities for meaning-centered, active learning in reading and writing.

- The schools that have not fully committed to implementing Balanced Literacy or the Principles of Learning have some teachers who provide meaning-centered, active learning activities for their students. But they also have teachers who do not.

· There seems to be a relationship between the intent of the Core Curriculum and the commitment to and quality of professional development at the school.

· In most elementary schools visited, mathematics and literacy are clear priorities; in some there are almost no opportunities for students to engage in science or social studies.

Related to the implementation of the Core Curriculum is the availability of materials necessary for such implementation. In general, most classrooms seem to have appropriate instructional materials. However, there were classrooms visited where the necessary materials seemed not to be available. Several elementary classrooms, for example, did not have adequate supplies of manipulatives for all the students. An elementary science classroom had only enough microscopes for every six children to share. A high school social studies teacher reported, and observation confirmed, the lack of any maps in his classroom. A high school English teacher reported not having enough classroom sets of quality literature available for multiple sections of a class.

The Kauffman Foundation provides grants to schools in the Balanced Literacy project to purchase materials that supplement those provided by the KCMSD. Administrators and teachers in those schools confirm that the grants provide some materials that are basic, rather than supplemental, to the literacy program. Some administrators reported that it will take several years of such grants to have enough books in classrooms. This raises the concern that the school district may not be providing materials to support basic instruction, as well as the issue of inequity of materials from school to school.

Professional Development

In 1998 the KCMSD developed a Professional Development Plan in collaboration with the AFT and the plaintiffs. This plan called for comprehensive and systematic professional development that is consistent with research-based principles of professional development and adult learning. The goal of this professional development plan is full implementation of the Core Curriculum and the KCMSD Instructional Plan, the development of curriculum embedded assessments, and accountability as outlined the KCMSD Accountability Plan.

The 1998 KCMSD Professional Development Plan established performance rather than the completion of professional development activities as the measure of the effectiveness s of the plan. In other words, the success of professional development should be determined by degree to which the professional development affects classroom practice.

The Professional Development Plan described coaching as a critical component of effective professional development and outlined the role of Instructional Coach in the professional development process. It also provided for professional development for Instructional Coaches.

Site visitors talked with administrators and teachers about professional development in their schools. The site visitors also looked for evidence of that professional development in classrooms. They found the following:

· Some schools, like those in the Balanced Literacy project, have systematic professional development that is focused on teaching and learning. Other schools have professional development that is a series of unrelated events.

· Schools where the effects of professional development are evident in classrooms have systematic professional development that includes opportunities for observation in classrooms, follow-up, and coaching, as well as workshops and other presentations in their professional development plans.

· Schools where professional development consists of a series of unrelated events have the least evidence of that professional development in classrooms.

· The schools where the most significant changes have happened in classroom practice are those that have become communities of learners and where commitment to and responsibility for learning is shared by all staff members.

· Even when a school has a systematic and effective professional development plan, teachers learn at different rates and need varying levels of support.

· The quality and quantity of coaching in schools with Instructional Coaches seems to be uneven, calling into question both the professional development that is provided to coaches and the number of responsibilities given to coaches that are not related to coaching.

Assessment

In the schools visited, the development of assessments that are embedded in the curriculum and that document students' progress in meeting the Show Me Standards and the Core Curriculum seems to have just begun. Except for schools that have implemented Balanced Literacy, where assessment and teaching are seamless, there were few examples of such assessments observed. Most principals acknowledged that teachers were in the process of developing assessments that were modeled after items from the MAP, and that they have MAP teams or MAP coordinators who are being provided professional development in assessment by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Observers found the following:

· Some schools rely on MAP and SAT 9 to provide data about students' progress toward meeting standards.

· No school seems to have developed an assessment system.

· There is wide variation in administrators' and teachers' understanding of assessment of student performance.

· There is also wide variation in the format and quality of performance tasks and rubrics that have been developed.

· In the schools that have fully implemented Balanced Literacy, students and teachers together develop rubrics for judging performance. Students in those classrooms understand what quality performance is and have become adept at self-assessment.

Recommendations

There are exciting things going on in some schools and in some classrooms in the KCMSD. The school district has models of innovative and effective implementation of the Core Curriculum at all levels--elementary, middle, and high school. But children still have no assurance that they can attend any school or classroom in the KCMSD and be offered full implementation of the intent and content of the Core Curriculum or opportunities to meet the Show Me Standards,. They also do not have assurance that the teachers who teach them understand how they learn and know how to engage them in active, meaning-centered learning. Most of the schools that were visited are somewhere on the journey to

Implementing the Core Curriculum

· The KCMSD must consistently communicate the expectation that the Core Curriculum be implemented. Administrators and teachers must be held accountable for the implementation.

· There are still many teachers who do not understand how children learn, as evidenced by the activities in their classrooms that have little potential to result in learning. Helping teachers understand how children learn, which was a part of the 1998 Professional Development Plan, must be a priority for the KCMSD.

· Teachers need professional development to understand standards-based curriculum and how it is different from objectives-based curriculum.

· Administrators and teachers must have training in using the newly developed Curriculum Designer software. Without such training, it is unlikely that all teachers will use it. It should go without saying that teachers need to have easy access to the appropriate hardware for the software to be used on a regular basis.

· The KCMSD must commit to providing the instructional materials necessary to implement the Core Curriculum.

· Elementary schools need to expand their priorities beyond literacy and mathematics to include regular, high quality learning activities and experiences in science, social studies, and the arts. Science, social studies, and the arts all can be integrated with literacy and mathematics, and it is important for students to meet standards in these disciplines, as well.

Professional Development

· Schools need to develop and implement systematic professional development plans that focus on specific strategies for the improvement of teaching and learning. Such plans should include opportunities for observation in classrooms, follow-up, and coaching. Schools should also be encouraged to have study groups, another effective form of professional development, around professional literature related to the focus of their professional development.

· Instructional coaches should be coaching and mentoring teachers, and modeling and demonstrating teaching practices. Adequate professional development should be provided for coaches so that they understand the practices they are coaching and mentoring.

· Administrators and teachers should cultivate climates in their schools that are conducive to learning and the risk-taking that accompany the use of new classroom practices. At the same time, there should also be a culture of accountability for the new practices.

Assessment

· Schools should be expected to develop assessment systems that document students' progress toward meeting the Show Me Standards and the Core Curriculum. These assessment systems should be designed to provide data that can be used to also document the school's progress toward meeting goals set in their School Improvement Plans, to help set priorities for professional development, and so on.

· Teachers should be provided with professional development that supports them in developing assessments that are embedded in curriculum and the everyday activities in their classrooms.

Reference

The School District of Kansas City, Missouri. (1997). Core curriculum. Kansas City, MO: Author.

Case Studies

Attucks School

Attucks School serves 352 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The children come from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, including some children who are homeless. The children come from all areas of the city, and parents are responsible for transporting their children to the school.

Because of its partnership with KCPT, channel 19, and the donations made to support it, the school has maintained its communication theme. The school also has partnerships with sports broadcasting and minority broadcasting.

The improvement of student achievement, according to the principal, is a priority at the school. The full time instructional coach is a part of that effort.

One site visitor spent a day at the school, interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking informally with teachers. The visitor had the opportunity to observe the instructional coach working in several classrooms in the school on the day of the visit. The visitor also noted students' work that was displayed in classrooms and common areas of the school.

On the day of the visit, two teachers were absent. One of the classrooms was staffed by a substitute teacher; the other class moved to another room and joined that class for the day.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

Teachers at the school use the Core Curriculum to determine quarterly objectives. The teachers have also worked to align the Core Curriculum with the Show Me Standards. There was little evidence in classrooms, however, that teachers understand the active, meaning-centered application of knowledge implied by the Core Curriculum. Teachers in most classrooms have created positive learning environments, but only a few activities were observed that were in keeping with the intent of the Core Curriculum.

One of these was a social studies lesson observed in one classroom that engaged children in comparing and contrasting modern day Boston with Boston in the 1600's when it was settled. The lesson, which began with a whole group review of beginning settlements in America, drew on the social studies text, other books the children had read, and experiences they had had, to form the background for the day's group work. In partners and small groups, children wrote answers to questions the teacher had listed on the board. The questions all required that the children use factual information to compare and contrast Boston long ago and today. Student to student talk observed by the visitor was focused on the task and productive.

In another classroom, a science lesson observed had children using hand lenses and rocks as they discussed rock characteristics for classification. All of the children were involved in discussing what they were observing.

In some other classrooms, there was evidence that teachers are beginning to implement some strategies that engage children in meaning-centered learning.

In one such classroom, the teacher engaged the children in a lively discussion about ears and hearing that led to the introduction of a book entitled Ears. The teacher helped the children make connections to their own lives and experiences with ears and hearing. They discussed the author and the title page, and reviewed the table of contents of the book. As the children read the table of contents, the teacher provided good hints to help them figure out words that they did not know. A chart displayed in the classroom provided information about accountable talk. The next step for this teacher could be to encourage, label, and give feedback to students about accountable talk.

Several lessons observed focused on drill of isolated skills that has little potential to result in real learning, such as computation in mathematics without any connection to application in real world problem solving. There was also little attention to students understanding or being able to describe the computation process. The observer also noted instances of round robin reading of books or stories with no attention at all to the meaning of text.

A lesson in one classroom where children were working with the n sound demonstrated a misunderstanding of active learning. In that classroom, children were making necklaces with noodles (macaroni, actually), but there was no focus at all on the n sound. During the activity, the observer noted lots of conversation among the children and between the teacher and instructional coach, all of which focused on the process of stringing macaroni rather than the letter n or the sound it represents.

In still other classrooms activities observed had the potential to interfere with children's development of concepts.

In a mathematics lesson on multiplication, where, contrary to the stated objective "to form division statements/equations" which the teacher had the children read to begin the lesson, the teacher used tens rods to represent ones as she demonstrated multiplication and wrote the accompanying equations.

In one classroom, the observer noted the teacher actively interfered with student learning. In that classroom, children were each allowed to select only two books for Drop Everything And Read. During DEAR time, the teacher never stopped talking for the ten minutes he allowed for reading, even though he kept reminding students that DEAR time required silence.

Children's work was displayed in several classrooms at the school. In some classrooms, a variety of projects that showed children's work across the curriculum demonstrated that all such work was valued. In one classroom, for example, children's spelling was displayed regardless of the quality of the work. In other classrooms, work was displayed too high for viewing by children, and in some, little children's work was displayed at all.

Professional Development

The school's instructional coach had developed a positive relationship with teachers. According to the principal, the coach models balanced literacy strategies and plans on-going professional development in literacy. She mentors teachers, one on one, and she facilitates grade level meetings. The instructional coach also heads up the school's weekly MAP preparation; third, fourth, and fifth graders prepare for taking the state assessment by using released items from the MAP.

On the day prior to the site visit, teachers at the school had viewed a demonstration videotape of read alouds, with the goal of understanding how to encourage deeper accountable talk.

Evidence of the literacy project was observed in some classrooms. Collections of books were available to children, and charts of such activities as accountable talk were displayed. Some classrooms also displayed rubrics, although no use of rubrics was observed.

The visitor noted the presence of the instructional coach in several classrooms during observations, but no coaching or mentoring was observed. The instructional coach did assist the teacher in the classroom where children were stringing macaroni in learning how to wrap the yarn for stringing. The coach also followed children as they moved from center to center in another classroom. The coach also interrupted children who were working well but noisily in another classroom to talk with the whole class about "how we work in groups," referring to a chart about group work displayed in the classroom. (When children returned to work quietly, neither the coach nor the classroom teacher acknowledged the children's quiet work.)

Assessment

The principal reported the need to work on developing continuous assessment, including analyses of pre- and post-test results. The primary grades in particular need to work on continuous assessment. The school has worked to align the Core Curriculum with the Show Me Standards; the teachers are still working to determine if students are meeting the standards. Their is to decide how to do this across grade levels and within grade levels.

In one classroom where children's writing was displayed with a rubric, the rubric did not include descriptors of the levels of the rubric. The writing had been scored, but it was not clear what criteria had been used to award the scores.

Improving Student Achievement

The principal reported that improving student achievement is an important issue at the school. The school has undertaken several efforts to improve student achievement. These include giving teachers released MAP items and asking them to work with the elements of the assessment tasks within their daily teaching and having weekly lessons focused on MAP preparation in third, fourth, and fifth grades. Teachers at the school are coached to have students write more, and children are coached on test-taking skills.

To help students be better prepared for middle school, teachers at the fourth and fifth grade levels loop with their children. One of the teachers who had looped with the children described the ease with which children had moved from one grade level to the next in the fall. The teacher reported that parents also had commented on the smooth transition.

At the same time, the school has identified the need to challenge higher achieving students, and is currently addressing that need by moving those students to the next higher grade.

The school has a number of volunteers from the YMCA who tutor children on reading for details.

Summary

Attucks School's participation in the Balanced Literacy project is to be commended. Attucks will need continued financial support to purchase books and other necessary materials and a great deal of professional development to implement and institutionalize effective literacy strategies in all classrooms.

Attucks teachers need professional development in developing strategies for active, meaningful learning in other curriculum areas, as well, and the mentoring and coaching provided by the instructional coach should extend beyond literacy to the entire curriculum. It seemed clear to the observer that teachers at the school do not have a good understanding of how children develop concepts and how teachers can facilitate and support that development. A study group for teachers about constructivism could provide them with valuable insight upon which to build effective classroom strategies. The observer also wondered about expectations for and training of the coach.

Designing an assessment system that is embedded in curriculum and instruction should also be a priority at Attucks School. As teachers become proficient in the assessment that is part of Readers and Writers Workshop, they will become more adept at observation as an assessment tool. They should also learn how to use good learning activities as assessments so that precious instructional time is not used for testing and assessment that does not lead to learning. The development of quality assessments with rubrics that are known and salient to children and the routine use of such rubrics in classrooms will focus children themselves on quality performances, preparing them much better for the MAP than any added on test preparation could do.

Chick School

Chick School is a neighborhood school with an Afro-centric theme evident throughout the school in the beautiful displays of African and African-American artifacts and photography. The school serves 287 children in kindergarten through fifth grade; there are two classes of each grade level. The majority of the children at the school are from middle income homes.

The school has worked to build a strong feeling of community, and the vice principal reported a feeling of family characterizes the climate of the school. This feeling of family, according to the vice principal, extends across all stakeholders at the school: children, parents, staff, teachers, administrators, custodians, and so on. The school also houses Caring Communities which helps to provide necessary social services to the school community. The school also has a working relationship with Swope Park Mental Health.

One site visitor spent a day at the school interviewing the vice principal and observing in one classroom at each grade level, as well as noting the children's work on display throughout the school. The principal was not at the school on the day of the site visit. The visitor was escorted throughout the day by the school's instructional coach; there was little opportunity for her to speak privately with teachers to confirm with them what had been reported in the interview. Because the instructional coach controlled the length of visits and the classrooms visited, it is difficult to know whether the instructional activities observed in the classrooms visited are representative of those in other classrooms at the school.

According to the vice principal, the school has a high level of parent and community involvement. Parents have been trained to work in classrooms, the cafeteria, and Chick's after-school program. The school hold a "read in" monthly, and parents and community members are invited to participate. The school also has a grandparents program; grandparents serve as paraprofessionals in classrooms. No grandparents, however, were observed to be in classrooms on the day of the site visit.

The vice principal reported that learning comes first in everyone's mind at the school. The climate of the school is such that students have high self esteem which allows them to take responsibility for their own learning. The vice principal also told the visitor that all Chick community members hold high expectations for all students to learn.

The site visitor noted that children were calm and orderly throughout the school. Children seemed comfortable and even eager to share what they were doing with the visitor.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

All teachers have copies of the Core Curriculum, and the school provides one-on-one inservice to new and associate teachers to help them become familiar with it. Teachers use the Core Curriculum as a guide for planning monthly and weekly plans for their classrooms. The vice principal reported that last school year, a focus of the school was to help teachers work with unit plans that were developed from the Core Curriculum. The school works to infuse the Afro-centric theme into the Core Curriculum.

The school day is organized to allow for a two and a half hour block of time for communication arts each day in every classroom. The observer noted that the large amount of books available to children in the classrooms at Chick was a visible affirmation of the importance of literacy at the school.

The observer noted that in several of the classrooms visited, children experienced high levels of passive, rote learning. There were opportunities for the active, meaning-centered learning implied in the Core Curriculum, but there seemed to be more focus on reciting rehearsed responses than on thoughtful, individual responses or reflection.

Classrooms visited held many books, and most classrooms displayed teacher-made charts that described reading strategies, accountable talk, and the Principles for Learning. Rubrics were also displayed.

Children in three of the classrooms visited were focused on a variety of literacy activities. Observations of instruction in these classrooms showed that teachers were beginning to use some effective literacy strategies but still maintaining the high level of teacher direction with which they were comfortable. In one classroom, the children gathered on the carpet to read the morning message. The teacher pointed out the punctuation marks in the morning message and then had the children repeat the names of the punctuation marks and "say what the mark tells them to do." The teacher had the children read the morning message aloud as a group and then had individual children read the message aloud. Little attention was focused on the meaning of the message; the teacher did not take the opportunity to focus on reading as a meaning making activity. Even while children read the message aloud, the teacher interrupted to redirect students not focused on the reading, interrupting the flow of the message and the meaning for any children who might have been listening.

Later, in the same classroom, the teacher read aloud Nappy Hair, a book that is written in call and response form. In introducing the story, the teacher gave students an opportunity to tell what the title of the story made them think of. Then the teacher and teacher assistant read the story aloud, stopping to add information that would help children understand the story. Although there was a chart displayed about accountable talk, the opportunities for accountable talk during the story were missed. After reading the story, the teacher invited the children to brainstorm about family gatherings like the one in the story, but the teacher did not allow any children to provide responses. Only the teacher brainstormed. At the end of the lesson, however, the teacher did allow one child to tell about a favorite part of the story.

In another classroom where literacy activities were observed, children were completing workbook pages and phonics worksheets. No meaning-centered literacy experiences were noted.

In the third classroom, children were working on spelling. The spelling words, according to the teacher, were words related to a classroom project. Children defined the words as the teacher listed them; they had opportunities to "add on" to other children's definitions, an indication of the teacher's understanding of accountable talk.

A science lesson was observed in one classroom visited. Children there used eyedroppers to drop water on pennies. The children, who were working in groups, were investigating how many drops a penny would hold before overflowing. Children worked together to collect data of several attempts; then they made individual graphs of the data. During the data collection phase of the activity, children shared observations and made suggestions to one another. The observer noted that all children in the class were engaged in the activity and sharing ideas about how to get the most drops on the penny. "Drop carefully, squeeze slowly. If we do it too fast, it'll make a bigger splash." "We don't want a big splash 'cause it'll make it spill out." "When we did it slowly, we got more drops." Children seemed to have constructed some knowledge from the activity; unfortunately, the teacher did not provide the opportunity for a closing discussion or reflection that could have allowed her to assess how the children's learning was forming or that would have enhanced the children's concept development.

Children in another classroom were observed working on a social studies project on Native

Americans. Each child had selected an Indian Nation to research, and on the day of the observation, children were painting flower pots white in preparation for decorating them later with designs from the Nations they were researching.

Student work was displayed attractively in classrooms and in the common areas of the school. The work included writing, both creative writing and reports, art work, and displays of student projects. In one classroom, students' family trees were accompanied by eight-paragraph autobiographies; reports of students' individual research on dinosaurs was displayed; and book reports, labeled "Pillow Talk," were written on pillow cases!

Professional Development

According to the vice principal, all staff have participated in professional development.

The school has an instructional coach who is reported to work closely with new teachers and associate teachers. According to the vice principal, the school has taken a "village" approach to mentoring new and associate teachers. On the day of the site visit, the instructional coach accompanied the site visitor. There was no opportunity to observe the instructional coach working with teachers.

All staff of the school have participated in professional development from the Institute for Learning on accountable talk, constructing meaning, organizing for learning, academic rigor, and self-assessment. Teachers have viewed videos to see how each of these play out in the classroom, they have visited two demonstration schools where they had the opportunity to observe in classrooms and talk with teachers, and they have taken "learning walks." Teachers have opportunities to observe one another, and they share ideas. Teachers at the school also have reading material available to them as support, including Word Matters, a book about word study.

The vice principal reported that Teachers at Chick School meet weekly as grade levels and have a full day of professional development every two months.

The observer noted that teachers' work with children in classrooms shows that they are beginning to implement some of what they are learning through their professional development in literacy and the Principles for Learning. Continued professional development, especially in the forms of observation of master teachers, follow up, and coaching will be necessary for teachers to fully implement the literacy strategies and the Principles for Learning.

Assessment

The vice principal explained that performance assessment was a priority at the school, and she described a variety of activities that teachers assess. No specifics for how those activities would be assessed were provided.

The observer noted that rubrics were displayed in most classrooms at the school and that they had been used in some classrooms to score student work. In one such classroom, where a rubric for writing was displayed, the observer noted that the rubric had been used to score some children's' writing that was displayed with the rubric. The rubric had not been evenly applied to the writing, however. Several of the pieces of the writing had been scored as 4's, although they included misspelled words and one of the indicators in the rubric for a 4 was "No misspelled words."

In one classroom the visitor observed the use of a performance assessment that the teacher explained was preparation for the Missouri Assessment Math Test. There, the teacher distributed materials for the assessment and read aloud the performance "directions." The teacher also read the criteria for a "good answer." Children worked independently on the task, which required them to make a bar graph that compared travel times to a variety of destinations. The time for completion of the task was limited. The observer noted that the assessment was probably related to the curriculum and to prior instruction; children did know how to make bar graphs. Much of the value of such an assessment was lost to the children. Because it was not embedded in instruction, it was a separate exercise that did not extend the meaning of instruction or learning. Even in terms of preparation for MAP, the value of the task would have been enhanced had the children scored their own responses using the rubric.

One teacher explained to the visitor that grade levels have been working to develop rubrics, but they are so different from what she has always done that it is hard for her to use them. She reported not using rubrics as often as she should but that she is trying.

Improving Student Achievement

The vice principal reported that the school uses its test results to identify weaknesses and addresses them in helping students to improve. A number of stakeholders in the school, parents, children, teachers, administrators, and business partners, have been involved in determining the objectives of plans for school improvement.

Summary

The hands-on, active learning and application of knowledge in a meaningful context implied in the Core Curriculum and embodied in the constructivist philosophy of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education challenge the traditional practice of rote, rehearsed recitation and passive learning of basic skills at Chick School.

Among the teachers at the school, the level of comfort with the new practices seems to vary, but all teachers seem to be in the process of trying new strategies and beginning to move away from the teacher directed instruction with which they seem comfortable to allowing children more involvement in directing their own learning. They will need continued professional development and support to adopt this different theoretical stance and the practices that support it.

East Elementary School

East Elementary School serves children in preschool through fifth grade. Besides regular elementary classrooms, the school has Head Start; early childhood classrooms; SLD, BD, and MR special education classrooms; and support services in physical education, art, science, vocal music, computers, library, Title I, Reading Recovery, ESL, Arena, and Speech. The school has two full-time counselors, a parent-school liaison, and an instructional coach. There is also a Parents As Teachers office at the school.

The school moved into its current facility in August, 2000; they spent the two previous years at another site. According to the principal, they are still moving in and trying to get everything in place. For example, at the time of the site visit in December, bulletin boards had just been hung in the school's hallways.

East Elementary School is housed in a former high school building that has been refurbished and retooled for use as an elementary school. The building, with classrooms on five floors, seems remarkably well-suited to elementary school. There are two cafeterias, one on the first floor and one on the fourth floor.

The wide hallways of the school allow for carpeted reading nook areas, and children were observed reading in them on the day of the visit. Even though the hall bulletin boards had just been installed, they already held displays of children's work

The school has adopted the BIST program, a classroom management program that has helped teachers learn how to respond when children are off task. The program, in which teachers have had professional development, uses Buddy Rooms and time out. Each classroom has a Buddy Room; children out of control in their own classrooms go to their Buddy Room for time out.

East Elementary has joined with Franklin, Milton Moore, and Banneker Schools in a Read to Be Ready project. The project, funded by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, addresses reading in kindergarten through third grade. The project provides materials, funds for staff development, and consultants to help teachers in those grade levels improve their teaching of reading.

One site visitor spent a day at the school interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking with teachers and students. The observer also took note of the students' work displayed in the classrooms and common areas of the school.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal reported that the new Curriculum Designer software and the school district's work to align the Core Curriculum with the Map would be a valuable tool to assist teachers in using the Core Curriculum. Teachers at the school meet quarterly in grade level teams to discuss and determine objectives for the quarter based on the Core Curriculum.

In some classrooms, teachers were facilitating the kinds of active, meaning-centered activities implied in the Core Curriculum.

Children in a first grade classroom were observed during the read aloud of a big book, The Bear Who Wouldn't Share by Jonathan Allen. The teacher asked questions that required thinking and analysis: What do you think that means? Why do you think he's embarrassed? Children identified the theme of the story as "not being greedy" and "sharing." Several of them made a connection between this story and Dickens' A Christmas Carol, that the teacher was reading aloud to the children, and one said, "Scrooge might learn to share." In the culture of this classroom, accountable talk seemed to be expected, and children were obviously comfortable with it. The children left the carpet to write in their journals about their favorite parts of the story. The teacher asked the children what they should do to if they needed help spelling, and the children suggested looking at the word wall or looking at the print around the room.

Children from a second grade classroom were observed in the hallway in an activity that integrated mathematics and literacy. The class, with the teacher's assistance, was making a graph of their favorite stories on one of the large bulletin boards in the hallway. The children were using accountable talk, discussing the graph as it was being completed and interpreting the information shown on the graph.

In another second grade classroom, it was center time. The teacher was reading with one child, and the other children were doing a variety of activities that included several kinds of writing. Some children were writing thank you letters for the class Christmas tree. One child was writing a story about a loose tooth, while another was working on a book about Christmas. Two boys were using construction paper, markers, and glue to make animals and other figures. When asked, they explained that they were making characters from stories they had read. The boys showed the observer each figure and retold at least a part of the story the character was from.

Fourth grade children were working in groups to write and illustrate stories in the pattern of The Mitten. One group of children retold the story, explained how their story was different, and explained why they were illustrating the way they were.

Children in a fifth grade classroom had just had a read aloud of Westlandia, by Steven Gammell. The story is about a boy who invents things. The teacher was distributing a variety of materials--tissue paper, yarn, string, sticks, paper bags, clay, paper plates, and so on--for the children to use to "invent" something which they would later write about.

Other literacy lessons were observed that were meaning-centered and involved children actively in the learning. But there were lessons observed that were not meaning-centered or active.

In an intermediate grade classroom, the lesson observed related to exchanging international currencies for dollars. While this might have been a worthwhile lesson, the teacher presented misinformation. The teacher asked such questions as, "What do they call the dollar in Germany?" Children in that class may have come away from the lesson thinking that the dollar is the basic unit of currency in every country, and that it just has a different name.

A mathematics lesson observed required children to compare two four- or five-digit numbers and determine which of the two was greater. The children could not read the numbers, possibly indicating that they needed to learn about place value, but even then, had the teacher begun by modeling a process for determining the greater number, at least children could have learned a process. Instead, after labeling the places (ten thousands, thousands, hundreds, tens, ones) and talking about the signs (>, <), the teacher distributed a worksheet for the students to complete.

And in one classroom, children were being punished by reading the science textbook, copying vocabulary words, and copying definitions from the glossary. The observer wondered what students would learn from such an activity.

In a primary classroom, children were observed copying words from the board. (The observer could determine no point to this activity that was related to learning.) The teacher, who was seated at her desk, threatened the children to keep working, reminding them that the work would be graded. In this classroom, there was little individual student work displayed.

In most classrooms and in the hallways, children's work was displayed attractively and creatively. Most of the work displayed was writing, communicating that writing is valued. Only a few classrooms displayed work other than writing.

Professional Development

Teachers at East Elementary have many opportunities for professional development. In addition to the Read to Be Ready program already mentioned, the school is part of the Balanced Literacy project which all teachers at the school in kindergarten through grade five. The principal described the professional development that is part of the literacy project as having addressed phonics, leveling books, and developing criterion charts and rubrics. The Kauffman Foundation also brings in speakers, and teachers from the Balanced Literacy project are invited. Most recently, third and fourth grade teachers from East Elementary were invited to hear Carl Anderson speak about conferencing with students as part of Writers Workshop.

In January, a study group will begin; teachers will read and discuss In the Company of Children by Joanne Hindley. The book describes using Readers and Writers Workshop in elementary classrooms.

On the day prior to the site visit, consultants from Rigby, the company that publishes the reading materials currently being used in kindergarten through third grade, provided a workshop on using their materials in classrooms. A teacher described the workshop as very helpful; she reported that the consultants had provided telephone numbers and email addresses and were willing to provide on-going one on one support as needed by teachers.

East Elementary School holds regular after school "chat 'n chew" sessions for teachers. The sessions offer short (40 to 60 minute) presentations on a variety of topics and provide follow up on other professional development. The principal said that these sessions help to provide a balance for new teachers.

February staff development day will offer several different levels of activities to meet the differing needs of the associate teachers, new and beginning teachers, and experienced teachers at the school. The school is also planning to have a professional development retreat at the end of the school year.

There is evidence of the Balanced Literacy project in classrooms in the school. Most classrooms have collections of children's books that are organized by genre and/or levels. In several classrooms, the book of the month was displayed. In most of the primary classrooms, children had baskets of books on their tables or desks. Many classrooms had word walls. And some displayed criterion charts and rubrics.

Observations confirmed that many of the teachers at East Elementary School are at least trying the literacy strategies that they are learning through the Balanced Literacy project. The observer did not see Readers Workshop or Writers Workshop going on in any classroom, however.

Assessment

A key piece of the Balanced Literacy project is assessment. Criterion charts and rubrics developed as part of the literacy initiative are displayed in some classrooms in the school, but the observer noted only one instance of a teacher referring to a rubric.

No evidence was noted that showed teachers at the school to be using performance assessments or assessments that were curriculum-embedded, although the principal did report that fourth grade teachers are developing assessments using the released items from MAP as models.

Assessment is a key component of the Balanced Literacy project. If teachers use Readers Workshop and Writers Workshop in their classrooms, they will be using curriculum-embedded assessment on a daily basis.

Improving Student Achievement

All of the professional development efforts at the school are focused on improving student achievement. The principal noted that third and fourth grade teachers have taken the lead in preparing for the MAP. They recently completed an item analysis of the MAP. The third grade teachers are using that information to plan activities and lessons that are correlated with the MAP. The fourth grade teachers are using released items from the MAP as models for designing assessments for their classrooms.

Summary

Moving into the "new" East Elementary School has been a monumental task for the staff of the school. With a short timeline for moving in and unpacking, the teachers and administrators are to be commended for providing such attractive and inviting workspaces.

In general, teachers at the school are working hard to implement what they are learning though the Balanced Literacy project, and in many classrooms, already engaging children in meaningful reading and writing activities. Continued professional development and support will be necessary as they work to institute and institutionalize Readers and Writers Workshops in their classrooms. To be able to consistently provide a comparable level of meaning-centered learning and authentic, hands-on activities in mathematics, science, and social studies will require the same level of commitment, professional development, and support as teachers are having through the literacy project.

A key part of establishing and maintaining such high quality teaching and learning is the design and implementation of an assessment system that provides opportunities for continuous documentation of children's learning and feedback to teachers about instruction. Developing such a system is a challenge that East will face as it seeks to improve teaching and learning.

Chester Franklin Elementary School

Chester Franklin Elementary School is a neighborhood school that serves 370 children in preschool through grade five. The school houses three special education classrooms, and three preschool classes. The poverty level of the families served by the school is high, and, the principal reported, only about 15 percent of the children come from two-parent families.

Five parent workers complement the instructional staff, and a number of volunteers also work at the school. Village Presbyterian Church in Overland Park, Kansas, supplies approximately 40 volunteers, while Seniors for Youth provides ten retired teachers to work with students at the school. No volunteers were observed at the school on the day of the visit.

One site visitor spent a day at the school, interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking informally with teachers and students.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal reported that the Core Curriculum is implemented at the school, and that there was 100 percent involvement with Adding Rigor. He noted that problem-solving and journal writing are daily activities for all the children in the school. The school is part of the Balanced Literacy project; the principal stated that Balanced Literacy is completely implemented in kindergarten through third grade and fifth grade classrooms, and that fourth grade is having a more difficult time with the implementation.

Observations at the school do not confirm the principal's report of full implementation of the Core Curriculum or the Balanced Literacy project. The observer noted that some teachers at the school are making efforts toward implementing the active, meaningful learning implied in the Core Curriculum, but other classrooms provide no evidence of such efforts.

In a fifth grade classroom, a read aloud of the book of the month, The Black Snowman, was going on. 'The teacher's reading engaged the students fully in the story. The read aloud generated a discussion about the symbolism of color, i.e., black is bad, white is good. At the beginning of the discussion, all of the talk was between teacher and students, with students responding to questions from the teacher. But after a while, students began initiating the talk, and a lively student to student discussion took place. Throughout the read aloud and the discussion, the teacher communicated both verbally and nonverbally that students' ideas were valued; the teacher encouraged students to share and support their ideas with evidence.

Children in a third grade classroom were observed during a vocabulary lesson. In the lesson, children were working with words from a story they had read earlier in the day. The teacher said a word, and children went back to the story to find the word. They used the context of the story to create their own defintions for the words. After the vocabulary lesson, the teacher asked students to use a story web to identify the elements of the story. When a child asked the teacher how to spell a word, the teacher referred the child back to the story to find the word. Children in the class were eager to tell the visitor about the story. One child reported that the story was about a deaf child, and that the teacher had taught the class some sign language as part of the lesson. The observer noted that the teacher's responses to students nearly always communicated to students the expectation that they were competent. Rather than answering questions directly, the teacher nearly always helped students to find information for themselves.

Kindergarten children were observed during word work. The classroom had words hanging from the ceiling, and children were identifying words that began with the letter "p." The teacher pretended to be on a plane ride and invited children to join her. To join her, children had to find a word that began with "p." At the end of the activity, the teacher provided an opportunity for the children to reflect on the activity, and they discussed how they activity went and how they could make it better.

In other classrooms, few opportunities for active, meaning-centered learning were observed, And in a few, no instruction at all was taking place. In one such classroom, some children were filling in the blanks in a spelling book while others worked at mathematics drill and practice. In another, several children were sitting doing nothing for most of the time the observer was in the classroom.

In several other classrooms, when the observer arrived, the teacher stopped the activity that was going on and began a read aloud. In at least one of those classrooms, the read aloud seemed to be a rehearsed performance; children remarked that they had done this already. But even in this classroom, once the read aloud began, children were engaged in the story and the discussion that accompanied the story. One child told the visitor that he loves read alouds because "they are better books that I read, and my teacher reads them."

No instruction in mathematics, science, or social studies was observed during the visit to the school, and only a few artifacts of such instruction were evident. There was some evidence of mathematics instruction noted by the observer. In one classroom, there was a problem on the board that involved some sophisticated patterning, evidence of problem solving. Children were observed in a few classrooms completing mathematics practice; in all those classrooms, the practice involved basic computation with no use of manipulatives or opportunities for application within a meaningful context.

In one class, evidence of a social studies unit was noted. While no instruction in either content or process was observed, some students in the class was preparing to begin developing a large report about Africa. Students working in pairs selected, from a list provided by the teacher of ten parts of the larger report, one of the parts for their own report.

Professional Development

Franklin School is part of the Balanced Literacy project, and teachers at the school were provided inservice in October related to the project. Teachers in kindergarten through grade two participated in a workshop provided by the consultant from the Rigby reading series, while teachers in grade three through five had a workshop on the Principles of Learning. Teachers at the school have also had opportunities to visit demonstration sites for Balanced Literacy.

The Kauffman Foundation provided the school with a grant of $15,000 to support the implementation of Balanced Literacy. The Kauffman Foundation also provides coaching and follow-up for teachers at the school, according to one of the facilitators from the foundation.

The school has an instructional coach, but the observer did not meet the coach on the day of the visit or observe the coach in classrooms.

The school has just begun implementation of Balanced Literacy; observations in classrooms confirm that most teachers are making efforts toward implementation. The observer noted that most teachers are implementing read alouds and are helping their students to understand and use accountable talk.

Assessment

The principal reported that the school is creating student portfolios, and doing Writers Workshop once every two weeks, but that because of being in the first year of the Balanced Literacy project, they had not had time to address the issue of assessment in other ways.

Improving Student Achievement

The principal reported that all of the professional development was aimed at improving student achievement.

Summary

Only a few teachers at Franklin School were observed to be implementing the active, meaning-centered learning implied in the Core Curriculum. But Franklin School has joined the Balanced Literacy project, and according to the coach provided by the Kauffman Foundation, teachers have been working on read alouds. So many teachers stopping what they were doing to do read alouds when the observer arrived in their classrooms may be evidence that teachers are feeling comfortable with read alouds.

The principal reported that teachers were using journaling in their classrooms, but no journaling was observed. The observer did note that in one classroom, the teacher told students when they left the room that when they returned, they would write in their journals.

Teachers at Franklin are participating in professional development related to literacy and the Principles of Learning. The principal explained that the implementation of the practices that teachers are learning through this professional development is nearly overwhelming; no efforts to develop assessments are going on, but the literacy project and the Principles of Learning have the potential to improve student achievment.

Gladstone Academy

Gladstone Academy, a neighborhood school, serves 641 children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The school, which has four sections of each grade, also includes two classes of children who are deaf and hard of hearing. More than one-fourth of the students at the school speak a language other than English as their home language.

Gladstone Academy is a demonstration site for the Balanced Literacy project, funded by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation. The school hosts many visits and observations by teachers from other schools in the KCMSD, and teachers from Gladstone make visits to other schools as part of the mentoring that they do.

The new principal at Gladstone Academy has continued the school's culture of a community of learners working and learning together; she has joined the community as a colearner and reports relying on the leadership of teachers in keeping with the shared governance of site-based management. The staff at Gladstone work together on the budget, they monitor and analyze student performance, and they select and purchase instructional materials together. Currently teachers are selecting next year's books of the month.

Technology at the school has recently been upgraded with the installation of a computer lab of 25 iMAC computers. When the new lab was installed, teachers requested training in using the new hardware and integrating it into the work of their classrooms; to meet that request, the computer lab teacher has opened the lab before and after school, not only to teachers, but to paras, custodians, and cafeteria personnel, as well.

One site visitor spent a day at Gladstone Academy, interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking informally with teachers and children. The site visitor also took note of the student work displayed throughout the school.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal reported that the school was working to make optimum use of the new Curriculum Designer software that has aligned the Core Curriculum with MAP. The software the contains suggested activities and has the capability to help develop reports for parents. Several teams of teachers at the school are working to learn the various components of the software package.

Observation in classrooms at the school show teachers throughout the school to be implementing the intent of the Core Curriculum, with its focus on meaning-centered, active learning. Many of the children at Gladstone Academy are active agents in their own learning, making decisions about it and taking responsibility for their own learning. In all classrooms in the school, charts developed collaboratively by teachers and children describe literacy strategies and procedures, as well as rubrics for many classroom activities.

In a kindergarten, children were involved in Readers Workshop. Beginning with a guided reading lesson of a non-fiction book about the work of Jane Goodall, the workshop continued with students reading the books in their book boxes for 20 minutes. During that time, the teacher conferenced with individual students about how to tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction books. The observer noted a rubric for Readers Workshop posted in the classroom and asked a student what it was for. The student clearly understood the rubric. He invited the observer to listen to him read the pages he was planning to share during the wrap up at the end of Readers Workshop. In this classroom, "reading" the pictures is clearly honored as literacy, and the child proudly read the pictures on the pages he had chosen from a book about boats. The illustration on one page was of several boats on a river at night. The child read, "Even though it's midnight, the boats are still racing on the river." When asked to explain if his books were fiction or non-fiction, he readily did so, explaining how he could tell. Other children asked by the observer were also able to explain the differences between fiction and non-fiction and accurately sort the books in their book boxes.

A fourth grade classroom was observed during a read aloud of Marianthe's Story One: Painted Words, by Aliki. This is a book that includes two stories, one beginning on one cover, and a second story beginning on the other cover. The teacher invited students to sit with their "carpet partners" and to make pictures "in your mind from some of the words" as she read the story. One child said, "You have the book upside down." The teacher explained, "It's a special book. It has two different stories." Another child asked, "Won't you get mixed up?" The teacher showed how there is a dividing page between the stories. As the teacher read the story about a little girl who does not speak English and her experience going to a school in the United States, a child asked, "Do the other kids know that she speaks another language?" Several children responded, with the teacher reminding one to "defend that answer." The teacher honored the children's speculation and prediction, bringing them back to the book and finding evidence to support what they said. A later discussion about what grade the classroom in the story was led the teacher to invite the children to "do some turn and talk about the disagreement about the grade described." Children discussed with their partners. The ones closest to the observer defended their predictions with evidence from the text and their own experience. Most of them also labeled the evidence with such statements as "in the book it said . . ." and "remember when we were in first grade?"

During the wrap-up of Readers Workshop in a fifth grade, a child who had read about polar bears shared with the class that polar bear cubs sometimes are eaten by their parents. Other children made connections to hamsters and sharks, who also eat their young. The first child told the class a little about how a zoo keeper in Atlanta rescued a polar bear cub by from being eaten by its father and asked the class, "Should it be worth it to spend a lot of time and money on a bear?" The teacher and student together added that the zoo had asked the zoo keeper to stay home and raise the baby until it could fend for itself. A student asked, "Did the zoo keeper jump into the cage and save the baby? It could live and have more babies." Another student said, " I think it's worth it and not worth it. If it's natural for the father to eat the baby, then maybe it should be OK." Another student talked about the value of life. One student connected the dilemma to "It's a Bug's Life."

In a third grade, the mathematics lesson was about regrouping in subtraction. The students wrote explanations of why it was necessary to regroup in their math journals and then shared their explanations. The teacher recorded some of their responses on the board as the children shared them. Then the teacher had the children review regrouping with base 10 blocks, working several examples of subtraction that required regrouping and then representing what they did with numbers on the board, with children always explaining why they were doing what they were.

The mathematics lesson observed in a second grade class provided the opportunity for students to understand the value of grouping objects for counting by fives and tens. Children were given a set amount of time to make as many stars as they could in their math journals. When the time was up, the teacher asked them to count the number of stars they had made. Then the teacher asked the children to circle groups of five stars and then recount by fives. The teacher asked the children to write in their journals the number of groups of five and the number of stars left over. He also asked the children to write how they came up with their answers. To a child who was having trouble explaining in writing, the teacher said, "I'm confused about how you got that answer." The child explained, and the teacher said, "Write that down." And then, after the child had written the explanation, the teacher said, "Very smart! You wrote what you did."

In the same classroom, after the mathematics lesson, the teacher asked students to get their theme study notebooks and to be prepared to share what they had learned during their last theme study session. Children shared what they had written during the previous lesson about the sun, moon, and stars. As one child shared, another said, "I want to add on to what [another child had] said." After a period of sharing, the teacher commented that the children had shared things they hadn't even talked about yet.

In a social studies lesson observed, children were finishing maps they had made of their classroom. As they finished, the teacher used a rubric to provide feedback about the maps. The teacher also used some completed maps that were "4-star" maps to show children the differences between those maps and others that hadn't met the standards for four stars. The teacher gave children the opportunity to continue working on their maps to reach "4-star" quality.

Even support teachers are part of the school's focus on literacy. The principal reported that even the physical education teacher has a word wall in the gymnasium. A visit to the art room and observation of a lesson showed the content to be connected to what the children were studying in their regular classroom. During the observed lesson, children worked on "magic slippers," directly drawn from the school's book of the month. The lesson also involved designing and continuing patterns, which supported what the students were currently working on in mathematics.

Children's work was displayed throughout the school, in classrooms and in common areas. The work provided evidence of learning in all areas of the curriculum. Examples of that work included drawings of how energy is produced from the sun, accompanied by written explanations, self-portraits, punctuation posters that showed appropriate use of punctuation marks, and many pieces of writing.

Professional Development

The culture of the school is one of learning, with professional development a part of nearly every activity. The Balanced Literacy grant has continued to provide support and resources for professional development. Teachers at the school have a study group that focuses on reading literature related to issues they would like to address at the school. Most recently, teachers identified conferencing during Writers Workshop as an area of concern. To address this, they are currently reading and discussing Carl Anderson's book, How's It Going?: A Practical Guide to Conferencing with Student Writers.

Teachers have also worked with consultant Dianne Seltzer on using non-fiction in their classrooms, and they have read and discussed the book Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and Research in Grades 3 - 8 by Stephanie Harvey. In January, 2001, they will begin working on strategies for teaching spelling.

Observations in every classroom showed evidence of the results of the professional development teachers have been involved in. Besides the teaching, facilitating, and coaching observed in classrooms that demonstrated what the teachers have learned through the professional development, there are many artifacts of that work. These include the charts and rubrics that are developed jointly by teachers and students and referred to throughout the day; the classroom organization that includes such things as children's individual boxes and baskets of books; the classroom maps that show children's reading places and "Buddy Places;" the envelopes that hold individual spelling words; and the materials for reading and writing, as well as other curriculum areas, that are plentiful and accessible to children.

Assessment

Assessment is an on-going process at the school; it is embedded in everything that students do in classrooms, according to the principal. A review of the school's MAP scores by the staff identified the need for more work in the areas of math and science literacy, and the staff is planning to extend the focus of their professional development to include mathematics and science workshops. The school's MAP coordinator convenes monthly assessment team meetings to review student work from the standpoint of MAP. With the addition of health to the fifth grade MAP, teachers at the school have looked for ways to incorporate health into their literature and word study.

Throughout the day and throughout the school, the observer noted that assessment was truly embedded in instruction. Teachers were noted to be "kid watchers." gathering information during conferencing with children and through observing them as they worked on classroom activities. They also provided opportunities for and coached children to assess their own learning through the many rubrics that were displayed in classrooms. And they were observed providing feedback to students that was focused on the learning and the learning processes.

The read aloud observed in a first grade classroom provided good examples of the kind of feedback heard throughout the school. As children talked about the story, what had happened and predicted what would happen, the teacher asked, "What would make you think so deeply about . . .?" Children also provided feedback. One child explained to another who was new to the school, "when you add on you say the same but more, something different." When a child described how a character in the story felt as depressed, there was a discussion among the children about what it means to be depressed. One child, who offered an accurate explanation, added that for her, that was a connection between the text and life because she had a parent who was depressed. The teacher said, "You were being the kind of reader who looks deep into the picture."

Increasing Student Achievement

The principal reported that student performance in writing on the last administration of MAP surpassed the state standard. As noted above in the discussion of assessment, teachers at the school use data from assessment to identify areas for their own improvement and for professional development. They also use the data they gather all day long, through conferencing and observing, to make decisions about the kinds of instruction that the children in their classrooms need.

Summary

At Gladstone Academy, the intent of the Core Curriculum is clearly being implemented. The principal shared that teachers know that they need to learn how to apply what they have learned from the literacy initiative to improving math and science workshops. Teachers have already translated many of the skills and strategies they have learned through the literacy initiative to other curriculum areas, and there was evidence that teachers use social studies and science themes in their literacy instruction.

The notion of teachers as learners seems institutionalized at Gladstone Academy. There is formal professional development, but there is also informal professional development as teachers work together, share ideas, and learn from and build on the strengths of their colleagues.

Assessment is embedded in every learning activity. Teachers gather assessment data as they conference with children and as they observe children. They help children to focus on self-assessment through the effective use of rubrics that they develop with the children. And they give feedback that focuses on the learning and the process.

It is exciting to visit Gladstone Academy. Children and adults at the school are engaged in and excited about learning. One teacher shared her excitement about her work with the visitor. She explained that several years ago, she was just counting down the days, months, and years until she could retire. But with all of what she has learned about teaching and children's learning, and the excitement of seeing children so engaged in learning and learning so well, she thinks now she may never retire!

Richardson Elementary School

Richardson Elementary School is a community school that serves approximately 375 children in grades K through 5 in the Ivanhoe community of Kansas City, according to school personnel, one of the highest crime areas of the city. Seventy-four percent of the children at the school qualify for free lunch, and the school delivers Title I service as a schoolwide program.

A technology magnet school five years ago, Richardson has focused on developing community as they have transitioned from magnet status. This focus on community has included efforts to build children's self-esteem as well as to teach strategies for peaceful conflict resolution and forming positive relationships with families.

One site visitor spent a school day at Richardson Elementary School, interviewing the principal and observing in classrooms at every grade level. Two classrooms at each grade level were observed except third grade where a substitute teacher was in one classroom on the day of the visit. The observer also chatted informally with several staff members, including the instructional coach, the Reading Recovery teacher, the music teacher/Accelerated Schools facilitator, and classroom teachers, as well as students in most classrooms.

Evidence of the commitment to community was observed during the site visit to the school. Teachers and children begin each school day in the school's gymnasium with a community meeting. The community meeting, led by the principal, includes greetings, general announcements, an academic challenge such as science questions for the children to investigate, and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and the school pledge together. As the adults and children assembled, and later left for their classrooms, the observer noted many instances of communication of caring. Comments such as "I'm glad to see you," and "How are you doing today?" were heard repeatedly and noted between children as well as between adults and children.

The principal described her efforts to call attention to children's acts of kindness, as well as their good work, by distributing slips of paper to children she observes in acts of kindness and doing good work as she walks through the school and classrooms each day. Two bicycles have been donated to the school, and the slips of paper she distributes become tickets in the raffle for the bicycles later in the school year. Children in several classrooms and the cafeteria told the observer how many tickets they had received. When asked why they had received the tickets, the children explained that they had been kind, they had been good members of the community, or that they had been working hard.

Evidence of the school's efforts toward peaceful conflict resolution was also noted. As the observer arrived at the school, two children also arrived at the office to report to the principal that they had been pushed by another child on their way to breakfast. The older of the two children explained she was especially concerned that the younger, a kindergartner, had been pushed by an older and larger child. The principal told the children that the incident would be investigated later. After the community meeting, the principal sought out the child who reported the incident; the child identified the "pusher" and said that another adult was already talking with him. The principal thanked the child for handling the situation appropriately, noting to the observer the effort it had taken to keep children from retaliating.

The school's efforts to establish a positive environment are also evident in the lunchroom. Rather than have children wait in long lines that have the potential for conflict, the school personnel who work in the lunchroom seat the children at their tables. Many children take books to the lunchroom and read while they wait for their table to be invited to go through the cafeteria line. Children chat quietly with one another and the adults in the room during the lunch periods. The observer noted that inappropriate behavior was addressed through redirection rather than punishment or coercion. A child who "was having trouble" was invited to join the principal and the observer; he was invited into the conversation, and no further attention was called to his "trouble".

Richardson Elementary School is in its second year as part of Missouri's Accelerated Schools project. The principal noted that 100 percent of the staff made the commitment initially to participate in Accelerated Schools, and that a significant number of parents have been involved in the effort from the beginning, as well. The school also participates in the Balanced Literacy grant funded by the Kauffman Foundation.

To support these initiatives, the school has budgeted to have a full time vice principal, a full time counselor, and a full time instructional coach. In addition, the school provides Reading Recovery and supportive services in music, art, physical education, library, and computers. Further assistance is provided by a cadre of volunteers, some of whom were at the school on the day of the site visit.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal, as well as several teachers at the school, described their efforts to implement the Core Curriculum. Accelerated Schools cadres have been formed for each of the four major academic curriculum areas--language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies--with the cadres focusing on improving learning in that area. Teachers at the school have also worked to cross reference the Core Curriculum with MAP and to design assessments that document children's learning in the Core Curriculum through tasks that are similar to those of the MAP.

In most classrooms in the school, the observer noted the engagement of children in active, meaning-centered tasks that required higher order thinking, the integration and application of knowledge in a variety of contexts, the synthesis of learning, and reflection. The observer also noted the integration of technology into the instruction in several classrooms.

The day of the site visit to Richardson Elementary School was November 8, the day after the presidential election. Students in several classrooms were observed discussing the election. In one classroom, students had been watching several races in particular. The teacher led the students in a discussion comparing their own personal responses to the results of those races with information from the Kansas City Star and with what they had heard and seen on TV. The teacher demonstrated how to find information on the Internet about the election results, as well. The students' writing assignment for Writers Workshop was to write about their personal responses to any of the races they knew about, citing information they gleaned from one or more of the media sources. (There were copies of the Kansas City Star in the classroom, as well as more than ten computers connected to the Internet, available for children to refer to as part of their prewriting.) During the discussion the children and the teacher compared the results to their own preferences, referring to a graph of personal preferences the class had made from their own straw poll the previous day. Throughout the discussion in this classroom, while the teacher took the lead, much of the discourse was initiated by students and directed either toward the teacher or toward other students. The children seemed very interested in understanding how the election returns were reported by the media, and they raised questions such as "Why did some states flash last night?" Rather than give answers, the teacher allowed the children to discuss and formulate the answers to their questions.

Children in a primary classroom were observed during language arts block, as well. The second grade classes were involved in a thematic unit about grandparents. In this particular classroom, the previous day, several of the children's grandparents had visited the classroom, and on the day of the visit students were working in small groups and engaged in a number of literacy activities related to the grandparents unit. One group was reading stories about grandparents. A second group worked on memory boxes, boxes that would hold artifacts that represented special memories. Another group read personal stories of their grandparents that the teacher had solicited from the children's families and identified the main ideas of the stories. Three small groups focused on finding words that began with consonant blends, with one group listening to Blueberries for Sal, a story that contains many words that begin with blends, a second group finding words beginning with blends in the signs and print located around the classroom, and the third group searching a big book to find the blends in the story. The teacher assisted children as they asked for help or as the teacher observed that it was necessary; her role was clearly that of facilitator, providing materials and assistance, but the learning was directed almost entirely by the children.

In an intermediate grade classroom, the teacher engaged the children in a lesson about comparing and contrasting, a language arts lesson that the teacher connected to the science lesson of the previous afternoon. The lesson began with reading a selection about the differences between two kinds of snakes. The teacher and some of the students "thought aloud" the strategies they used as they read the story. They predicted and confirmed, they used context to determine the meaning of the word "venom," and they kept checking back to make sure that they were indeed learning the differences between the two kinds of snakes from the selection they were reading.

A mathematics lesson in a fifth grade classroom focused on estimation. The teacher asked students to recall the work they had done previously on "front end" estimation and "rounding," giving the students a minute to look back at their notes on estimation from the previous lesson. After a short discussion about the value of being able to explain a mathematics process in words, the teacher asked the students to write a paragraph explaining one of the two strategies in their mathematics journals. As students shared their paragraphs, the teacher invited others to look for details that might be missing from the explanations. The class then worked an example together using each of the strategies and compared the results with the "actual" answer. Individually, children worked two examples in their mathematics journal and then wrote a sentence about what they had learned.

In a few classrooms, however, activities were not as meaning-centered. In a second grade classroom, for example, students were working on addition and subtraction of two- and three-digit numbers that required regrouping. As one student completed an example on the overhead, the others were supposed to be checking their work in their math journals. The student talked through the process, but the focus of the talk was on the process and not the meaning. At no time did the teacher attempt to focus the talk on the meaning of the process. In addition, in contrast to most other classrooms where all students were engaged in lessons observed, some of the students in this classroom did not have math journals on their desks, and some of the students who did have them did not seem to be checking their work.

In another classroom, the stated objective of a social studies lesson was to compare and contrast Washington, DC today and in the past. The observed activity, however, was a round robin reading of a short selection that described Washington, DC today in a social studies text. The teacher asked students to describe what they saw in the illustrations in the text. She also called attention to the homophones "capital" and "capitol" and explained their meanings. But the lesson included no general meaning-making strategies (prediction and confirmation, for example) or content-specific strategies (attention to headings, information in sidebars, and so on), nor did it include any information about Washington, DC, historically, that would allow students to compare and contrast, as the objective stated.

Throughout the school, student work was displayed attractively. Nearly all of the work displayed in this school was student writing, although in a few classrooms, there were graphs and other artifacts of mathematics work. Most classrooms also display teacher-and student-developed charts and rubrics for a variety of processes in literacy. Some classrooms also displayed some charts about mathematics. But little of the displayed work, charts, or rubrics focused on science, social studies, or the arts.

Professional Development

The principal and other school personnel described the professional development efforts at the school as centered around the school's Accelerated Schools efforts. As part of those efforts, cadres of teachers and other school personnel focus on each of the core areas of the curriculum--language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. Teachers had also participated in professional development related to the cross-referencing of the Core Curriculum with the MAP, designing assessments aligned with the Core Curriculum in content and the MAP in process, and the professional development provided through the Balanced Literacy grant. The school's instructional coach also has worked with teachers to follow up this professional development work.

Evidence of the work on literacy is noted throughout the school. The student work displayed, the read-alouds and guided reading lessons observed, the charts in classrooms that outline aspects of the reading and writing processes, and even some lessons in other curriculum areas show that teachers are implementing what they are learning through the Balanced Literacy project and that teachers' learning is impacting student learning.

In a primary classroom, a read aloud of Arthur's Chicken Pox was observed. During the read aloud, students related the content of the story to their own experience, discussing what it feels like to have chicken pox, and they made predictions and confirmed them through the reading of the story. They also noted such literary elements as the author's uses of his own children's names in his stories, how the author has changed his illustration from one book to another, and so on.

In an intermediate grade discussion about the presidential election, the students organized information they had learned about elections into a web. As they completed the web, the teacher led students to be metacognitive, to think about and describe their thinking processes. When the web was completed, students ordered the information and set priorities for it, all in preparation for the writing they would do about the election during the day's Writers Workshop.

Evidence of professional development related to assessment was noted by the observer and is described in the next section of this case study. The effects of other professional development related to mathematics, social studies, and science were less evident in classrooms.

Assessment

School personnel described several efforts toward implementing assessments that are aligned with both the Core Curriculum and MAP. These include using the released items from MAP with students and as models for designing other assessment tasks, developing rubrics for daily activities, such as those for listening that were posted in many classrooms, and encouraging student self-assessment.

To help students understand rubrics and how they are applied to student work, some teachers described having their students use rubrics from released MAP items to score actual student responses. Teachers have also had students construct their own responses to released items, using the rubrics. In addition, some teachers at the school have been designing tasks and rubrics that are aligned with the Core Curriculum. One second grade teacher showed the observer several projects developed as assessment tasks. One such project was an "encyclopedia of video games" developed by the students as an assessment for their Encyclopedia of Music Instruments unit. This task required students to develop an encyclopedia entry about a video game. The rubric is written in language that students could use to assess their own work. According to the written description of the task, the assessment "utilizes Core Curriculum benchmarks RG1, RG4, RH3, RJ1, WC1, WK1, OA1, and OB2" as well as being aligned with MAP 2000 Language Arts 2.1 and 2.4, Reading Operations 8.2 and 8.14, Study and Research Skills 11.3, 11.4, and 11.9, Vocabulary 13.4, and Writing 14.1 and 14.6.

The observer noted several teachers called attention to, or led students to review, rubrics for such activities as listening during classroom lessons. In a kindergarten classroom, for example, before a read aloud, the teacher asked the students to "name one thing that makes a good listener." Students listed all the attributes of good listeners that were included in their classroom rubric, as well as a few more attributes that were not included in the rubric, indicating that the rubric was not only understood by the children, but a living document that progressed as it was understood.

No rubrics or assessment tasks were observed in the areas of mathematics, science, or social studies.

Improving Student Achievement

School personnel described that the ultimate goal of all the improvement efforts at the school was to improve student achievement--improved implementation of the curriculum, the efforts to align lesson plans and assessments with the Core Curriculum and MAP, the Reading Recovery program, and the Accelerated Schools work. The principal noted that, although last year's MAP scores did not meet the school's expectations, the students' scores on the last administration of the SAT 9 should "over two years of growth," an indication that students were learning more and better.

In addition, Richardson School provides focused assistance for the lowest achievers. There is a Saturday School for students whose MAP scores were at level I. Each of these students also has a tutor who works with the student individually on skills and strategies related to the curriculum.

Summary

Richardson School has worked hard to transition successfully from magnet to community school status. The school's work towards developing a strong community and a strong, positive presence in the neighborhood is evident. Children at the school seem happy and, in most classrooms, have a clear focus on learning.

The school's work to improve teaching and learning is also evident. In general, the school communicates a strong focus on literacy, and literacy practices observed in most classrooms demonstrate teacher commitment to literacy learning. In addition, student work displayed in the school demonstrates that the school community values high quality writing. Many of the teachers at the school are already adept at facilitating the principles that are embodied in the Balanced Literacy project; others are developing those skills. It seems clear that nearly all teachers are committed to improving their own teaching.

Some of the teachers are applying the principles of learning to beyond the area of literacy to mathematics, social studies, and science. Some others, however, will need professional development that is specifically focused on such application to be able to implement teaching practices in those curriculum areas that are as effective. Expanding the focus of professional development beyond literacy will be critical to continue to improve student learning.

Assessment practices at Richardson School have begun to change to reflect the intent of the Core Curriculum and the MAP. Continued professional development in assessment, as well as extensive and concentrated efforts to develop new tasks and rubrics will be required to extend this effort to every classroom and every curriculum area. Once all teachers understand how to develop and implement performance-based assessments that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate application of their learning in contexts that are meaningful, then the school can begin to develop an assessment system. Such a system that is aligned across grade levels and curriculum areas has the potential to document student progress, to report to parents, and to evaluate the school's curriculum and instruction.

Satchel Paige Elementary School

Satchel Paige Elementary School is a comprehensive community school that serves 525 children in kindergarten through grade five. Besides regular classrooms, the school houses two cross-categorical special education classes and a large program of supportive services that includes a full-time counselor, instrumental and vocal music, art, computer, library, cultural studies, and physical education, including swimming.

The school staff, which was reconstituted several years ago, has made a concerted effort to develop community, both within the school and within the larger school community. According to the principal, the school is seeing the result of that work in an increase in teacher commitment, and increase in parent involvement, and a decrease in discipline problems.

Students at the school wear uniforms--khaki slacks, skirts, or jumpers, and navy shirts and sweaters. Staff also wear the uniforms at least one day a week. On the day of the visit, nearly all students and several staff members were wearing the uniform.

The fifth grade at Satchel Paige is departmentalized, but it is gender separated. There are two male and two female fifth grade classes. The principal and fifth grade teachers believe that fifth grade students are more focused on learning in the gender-separate classes.

One site visitor spent a day at the school, interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking with teachers and students. The visitor also took note of student work displayed in classrooms and in common areas of the school.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The school district recently completed the development of a new Core Curriculum document that aligns the Core Curriculum with the MAP. According to the principal, teachers at Satchel Paige use the Core Curriculum to develop lesson plans.

In many classrooms at Satchel Paige, activities were observed that were in keeping with the active, hands-on, meaning-centered learning implied in the Core Curriculum.

A mathematics lesson observed in a third grade classroom involved addition and subtraction of three-digit numbers in the form of dollars and cents. While the lesson involved basic computation, the teacher invited children to explain the process they had used to do the computation as well as why. Several children used different strategies to do the computation, and the teacher communicated valuing using different strategies by labeling them (for example, counting down) and inviting children to share their different strategies.

In a fifth grade science class, children were observed learning about the microscope. The teacher distributed microscopes to groups of children. As the teacher explained each part of the microscope, children found the parts. Then the teacher distributed a slide to each group and showed how to focus the microscope and look at what was on the slide. Children took turns looking at the slide. Then the teacher introduced the new unit in science with a list of objectives written in language that could be understood by the children. The teacher explained that knowing the objectives would help the children know what's important in the unit.

Children in a second grade classroom were learning about main idea and supporting details. The teacher had written a story on the board about goldfish. She invited the children to explain what a main idea is and to identify it. Once the main idea was identified, the children discussed details and identified them. Then the teacher wrote four more sentences on the board. She explained that some of the sentences could be added to the story because they were details about fish. Children identified them, and the teacher asked them to explain why they had selected the sentences they did. Then children completed with partners a similar exercise identifying main idea and appropriate details.

A third grade class was observed in a discussion about the Abominable Snowman and Bigfoot. The teacher read aloud a selection about them both, and the class discussed them during the reading. Then the teacher asked children to compare and contrast the two, to describe how they were alike and how they were different. He reminded them of the previous compare contrast chart they had made about spoons and forks, and several children offered similarities and differences between the two. Children made compare/contrast charts to organize their information.

Artifacts of other work were observed that showed that children had engaged in many meaning-centered learning activities in all curriculum areas. Children's writing from science, social studies, and math was on display. In one classroom, children had made diagrams of plants, for example, and they had written accompanying explanations of the functions of each part of the plant. There were graphs that children had made in many classrooms. In one classroom, there were ziploc bags that held sprouting peas, evidence of a hands-on science activity. In another classroom, children were working on a quilt.

The school's work in literacy was evident in many classrooms, as well, in the quantity of books available to children, the writing displayed in classrooms and in the hallways of the school, and in the literacy activities observed in classrooms.

In a kindergarten class, children were doing "word work." Some children were "reading the room" with clipboards in hand to record words with "th" in them. Others had bags of word families; each bag had a set of consonants and a word family part, -ed, for example. Those children were making words by adding a consonant to the front of the word part. Still others were using magnetized letters to spell animal words on the side of a file cabinet. The word family group and the animal words group were recording the words they had made in their journals.

Children in another kindergarten class were observed during Writers Workshop. The teacher asked children to find a page in their journals with a finished piece and a page with a piece that was not finished. They had a discussion of what makes a finished piece (there are enough details to tell a story, whether it's in words or in pictures). The teacher called attention to the class rubric that showed what good writers do, and then she invited the children to finish one of their previous journal entries that was not finished.

The teacher in a third grade class asked children to "write down real quickly what you think mood is." Children, seated on the carpet around her, wrote in their journals. The teacher invited children to share what they had written, and together they generated a list of examples. The teacher also asked the children to think of characters in stories they had read earlier, and the children described the mood of the characters. The teacher explained that the story they were going to read on the day of the visit was about two characters who were competing, and then she asked, "Can two win?" The children talked about what the mood of a character might be if he or she lost. The teacher asked the children to go to their reading places and read the first five pages, thinking about the mood of the characters, of the book that she was distributing.

There were lessons observed that were not facilitated as skillfully as those described here, but even in these classrooms, it was clear that teachers were trying the literacy strategies and working to make learning meaningful to students.

Professional Development

Satchel Paige Elementary School has an instructional coach who works with teachers in classrooms. The school is also involved in the Balanced Literacy project, funded through a grant from the Kauffman Foundation. The Kauffman Foundation has provided money to purchase books for the school, and the school has a book of the month.

The Kauffman Foundation also provides support in the form of a staff developer/coach who is working to develop four demonstration classrooms at Satchel Paige. On the day of the site visit, the staff developer was observed coaching a teacher. The staff developer also teaches demonstration lessons at the school. According to the principal, teachers appreciate the help of this staff developer and are anxious to have her help in their own classrooms. Currently, teachers at Satchel Paige are part of a study group that is reading and studying In the Company of Children.

As described above, many teachers at the school are working to implement the strategies they are learning through the literacy project.

Assessment

Third, fourth, and fifth grade students at the school take the SAT 9 and the MAP. Teachers in the primary grades use the Sunshine assessment to document their students' progress in literacy. The principal reported that teachers at the school have developed tests that are aligned with the MAP, and that they use simulated tests to help students prepare for the test.

In the primary classrooms at the school, there were some rubrics posted, and teachers referred to them as they worked with children. In the classroom described above, where kindergarten children were finishing journal entries begun earlier, the teacher used the rubrics to help children recall what was expected during writing.

In other classrooms, there was little evidence visible of curriculum-embedded assessment. The observer noted, however, that the writing, the projects, and the hands-on activities that characterized the work of children in most classrooms offered many opportunities for assessment.

A system of performance assessments would be a natural extension of such activities.

Improving Student Achievement

Satchel Paige Elementary School is committed to improving student achievement, according to the principal. A number of initiatives at the school are aimed at this improvement. Title I funds, for example, are used to reduce class size in third grade, a grade level that is critical in the MAP. Two retired teachers work with students a half day, four days a week. These teachers focus their efforts on second and third graders who are "middle" achievers, while the school's reading teacher works with lower achievers. These students are all working on the same skills and strategies.

Nineteen students at Satchel Paige are tutored during the extended day program by volunteers from Time Warner. The Time Warner volunteers bring their own materials to use when the work with the students once each week.

Summary

The teachers at Satchel Paige Elementary School seem to be working to implement the intent of the Core Curriculum. They are currently involved in professional development related to literacy. Many of the skills and strategies that they use in literacy can be adapted throughout the curriculum. Honing their skills in the other content areas will be a natural extension of the literacy work and should be the next priority for the Satchel Paige staff.

Professional development at Satchel Paige is school- and classroom-based, with teachers having opportunities for coaching, collaborative study through study groups, observation in one anothers' classrooms, and review of the artifacts of children's work displayed throughout the school.

Little evidence of the development of an assessment system was observed at the school. However, many of the projects and classroom activities that are already being used could easily be translated into an assessment system. Designing such a system that is aligned with the Core Curriculum and the Show Me Standards would provide information about and document student learning throughout the school year, that could help plan for instruction and document learning aside from the MAP.

Satchel Paige has made tremendous improvement since its reconstitution. The challenge for this school is to continue to build on the successes of the students and staff to make the school an excellent one.

Swinney Elementary School

Swinney School, an applied learning magnet school, serves 430 children in kindergarten through grade 5. In the past year, the Swinney community has had the challenge of making two schools into one. The building that housed Volker School was closed, and the two schools merged, opening as Swinney School in the fall.

According to the principal, bringing together two staffs and two school communities has involved addressing the affective issues related to such a change. The staff held a retreat in the summer to become a team and to begin to heal some of the negative feelings that had resulted from the public discussion about the merger. Because the teachers from Volker were asked to move to a new building and make so many changes, the principal asked each of the Swinney staff members to commit to making a change for the new school year so that all members of the school staff would be involved in the change process.

One site visitor spent a day at the school, interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking informally with students and teachers. The visitor also took note of the student work that was displayed in classrooms and in common areas of the school.

The principal begins every school day in the hallway where students enter the building, greeting each student. He has asked all teachers to be in the hallways, as well, and creating such a positive feeling tone as students enter, he believes, has also made the staff attitude much more positive. The observer noted that the principal addressed most students by name as they entered the school. They seemed eager to share their news with him, and he remarked on their new clothes or things they had brought with them to school. Students who identified themselves as having birthdays were ushered into the school office to select a treasure from the principal's birthday treasure chest.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal reported that the new MAP alignment of the Core Curriculum has resulted in a manageable document that teachers can and do really use in planning for instruction. He acknowledged that teachers at Swinney were at various stages in their efforts to implement the strategies of the Balanced Literacy project but also his belief that all teachers have at least begun the journey to implementing balanced literacy in their classrooms.

Observations showed that many of the teachers at Swinney are implementing the meaning-centered, active, application of knowledge implied in the Core Curriculum.

In one classroom, a mathematics lesson was observed on determining which of two four-digit numbers was greater. The teacher posed the problem of deciding which of two routes to take to New York. One route was 1,289 miles, and a second route was 1,096 miles. Students were asked to decide which route they would take and be ready to explain how they had made the decision. One student offered to explain his answer, and as he spoke, the teacher wrote what he said. The student said, "I chose route 2 because I wanted to get to New York faster. I knew 2 would be faster by first, I looked at the thousands place and they were both the same. Then I looked at the hundreds and they were 2 and 0. That told me that route 2 was the shortest route." The teacher asked the student questions about his decision, presumably to determine his level of understanding of the problem. Then the teacher asked if anyone else had made a different decision or had made the same decision for a different reason. The second child had selected the longer route, which he correctly identified because, he said, it might take you past some things you would want to see on the way.

In a kindergarten class, the teacher and students reviewed a story the teacher had read aloud the previous day, Bella Lost Her Moo. The teacher asked the children what the setting of the story was. One replied, "On a farm." The teacher reminded the children that the author had "never told us they were on a farm," and asked, "How did you know?" Children said that there were cows and other animals in the story that live on a farm. One child used the word "characters," and the teacher told the children that during Readers Workshop, she would be conferencing with them about the setting and the characters in the books they were reading from their book boxes.

The site visit was on December 1, and in several classrooms, students discussed the new calendar. In an intermediate grade classroom, the teacher invited students to pose questions they have written in their math journals about the new calendar. The questions included: How many days are there until January 27? How come you put 1 on Friday instead of Monday? How many days until New Years Eve? How many weeks are in December? How come there's a line between the 24th and the 31st? How many weekend days are there in December? Students answered their classmates questions, and several times the teacher invited the students to tell what they would write if the question was on the MAP test. When one child asked why Christmas was on December 25, the teacher asked if the children could find the answer to that question on the calendar. After all the children had posed their questions, the teacher asked the children to figure out and explain in their math journals how many years it would be until December 1, 10,000.

As part of the Balanced Literacy project, Swinney School is selecting a book of the month. The book for the month, Momma, Where Are You From?, by Marie Brandt, was visible is several of the classrooms visited. There were also posters of the cover of the book throughout the school. The art teacher reported making posters each month for the school. The art teacher also uses the book of the month as an opportunity to study the techniques used by the illustrator. The art teacher, new to the school this year, is a practicing professional artist who believes that seeing the world through the eyes of children has the potential to enhance his own work. In the art room, children also are engaged in the Core Curriculum. The art teacher has created art journals for the students as Swinney School because sketch books are authentic to art--all artists have them. The art journals, individual bound books, provide space for sketching and written reflection.

But all lessons observed did not offer students opportunities for meaning-centered learning. In one classroom, the teacher was observed dictating examples of multiplication of three-digit by two-digit numerals. After dictating "345 x 43" the teacher reminded the students to multiply the 3 and then the 4, that there would be two rows below the line, and then to add. This lesson focused solely on computation; no attempt to help students understand the meaning of the process was observed.

Although there was student work displayed that documented student work in social studies and science, no lessons in these areas were observed during the visit to the school.

Professional Development

Swinney School is part of the Kauffman Foundation-funded Balanced Literacy grant. Swinney has established a mentoring relationship with Gladstone School. Swinney teachers have visited Gladstone School twice to observe in classrooms and talk with teachers there, and teachers from Gladstone will visit Swinney in the next month.

Swinney School has an instructional coach who works with teachers in classrooms, but according to some teachers, the coach has duties other than coaching that take her away from spending as much time in classrooms as she could. The principal, who has provided modeling and coaching in the past, reported having done some modeling in lower grade classrooms, but he does not have as much time as he would like to be so closely involved in instruction.

Teachers at the school are involved in study groups that are currently working with reading and writing. They also meet in grade level groups to share strategies and to plan together. A few teachers described not yet feeling comfortable with the literacy strategies, and their need for more professional development and coaching. They also underscored the importance of financial support for such materials as books, book boxes and bins, rugs, pillows, and so on. To some of them, class size was an issue to some of them as they work to conference adequately with all their students.

In many of the classrooms at the school there is evidence of the professional development in the area of literacy. Teacher and student made charts that address a variety of strategies for literacy are displayed in some classrooms, baskets and boxes of personal and leveled books are visible, and students and teachers are engaged in Readers' and Writers Workshops.

Students in a primary classroom were observed during Writers Workshop. The students were all in various stages of writing, and the teacher was conferencing with individual students. Several times during the Writers Workshop, the teacher interrupted the class to read aloud something a child had written.

In many of these classrooms, there were high levels of accountable talk. Students initiated conversations about the content of lessons, asked and responded to each others' questions, and voiced their observations. In the calendar lesson described above, children took the lead in asking and answering questions, with the teacher occasionally asking if a different strategy could be used to find an answer or giving feedback. In other classrooms, children are being encouraged by teachers' questioning to think and to share their ideas and questions. In a first grade classroom, a class discussion observed was led by the teacher's questioning, but she encouraged children to respond to one another and to add to other children's responses. She also provided encouraging feedback and helped children to label the connections they made. There were a few classrooms where teachers discouraged student talk during the observed lesson.

There are teachers who are taking risks and trying what for them are new strategies. One such teacher was observed finishing up a writing session with the class and beginning a review of the book of the month. In the writing lesson, students had been talking about making sure that their writing had a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The teacher tried to make a connection between the writing and the book of the month by asking children to identify the beginning, middle, and ending of the book. Unfortunately, the format of the book was such that such analysis did not make sense.

In a few other classrooms, there was little visible evidence of the literacy strategies.

Assessment

Work on assessment is an on-going project at Swinney School, according to the principal. A few rubrics were visible in classrooms in the school, but only a few assessments were observed during the site visit.

In one classroom, the students had been working with homophones during Working with Words. On the day of the site visit, the teacher was assessing children's knowledge of the homophones. The assessment, however, did not provide the opportunity for students to use their knowledge in context; rather, it was in the form of a traditional spelling test, with words dictated by the teacher.

Students in another classroom were observed getting information from the teacher about how a letter writing assignment would be graded. The teacher gave a list of points for various aspects of the assignment: 50 points for letter content, 20 points for correct letter format, 10 points for the address, 20 points for spelling, punctuation, and grammar, 50 points for a great illustration, etc. While this was an attempt to provide guidance for the students in completing the task, no information was provided about the qualities that would be used to award the points in any of the areas.

Improving Student Achievement

The principal reported working to change the culture related to student achievement from one of remediation to one of expecting that all students are gifted and talented. As the school's test scores were analyzed, the staff realized that there were few high scoring students. They decided to expand their focus from remediating low scorers alone to coaching and mentoring students who have the potential to be high scorers. Swinney also has a Saturday school that provides additional instruction for identified students.

Summary

Swinney School has focused this school year on building a community from two school communities. The principal's efforts to address the affective aspects of such a merger are critical to the success of such a merger. From the perspective of an outsider, these efforts are being successful. Staff interactions observed were friendly and supportive, and the tone in the building seems positive and focused on children's learning.

The intent of the Core Curriculum is being implemented at a variety of levels in the school. All classrooms show evidence of some meaning-centered, active learning, although not all lessons observed during the site visit would be considered such. The principal reported that all teachers were "somewhere on their journey" to implementing the intent of the Core Curriculum and the literacy strategies, but that some are farther along than others. Observations supported the principal's analysis that teachers are in various stages of implementation. Discussions with teachers showed that they are willing to continue that progress and believe in the value of the literacy strategies and the intent of the Core Curriculum for children's learning.

Student work displayed in most classrooms and in the hallways included student writing that was individual and not formulaic and individual projects in a variety of curriculum areas. The work was displayed attractively and communicated to the observer that the work is valued by the school community.

The school is involved in professional development around the teaching and learning of literacy. Artifacts displayed in most classrooms and many lessons observed provide evidence of teachers' participation in, and learning from that professional development.

There is less evidence of an assessment system at the school that is meaning-centered and part of instruction, except in the classrooms where the literacy project is well-established. As the literacy project strategies and the Principles of Learning become institutionalized throughout the school, priority should be given to transferring what teachers have learned about assessment from the literacy project to other curriculum areas.

Kansas City Middle School of the Arts

Kansas City Middle School of the Arts (KCMSA) serves 638 students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Most of the students at the school come from middle class or working class families, with only about 30 percent from low income homes.

Last school year, KCMSA served only sixth and seventh grades, with eighth grade students being assigned to Paseo Academy. This school year, eighth graders returned to KCMSA, requiring eight new teachers for the eighth grade alone. Retirements and transfers required the hiring of even more new teachers. Seventy-five percent of the staff at the school are new this school year; nine of the new teachers are associate teachers! In addition, the school's instructional coach resigned after the opening of school to take a position at the central office.

The regular program at KCMSA includes service learning and Junior ROTC that shares resources with the JROTC program at Paseo Academy for the Fine and Performing Arts. High school JROTC members mentor the KSMCA JROTC program. Title I reading at the school is provided through the Sylvan Learning Center. The principal reported that the Sylvan program, in its second year, costs the school $290,000. In addition to the regular program, KCMSA has an after school program that includes instruction in reading,

The school schedule is organized into 90-minute blocks. Students are organized in teams; each team of four classes rotates among four teachers who provide the instruction in the four core curriculum areas of mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies.

Two site visitors spent a day at the school, interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking with teachers and students. They also took note of student work displayed throughout the school.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal reported that performance standards have been developed based on the state Show Me Standards and the Core Curriculum.

Observations showed that some teachers at KCMSA are implementing the meaning-centered, active learning implied in the Core Curriculum.

In a mathematics class, students were involved in a lesson about central tendency. In this class, students used M&Ms to find the range, the mean, the median, and the mode of the colors of the M&Ms in their individual bags. After they had completed the work, students were allowed to eat the candies.

Students in another mathematics class also worked with mode and median. In this class, the students worked with data sets they generated about themselves and their families. One data set, for example, was of the number of people who lived in their houses. The students worked individually or collaboratively to find the mode and the median of each data set. When all students had completed finding the mode and median of a data set, the teacher brought the class back together and students shared their solutions. The teacher led the students to create another data set to use for finding the mean as homework; students eagerly contributed to the data set. To make sure that students understood the process for finding the mean, they explained the process to partners.

The following writing prompt was posted in a language arts class: "Think of a famous person you would like to meet. Pretend this person just visited your school. What did she or he do? What did she or he say? Describe the visit." After students had read the prompt together, the teacher asked them to "brainstorm in your mind" about famous people they'd like to meet. After a short time, the teacher invited the students to share people they had thought of, and the teacher listed them in a Famous People Word Bank on the board. There was lots of conversation around the people who were included in the list. After a short review of writing paragraphs and the steps in the writing process, the teacher asked the students to do a prewrite about the prompt. All children in the class began the prewrite.

Students in an art class were using the coil technique with clay. They explained to the observer the entire ceramics process, shaping, firing, glazing, and refiring.

Many more classrooms were observed, however, where classroom activities did not engage students, where learning was passive and at the knowledge level, where misinformation was part of the lesson, or where time was being taken up by activities that were not curriculum-related.

Several social studies and science classes observed spent the class time reading aloud from textbooks, with students in many of the classes sleeping or visiting with one another. In one science class, students copied information from the board about the reflecting telescope. They could have better spent the time exploring a telescope to understand how it works in preparation for the next week's lab, "Making a telescope."

In another science class, the lesson began with students copying a list of words from the board while the teacher took attendance. Then the teacher lectured for 30 minutes. Some students took notes as the teacher had directed, and others watched the teacher. Others were sitting with their heads down, and still others cleaned their pencil cases.

The content for a social studies lesson was the memorization of the "first 17 states." Students recited the states, some from memory, some from a list. The teacher challenged the students to think of ways to remember the states. The class period concluded with a game in which students were invited to stand. The teacher asked questions whose answers were states or capitals. Students whose answers were incorrect had to sit down and were out of the game.

In a mathematics class, the teacher was observed explaining to students how to solve equations in a proof table. In the proof table and in the explanation the teacher made several errors that could have interfered with students' understanding of the process. The teacher wrote: x - 9 = 45 and said, "What number can you subtract from 9?" In the proof table, the teacher wrote: 54 - 9 = 54. The errors went unnoticed by either the teacher or the students.

During the last ten minutes of a language arts class observed, no activity related to instruction was going on at all. Students talked quietly to one another.

And in some classes, teachers' talk to students bordered on verbal abuse. One language arts teacher seemed angry that only two of the seventeen students in the class had brought the book reports due that day. She asked each student who had not brought a book report to explain why, and then she spent 25 minutes berating the students for the reasons they gave. Then she moved on to the day's work--editing. There were three sentences on the board for editing; however, all of the corrections had been made by an earlier class. While the students copied the sentences from the board, the teacher never stopped talking or berating the students. When students asked what to do with their completed papers, the teacher said she didn't know. While telling what the corrections to the sentences should have been, the teacher called New Mexico a city and explained that in the sentence, "his sister has chose a apple," when an "n" is added to the word "chose," then an "n" must also be added to the word "a."

Professional Development

New and associate teachers have professional development every Wednesday afternoon after school. The professional development, organized around the "Making the Grade" program, helps teachers with lesson plans and provides a progress report every two weeks.

All teachers in the school have been involved in professional development that supports their implementation of the Principles of Learning. Teachers have had opportunities to take field trips to other schools that are implementing the Principles of Learning. Currently, the school is moving to having departments work together toward implementation in classrooms.

Teaching teams meet fairly regularly, according to the principal, to plan together.

Assessment

The principal reported that data from pre- and post-tests in all subject areas is included in the school's improvement plan. No rubrics have yet been developed for the pre- and post-tests. The principal also noted the use of the MAP results.

In a few classrooms, rubrics were posted, but few examples of them being used were noted. In one classroom, however, the teacher did share an autobiography project with the observer. Along with two students' autobiographies for the observer to peruse, she also shared the rubric that was used to grade the assignment. While the teacher had made an effort to create a performance assessment, the rubric focuses almost entirely on mechanics. Very little attention is given to the content of the project. Further, the rubric, which addresses grammar, punctuation, word usage, and spelling has misspelled words (including "mispell"), sentence fragments, and grammatical errors!

Improving Student Achievement

The principal provided no information about the school's efforts to improve student achievement except to note that Title I reading instruction was provided by the Sylvan Learning Center.

Summary

Some teachers at KCMSA provide the high quality instruction implied in the Core Curriculum. They plan for active learning that is meaningful and learner-centered. They design learning activities that allow students to apply knowledge rather than recite knowledge or find correct answers. They understand that students learn in positive learning environments where they feel competent and engaged. But many other teachers at the school do not provide such environments or learning activities.

With 75 percent of the staff new to the school, professional development focusing on the Principles of Learning, quality instruction, and the implementation of the Core Curriculum is an absolute necessity. It is unfortunate that the Instructional Coach resigned at the beginning of the school year. It is unthinkable that the central office would even consider hiring someone away from a position so critical. In this school, instructional support could and should be more than a full time job.

There is little evidence of the development of high quality assessments that embedded in instruction and that are either aligned with MAP or with the Core Curriculum, and there is also little evidence that the school is attending to the task of improving student achievement. But with so many new and associate teachers just beginning to learn about classroom management and teaching, KCMSA is doing well to operate on a day to day basis!

Paul Robeson Middle School

Paul Robseson Middle School serves between 675 and 750 students, according to the principal. The students, most of whom arrive at the school by bus, are all served breakfast every day.

There are 50 teachers at the school, including special education and Title I teachers. The principal reported having a fairly stable faculty, with only one or two percent faculty turn over in the past year. Due to budget cuts, though, the school lost its band director when the principal had to choose between a band director and a computer teacher.

In addition to the regular academic program. the school is involved in a number of other programs. Robeson is in its third year of participation in Public Achievement, a service learning project begun with Avila College and now facilitated by UMKC. Ten students from Robeson currently participate in the project. The students have raised food for flood victims, held a food drive, and tutored children at Hartman School. They have also become involved in improving the bathroom situation at Robeson. School personnel have noticed positive change in the students involved in the project. The goal of the project is to involve 30 students per grade level, for a total of 90 students.

Robeson is also part of a new Gear Up grant through the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The principal was not sure which universities are partners in the grant, but he is looking to the grant to provide tutoring and support for some Robeson students.

The principal also reported that in December the school would hold a Reading Marathon. During the Reading Marathon, all staff and students would be reading.

According to the principal, meeting the needs of the students served by Robeson is an increasing challenge, given the decreasing funds available. He has worked to find grants and donations to support some of the needs that are not funded by the school district. Recently, the school received the donation of 15 computers. The principal is actively seeking more such donations.

The school day at Robeson School is organized into blocks, and students are assigned to teams of five classes of students who rotate among the five teachers on the team for core curriculum subjects and physical education, health, music, art, and technology.

Two site visitors spent a day at the school interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking with teachers, including the instructional coach and the chair of the professional development committee, and students. The visitors also took note of student work that was displayed in the classrooms and common areas of the school.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal reported that the school's mathematics department had aligned the Core Curriculum with MAP as a result of participating in a workshop on alignment. He noted that the development of Curriculum Designer should help with the implementation of the Core Curriculum in classrooms.

The Core Curriculum implies active, meaning-centered learning. In a few classrooms at the school, observers noted examples of such learning.

In a mathematics class, eighth grade students were completing a personality survey. Once they had answered the questions in the survey, students had to calculate totals of series of two digit numerals and then translate the totals into percentages. Students then used the percentages to make circle graphs that represented their own personality traits. The students would have a discussion about their personalities when all had completed the circle graphs.

In another mathematics class, students used toothpicks to make a series of connected triangles. From their constructions, the students organized their data through at least ten triangles into charts like the one below:

The teacher challenged the students to find a way to represent the relationship between the number of triangles and the number of toothpicks. She also asked the students to write about what they did to complete the pattern and to find a way to represent the relationship. After students had worked on the pattern for a while, the teacher asked students to share the strategies they were using. She acknowledged the possibility that there could be several different strategies that would work.

In a seventh grade reading class, the teacher and students began a new story, "The Confidence Game" in their literature anthologies. Students looked through the story and made a series of predictions about it. One student read aloud about the author, and another read aloud the beginning of the story. When the story used the words, "good sport," the teacher asked the student to stop reading and asked the class what it meant to be a good sport. The teacher distributed paper and asked students to brainstorm with partners about the meaning of a good sport. She reminded them to use accountable talk as they worked together. The students would revisit their brainstorming after reading the story to see if their ideas of a good sport had changed.

Lessons in many other classrooms, however, did not provide for such active, meaning-centered learning.

In one classroom, students were reading a novel, The Outsiders. The class began the day's reading at chapter 7. The teacher asked a student to read aloud. At the end of the page, the teacher asked about the meaning of a word, and then asked another student to read the next page aloud. As they continued reading aloud, the teacher told the students that they should make inferences as they read, but the teacher never asked any questions that required even basic comprehension of the story.

Students in a social studies class were writing answers to the questions at the end of a chapter in the social studies text. The correct answers to the questions were drawn directly from the text. None of the questions required thinking beyond the text or integrating any real life experience or prior knowledge.

In a language arts class, students completed a worksheet on irregular verbs, with the teacher explaining to students that such an exercise would help them to make connections.

A science teacher explained to children that they were going to do a project about a book on a special topic, and that day, children would "write up what they were doing and why." The teacher provided little direction, explaining that she would give them a rubric the next time the class met (two days later). Most students sat for most of the class period doing nothing. Some worked on decorating covers for their projects, even though they did not know what they were doing or why.

Professional Development

The principal reported professional development to be a challenge. He acknowledged sending some teachers to Harvard for a conference, with no results. Some other workshops have paid off. These include workshops on dealing with aggression and curriculum alignment, both of which were presented at UMKC and attended by two teachers from the school.

School-based professional development at Robeson is provided through the schools Professional Development Committee and the full time instructional coach. According to the principal, some teachers are resistant to the assistance of the instructional coach. The associate teachers, however, have been open to the coach's assistance. Some teachers at the school are interested in Balanced Literacy; a few of them will go to visit Rogers Middle School soon to "look at the strategies."

The chair of the professional development committee explained that several teachers are interested in brain-based learning theory; she noted that the theory is compatible with constructivism, with the Core Curriculum, and with the Principles of Learning.

There was very little evidence in classrooms of the Principles of Learning. No read alouds were observed. There was accountable talk in some classrooms, but in most classrooms visited, there was little opportunity for children to talk. The talk that was observed and acceptable in those classrooms was teacher to student and student to teacher talk. In many classrooms, students were expected not to interact with one another at all; those teachers spent lots of time asking students to be quiet.

Assessment

Students at Robeson School take the SAT 9 and CAT, as well as MAP. Through the professional development committee, the school has had professional development in assessment strategies. The principal reported that teachers have used the released items from the MAP as models for developing their own performance assessments, as well as directly with students to help them learn to "do constructed items."

There was little evidence of curriculum-embedded assessment at Robeson School. Some teachers did assign projects and provide scoring guides for the projects, but the scoring guides did not provide indicators or descriptors of the work that would help students understand what a quality product was.

During the site visit, one observer did note the use of a quiz in a science class. The quiz, which was a retake of a quiz that students had taken earlier. All questions on the quiz were knowledge level and had a correct answer. None of the questions required thinking or application of knowledge.

Improving Student Achievement

To address student learning needs, the school has a Title I program, Accelerated Reader, and a Sylvan Learning Center. No specific classroom strategies were described, nor was any teacher involvement in planning for improving student achievement.

Summary

The school does not seem to have a strong focus on teaching and learning or on the implementation of the Core Curriculum. If children experience high quality learning experiences and activities, it seems to be the luck of the draw. It is just as likely that they will be in classes where, at best, there is only basic skills learning and at worst, there is little provision for learning.

Professional development at the school seems to be a series of events that are determined by the desires of individual teachers rather than any comprehensive plan. There seems to be little connection between the activities provided or commitment on the part of the staff as a whole to a professional development focus.

No evidence of an assessment system was observed, and in only one classroom was there evidence of any influence of the kinds of constructed responses found on the MAP.

J. A. Rogers Academy of Liberal Arts & Sciences

J. A. Rogers Academy of Liberal Arts & Sciences serves 734 students in grades six through eight. As Rogers Academy has made the transition from magnet school to community school, it has faced a number of challenges. Students served by the school come primarily from seven housing projects, and the poverty level of the school's population has increased. The school has become more diverse and now serves many more Hispanic students and a small number of Asian students.

Student mobility has also become an issue at the school. According to the principal, an average of five new students enroll at the school each day, many of whom have been previously enrolled, and with some who have been enrolled at the school more than once. At the same time, student attendance is improving. From an attendance rate of about 87 percent last school year, attendance has climbed to an average of about 90 percent this school year. The school continues to work to improve attendance, and a trophy for improved attendance that will travel among classrooms is planned.

While the Hispanic students do not qualify for ESL, many of them are limited English speakers. Many of their parents speak Spanish and require translation when they visit the school. The school staff are considering a number of strategies to communicate with these parents and their children, including translating school newsletters and other written notices and initiating an adult literacy program around computers.

Building parent support has been one of the challenges Rogers has faced since becoming a community school. Staff members of the school have worked to build relationships with parents and families, and that work is being rewarded. Recent SAC meetings at the school have been attended by an average of 100 parents, and this fall's Back to School night had an attendance of over 600.

A further challenge has been a large staff turn over--there are ten new staff members just this year. But, the principal noted, the staff has remained strong, persevering through some difficult times that included illnesses and deaths of colleagues and family members, and coming together to retool to meet the needs and challenges of a different group of students. The principal characterizes the staff as learners, with most of them committed to the belief that "you don't have a good school if it's not a good school for all kids."

The school itself is organized into houses, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. All sixth graders are in the Gamma House. Half the seventh graders and half the eighth graders are in the Alpha House; the remaining seventh and eighth graders are in the Beta House. The sixth grade is organized into teams of two-classroom families, while seventh and eighth grades are each divided into two teams of five classroom groups, or families. Alpha and Beta house each meet weekly, with families meeting for advisement on the other days. Gamma house also meets once a week. On Mondays, all students have Drop Everything And Read time during advisement.

Two site visitors spent a day at the school, interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms at all three grade levels and in all curriculum areas, and talking informally with teachers and students. They also noted the displays of student work in the hallways.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal reported that teachers have worked to align the indicators in the Core Curriculum with the MAP 2000. They have specified outcomes for each grade level and set targets for each quarter around which classroom instruction is organized. Each quarter, teachers prepare curriculum overviews that include the targets for the quarter, as well as how each target will be assessed and graded. These overviews are shared with parents.

In classrooms throughout the school, there was evidence of the implementation of efforts to implement the Core Curriculum, with its focus on meaning-centered, active learning. There was also evidence of the institutionalization of effective literacy strategies and the Principles of Learning. Teachers have adapted the literacy strategies for use in mathematics, science, and social studies, as well. Teacher- and student-made charts of literacy processes and strategies were displayed in classrooms throughout the school, and observers noted that both teachers and students referred to them during the lessons observed. Student work displayed throughout the school, both in classrooms and in hallways, also reflected the school's commitment to meaning-centered curriculum and teaching practices.

The site visitors observed read-alouds in several classrooms. In a language arts/reading classroom, there was a read-aloud of the end of the book The Butterfly. The teacher stopped at one point in the story and invited students to "talk to somebody next to you about was this [the gift of a star of David] a good gift? Why? Or why not?" After a short time during which students and their partners discussed the value of the gift, the teacher invited students to share with the class. One student who believed it was a good gift said, "They both gave a gift from their hearts." Other students said it might have been a dangerous gift in Nazi-controlled France. As students gave their responses, either they or the teacher labeled them with labels from the list of "connections" that was displayed in the classroom--"that was a prediction." At the end of the story the teacher reminded students that "yesterday you wrote personal connections to the beginning of the story in your reader's notebook" and asked them "today [to] write what this means to you, whatever comes to mind." Students all wrote in their notebooks.

Another read-aloud was observed in a special projects class. The teacher read about the history of chess, and the class discussed doing research to find information. Students summarized the story orally in response to the teacher's request; one said it was about "the dude that invented chess," while another said, "he proved to be very clever." The class discussed what it meant to be clever--"out think," "intelligent," "strategic." Another student said that strategic meant "to use your skills in planning." The discussion shifted to connecting to their study of economic concepts, and students explained how the story addressed supply and demand, competition, and availability.

In another language arts/reading class, students were reading The Giver. In response to the story, students were telling stories about their personal comfort objects. As they told their stories, the teacher pointed out the students' uses of imagery. Then they played a game called "Stump the Class." In this game students wrote questions about the first five chapters of the story after a quick review of types of questions (yes/no, one word answer, constructed response). Students who wrote the questions asked their questions of other students, who were required not only to provide answers but also to provide evidence from the book for their answers.

Students were observed actively involved in applying knowledge in social studies and science classes. In a few social studies classes, students were observed working on their "imaginary country" project. This activity provided the opportunity for students to demonstrate their geographic, political, cultural, and economic knowledge by creating a county, developing its map, developing a artifact of their own choice (flag, anthem, model, clothing, folk dance, money), and writing a report about the country that included descriptions of the topography, the government, the culture, and the economic system. When the projects were completed, students would present them orally to the class.

Geology was the topic of the current unit in a science class. There students were asked to select a rock, identify it, and write a story about it, including where they had found it, the name of the rock, and the rock's classification, using the vocabulary they had learning in the rock unit. They were also asked to illustrate their stories.

Professional Development

According to the principal, professional development at the school is "constant," and the teachers are learners. The school has an instructional coach, who works directly with teachers in their classrooms, and it is a demonstration site for the Balanced Literacy grant. All staff members have been involved in some way in professional development provided through the Balanced Literacy grant from the Kauffman Foundation, and professional development related to the Principles of Learning. This year, the school is working toward implementing the Principles of "organizing for effort" and "clear expectations."

Along with the focuses on literacy and the Principles of Learning, professional development at Rogers Academy this year has also addressed strategies for closing the achievement gap and developing a more rigorous academic program that is standards-based. Teachers at the school began meeting in study groups last school year, when they studied and implemented strategies for Readers Workshop and Writers Workshop from Joanne Hindley's book, In the Company of Children.. Two study groups currently meet each week at the school. One of the groups, the Literacy Leadership Team, is reading and studying The Art of Teaching Reading by Lucy Calkins. The other group, which is investigating strategies for closing the achievement gap, is reading Good Teaching Matters, by Katie Haycock.

Rogers Academy has a MAP team of eight teachers who are involved in professional development for designing and using performance assessments. This professional development is provided by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The school day is organized so that teams have common planning time, and a portion of grade level meetings is devoted regularly to professional development. Teachers also have opportunities to meet in curriculum area groups, math teachers, for example, or language arts teachers.

Because the school is a literacy demonstration site, Rogers Academy teachers are responsible for providing professional development for teachers from other schools who visit to observe at the school. They also have taken the responsibility for providing professional development for each other. The Friday before the site visit, teachers at the school presented strategies for read-alouds in the content areas.

Observations showed teachers to be implementing what they were learning in their professional development. It was also clear to observers that teachers were taking risks to try new strategies; teachers interviewed informally spoke proudly of projects they had developed and their students had done, new strategies they had developed or learned, and their students' positive responses.

Assessment

As described above, a team of teachers from Rogers Academy is participating in professional development about designing and using performance assessment. These teachers are sharing what they learn with other teachers at the school. Teachers also have used released items from the MAP as models for designing assessments.

There was evidence in classrooms of the integration of assessment and instruction, and in many cases, no clear line between the two. Students were observed working on projects and assignments that could be considered performance assessments, and they seemed comfortable using the rubrics provided. When asked, some students explained to one visitor what a rubric was and how it was used.

The assignment sheet for the "imaginary country" project described above, for example, included a scoring sheet that clearly outlined the parameters of the assignment and how points would be awarded for each part of the project.

In the rock identification lesson described above, students also were using a rubric to help them with their work. The rubric, which described three levels of performance on the assignment, "good, okay, needs work," listed five traits that students should include and that would be used in scoring. The rubric, which uses "kid language," is shown below:

In another science class, students were observed giving group oral reports about such topics as the states of matter. There students were guided in developing and presenting their reports by a generic rubric that included traits related to the quality of the group's work together, their use of the time provided to complete the project and so on. That rubric described five levels of performance: scientist, internist, researcher, novice, and amateur.

One of the visitors noted that in many classrooms teachers provided feedback to students that was specific and communicated the values of the literacy project. Several teachers were heard commenting on the hard thinking or the creative thinking that characterized student responses.

Summary

Most teachers at the school demonstrate understanding of the Core Curriculum and the meaning-centered learning that it implies. Students in most classrooms at the school are engaged in active learning tasks that allow them to apply knowledge in real contexts and to integrate what they are learning. Teachers across the curriculum are applying the Principles of Learning in their classrooms and focusing their efforts on student performance. Readers' and Writers Workshops seem to be effective at the school in helping students to become active agents in their own literacy development, and most students seem to be readers and writers.

Teachers at the school are learners. Their commitment to and participation in professional development activities is evident in their classroom practice, and they speak positively about the contributions of the instructional coach. Teachers are enthusiastic about their students' learning and report being eager to continue to learn and become even more effective.

J. A. Rogers Academy of Liberal Arts & Sciences is a good school that is well on its way to becoming a model community of learners. While some teachers are further along in the process of implementing the Core Curriculum and the Principles of Learning than others, all of them are making progress. This report would not be complete without mentioning the leadership of the principal. She is clearly a person who "walks the talk," being a learner herself, modeling for teachers and students, and supporting the teachers as they take the risks necessary to make changes in their classrooms. She also sets the tone of caring that permeates Rogers Academy--for students, for staff, and for parents in the learning community.

Lincoln College Preparatory Academy

Lincoln College Preparatory Academy (LCPA) serves 514 students who are admitted to the school through application and a minimum score of 60 percent on the standardized test used for admission. The freshman class at the school numbers around 140 this year.

The school has a large program of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses; this school year there are 56 classes offered that are either AP or IB. The school has worked to increase the number of students taking advantage of the AP and IB programs, and this year there are 18 candidates for the IB diploma. Last year there were nine candidates, with six of them earning the IB diploma.

A goal of the school is for students to build strong academic portfolios. To remain at LCPA, students must maintain a GPA of 2.5, and grades are weighted in some courses. Approximately 93 percent of the students who graduate from the school go to college.

The school is working towards more active recruitment practices to attract more students. One of the efforts is to develop better articulation with Lincoln College Prep Middle School, and to have more students from the middle school taking classes at the high school.

Staffing at the school has been a problem in the past. The principal reported that LCPA is fully staffed this year, and has been from the beginning of the school year. Thirty-five to 40 percent of the teachers at the school are new this year, however, and 20 to 25 percent were new last school year.

Two site visitors spent a day at the school interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms, and talking informally with teachers throughout the school day.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

The principal reported that the Curriculum Designer software package should help the school in its efforts to implement the Core Curriculum. School personnel work to make sure that academic standards at the school are maintained at the International Baccalaureate level. Teachers at the school are working to implement the performance standards set by the Core Curriculum and MAP.

Observations in classrooms showed some teachers to be implementing the hands-on, active learning implied in the Core Curriculum, while in other classrooms, students were expected to learn more passively.

In one English class, students were reading the book Picture Bride by Yoshiko Uchida. During the class session observed, the students worked with partners to identify experiences from their own lives that characterize the themes that have been identified in the book. The teacher circulated among the pairs of students, clarifying directions, listening to the discussion, and asking questions that helped students to identify such experiences.

Students in an IB language arts class were observed during a discussion of Medea . During the discussion, students and the teacher made connections among the characters in Medea and mythology they had read previously. They also shared what they considered to be "memorable passages" using such specialized language as simile and metaphor, and they discussed the themes of the play. At one point in the discussion, the teacher asked the students if Medea met Aristotle's definition of tragedy. As the students responded, they provided examples from the play, demonstrating that they not only had read the play, but they were very familiar with the story and had analyzed it as they had read it. The students also related the play to the IB theme of conflicted values.

In another literature class, students were observed during a discussion of the plot and characters of Wuthering Heights. As students discussed, the teacher listed points they made on the board. Next, students brainstormed ways the author characterized Heathcliff and a web together that included examples of each category the students had identified. Later, they made their own webs, listing references from the textbook and other examples. In this class, there was a high level of student to student talk relative to the book. The teacher facilitated and reminded students of ground rules as necessary during the discussion.

Students in an African American history class were beginning a study of abolitionists. The teacher provided the students with a matrix that listed a number of abolitionists and had spaces for their beliefs and their roles in the abolitionist movement. After a general discussion that overviewed the work of the rest of the semester, the teacher explained to the students that they would reassemble in the library so that they could do research to complete the matrix on abolitionists that would become the basis for the next week's study on abolition. Students' paraphrases of the Declaration of Independence were displayed on the walls in this classroom.

In an American government class, where student-made posters that compared George W. Bush and Al Gore were displayed, students worked in groups to compare a series of primary legal documents with the United States constitution. The teacher provided each group with a copy of the English Petition of Rights (1628), the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639), the Maryland Toleration Act (1644), the English Bill of Rights (1689), and Baron de Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748). The teacher had explained to students the importance of reading between the lines and that they should review the documents together and highlight sections that sounded similar to parts of the Constitution. As students worked, the teacher circulated among the groups, providing encouragement, asking questions, and making suggestions.

Students in a biology class began the class session writing a response to the warm-up question, "How did life begin?" The teacher invited students to share their responses, and a lively discussion that compared creation and students' ideas about evolution resulted. The teacher explained that the next unit in biology would provide the opportunity for students to learn about several different theories proposed by scientists. In this class, the level of accountable talk was very high; it was clear that students here were comfortable taking the lead in a discussion, posing questions of one another, "adding on" to each others' comments. The teacher provided a study guide for the unit that include objectives from the MAP and the Core Curriculum, a list of vocabulary for the unit, and a series of questions students should be able to answer as a result of the learning during the unit.

A chemistry class provided the opportunity to observe students engaged in constructing an understanding of the relationship between vapor pressure and the temperature curve. The teacher did a number of demonstrations and students posed their tentative ideas, asked questions, and requested the teacher to change the procedures of the demonstrations. All students were engaged in the lesson and discussion that led students to explain the relationship. At the end of the lesson, the teacher posed a problem for the students to think about and be prepared to "convince me tomorrow." When the class period was over, students seemed reluctant to leave the classroom and continued talking about the lesson.

In a mathematics class, the teacher was following student directions for working an equation on the overhead projector. All students in the class were involved in the discussion around the problem on the overhead. The students, as well as the teacher, posed and responded to questions and initiated the talk. The teacher provided the students with several different open-ended problems from a series of Problems of the Week to solve and suggested that they work together to find solutions for the problems. The problems required that students write explanations of their processes and solutions.

Other classes observed did not engage students actively in the curriculum at the same high levels.

In a college-level (according to the classroom teacher) social studies class, the teacher initiated a discussion about the presidency. Students asked questions, and the teacher responded. To accompany the new unit of study, the teacher distributed and explained a four-page worksheet; the teacher explained that students would not be able to complete the first two pages of the worksheet. Students in the class repeatedly diverted the teacher from the topic of discussion.

A geometry lesson observed required students to watch as the teacher did a traditional proof of triangle congruence on the overhead. Then the teacher asked a student to solve a proof. Several students in the class were not at all engaged in the lesson, talking with other students or doing other work.

In a Spanish class, where more than half the students were tardy and students continued to walk in and out of the room for several minutes at the beginning of the class period, the teacher facilitated a discussion about the map of Mexico. To participate in the discussion, students had to use a map found in their textbook; several students did not have textbooks or make any attempt to look on with another student. The teacher seemed not to have a plan for the lesson; the questions asked and the points made seemed to have no organization at all. About half of the talk in the class was in Spanish. More than half the students in the class spent the class period talking with one another.

Professional Development

One of the challenges of the school is professional development for so many new and beginning teachers. The school's instructional coach works mainly with them. Each department also has its own mentoring program, and each new and beginning teacher is a assigned a mentor within her/his academic area. The principal and assistant principals also spend time in classrooms to provide support to new teachers, mainly in the area of discipline.

Teachers at the school have had what the principal called "a crash course" in the Principles for Learning presented by the school's design team. They have also had opportunities to participate in "learning walks" that allow them to see how other teachers are addressing the principles.

A second year teacher at the school described having had the support of the instructional coach the previous year and that the support had been valuable to her as a first year teacher. The teacher identified the need for more professional development and support that was relevant to her own personal needs as a teacher. Another teacher reported that coaching the previous year had been particularly beneficial, but that he had not requested any assistance during this school year.

In some classrooms there was evidence of the implementation of the Principles of Learning; in others, it was unclear whether teachers understood the principles, what they mean for student learning, and how to implement them.

Assessment

Teachers at the school are in the process of reviewing assessments already in place and classroom activities and projects that can be used as performance assessments. The principal reported that it is especially important for students at LCPA to have the confidence to demonstrate their learning. He shared his belief that students like the ones at LCPA are tested too much.

One performance assessment was observed during the site visit. Students were putting final touches on their group presentations in another social studies classroom. The students had made posters to support their presentations, and note cards of presentation points. As students gave their presentations, the other students in the class completed question sheets to prepare for asking questions at the end of the presentations. The teacher used a scoring rubric that had been provided to students previously to score the presentations. It was clear from the presentations that students had used the rubric as a guide to preparing their presentations.

In a mathematics class, students were given points when they responded to the teacher's questions, and a copy of a practice test was distributed for students to use to prepare for the test which would be given the next day. The test was a traditional one, with every question having a clear correct answer. No questions on the practice test involved application of knowledge within a context or writing an explanation for a solution.

Improving Student Achievement

School personnel, according to the principal, have reviewed student scores on the MAP, and are focusing efforts this year to improve the performance of students in the lower two levels, as well as students who scored in the average range. Teachers have identified skills and strategies needed by these students and are actively incorporating them into day to day instruction.

The school has instituted a mentoring program aimed at retaining the students who enter, with each student who is at risk of being demitted having a faculty mentor. Faculty mentors meet regularly with their mentees, review their academic progress, and provide support and encouragement. The mentoring program was instituted last year, with promising results. At the end of the first semester, 33 students were identified as being at risk. After involvement in the mentoring program, only 13 did not make the necessary improvements to stay at LCPA. The mentoring program began at the beginning of the school year this year, instead of waiting until the end of the first semester.

Summary

Observers noted that while some classrooms provided opportunities for active, meaning-centered learning, others expected students to be passive receivers of information. Some classrooms engaged students in lessons that allowed them to construct concepts, apply knowledge in meaningful contexts, and analyze. Others expected students to learn only at the knowledge level.

Professional development seems to be focused on new and beginning teachers, certainly a priority with such a large staff turn over, and with only one instructional coach. But with all the examples of excellent teaching and engaged learning that were observed, it would seem that the school has many resources for professional development available on site.

Assessment is a challenge in a school so focused on testing by its AP and IB programs. Students need many more opportunities for quality performance assessments in all curriculum areas. The school should continue its efforts to identify classroom activities that can be translated into performance assessments and, in classrooms where the current activities cannot readily be translated, to begin to develop some assessments embedded in instruction so that so much valuable instructional time is not taken up with testing and so that students have many assessment experiences that prepare them for the MAP.

Paseo Academy

Paseo Academy, a magnet school whose theme is the fine and performing arts, serves 726 students in grades 9 through 12. Students are admitted to the school through application and audition in dance, music, theater, visual arts, or creative writing. Paseo also serves special education students in the areas of SLD, EMR, and DHH; these students do not audition, but are expected to participate in arts classes.

Two site visitors spent a day at the school, interviewing the principal, observing in classrooms across the curriculum and at a variety of levels, and talking informally with teachers and students. They also had the opportunity to view a presentation that documented some of the community service performed by students in the JROTC program.

According to the principal, in addition to course extensive course offerings in the fine and performing arts, Paseo Academy offers the entire Advanced Placement curriculum. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is supporting the Advanced Placement program with a $1.5 million grant. The grant supports professional development for teachers who teach AP courses, and pays the fees for student AP testing. Students also have the option to take a number of college credit courses offered in collaboration with area colleges and universities. Paseo's partnership with UMKC provides opportunities for students to use the UMKC library and chemistry labs.

The school also has a large Junior ROTC program. Students in this program won a presidential award last school year for performing more than 10,000 hours of community service. Currently, students in this program visit a nursing home they have adopted, teach a Junior Achievement economics course, and tutor elementary school students.

In addition to their high school diplomas, students at Paseo may earn a fine arts certificate if they complete eight credits in their major art area and two and a half credits in their minor area. They may also earn a college preparatory studies certificate in addition to their high school diplomas if they complete the course of study required, earn at least a 3.0 grade point average, and score above the national average on the ACT or SAT.

According to the principal, the arts curriculum at the school is integrated into the district's Core Curriculum. In-service in the Core Curriculum is a key piece of the induction program the school has for new and beginning teachers. The principal reported that the "Curriculum Designer" software recently developed by the KCMSD will be a good resource as the staff continues their work to align the Core Curriculum, the Show Me Standards, and the MAP.

The school has set improving community, both within the school, and with parents and community members, as a goal. Although each classroom does not yet have a computer, the building is networked, and access to internal email is a priority. Because of parent requests, the school is providing mid-quarter reports for students who are earning grades of D or F at mid-quarter. The principal's goal is to phase in mid-quarter reports for students earning grades of C, and eventually for those earning grades of B.

The school has an active parent group, according to the principal. Chaired by a parent, the SAC attendance averages between 40 and 50. The SAC, which meets monthly on Sunday evenings, provides positive support for the school.

Implementation of the Core Curriculum

In most classrooms, objectives from the Core Curriculum and the Show Me Standards were displayed. Observations in classrooms at Paseo Academy showed that their implementation of the intent of the Core Curriculum is inconsistent at the school. In some classrooms visited, students were engaged in active, meaning-centered activities that included opportunities for application of knowledge in real-world contexts. In some classrooms, high levels of accountable talk were observed, and high expectations for student learning were communicated by teachers. In these classrooms, students were generally engaged in learning. In others, little opportunity for student involvement in active, meaning-making activity was observed. In these classrooms, communication was observed to flow in one direction, from teacher to student, with little opportunity for student to student communication relative to the curriculum, and all students were not engaged in learning.

In a college credit history class, all students were actively involved in a discussion that compared the effects of the political and economic environment in the aftermath of the War of 1812 with current political and economic conditions. Students, whose preparation for the class was obvious in the discussion, initiated connections between the content of this course and that of an American government course they had previously taken. They also asked questions of one another and the teacher, and they raised issues for discussion. When one class member who had not previously participated in the discussion made a comment, several other students applauded her for participating.

Students in a College Prep class, a course designed to help students review skills for ACT and required of all juniors, were observed reviewing how to calculate area. The teacher used the overhead and a series of transparencies to help students see how formulas for area are derived. All students were engaged in the lesson, and the excitement of students who were understanding what they previously had not was palpable. The teacher provided several examples of possible ACT questions that involved finding areas, and students seemed eager to find the answers.

In art classes observed, students were actively engaged in their own personal learning. In a drawing class, students were using charcoal pastels to explore layered color. They were drawing a wooden chair that was placed on top of one of the drawing tables in the classroom. Students had previously sketched the chair and then drawn it on brown paper before experimenting with layering five different colors. The teacher, a practicing artist himself, reported that he learned from and along with his students. During the class, he provided occasional feedback and reminded students about the layering technique. Students also provided feedback to one another.

Students in a ceramics class were observed working on individual projects in a variety of stages. One student was sculpting a life size self-portrait, while others worked on slab projects. The teacher circulated around the room, asking students questions about their work that led them to improve their own work. When the student sculpting her self-portrait asked what was wrong with the sculpture, the teacher suggested that she use calipers to find out. With the assistance of another student, she compared her own face with the sculpture and determined what she needed to change. Another student was struggling with the slab roller. The teacher made some suggestions and worked with him to roll a new slab. The culture in the classroom was collaborative; students worked together and helped one another, just as the teacher helped them.

In a sociology class, students were involved in a unit on work. Applying what they had learned about unemployment, they calculated the unemployment rate for their class as they discussed what it means to be unemployed. Then they completed a worksheet on career preferences that they would use later as they explored specific careers. A student arrived late for this class, and rather than reprimand him, the teacher said they would need to recalculate the unemployment rate. A student asked the late arrivee if he was working. When he said he wasn't, another student asked if he was looking for a job. Another explained that if you are not working, but you are not looking for work, you are not considered unemployed. Then students recalculated their class unemployment rate.

An English teacher, reading Chaucer aloud, modeled the integration of the arts into the Core Curriculum. His performance made "The Pardoner's Tale" come alive; as he read, he stopped to explain background information and to facilitate discussion to help students relate the text to their own experience. The ambiance of the classroom underscored the integration of the arts; information about the current unit was beautifully lettered on the classroom's chalkboards.

In some other classrooms, however, teachers were observed making little or no effort to involve students actively in meaning-centered learning.

Students in a science class were observed working on a written assignment which consisted of writing definitions for a list of key words. The objective posted for the class, "assessing the difference between a physical and chemical change," seemed unrelated to the written assignment. During the observation, some students were asleep and some others did not participate.

In another science class, students were observed standing and talking, not engaged in any learning related to science. The teacher asked students to sit down, but students ignored the teacher. No objective for a lesson was posted, and no evidence of a lesson was observed.

Professional Development

The principal reported that professional development at the school is focused on the goal of increasing academic achievement as measured by the AP exams, the MAP, and the SAT 9, as well as the district's goal of literacy. Each curriculum area (mathematics, science, English, social studies, and health/physical education) has its own school improvement team that includes one representative from each other department. These teams work together on such topics as developing open-ended questions and test preparation strategies.

According to the principal, each regular faculty meeting at the school includes a professional development topic. Initially the professional development was presented by the principal, but she has turned this responsibility over to the school improvement teams. Other professional development initiatives at the school include an induction plan for new and beginning teachers that includes mentoring or buddying, and professional development for all English and mathematics teachers in the AP curriculum during the current school year.

Observers noted that the Principles of Learning were posted in most classrooms, but evidence of their implementation was observed only sporadically. The list of staff members does not include an instructional coach, and it was not clear, in talking with the principal or classroom teachers, how the teachers are learning and being coached to use the Principles of Learning in their classrooms.

Assessment

Performance assessments that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning are natural in an arts setting, and there was evidence observed in art classrooms that student evaluation is based on such assessment. At the same time, in those classes, teachers were observed communicating standards so that students could assess their own work.

The teacher in an African American history class showed one observer a set of student projects that integrated the visual arts with his course content. Students were asked to select a metaphor for the world and to describe how that metaphor represented the biological, economic, and physical world. Students provided descriptions both visually (as posters) and in text. These representations were scored with a rubric that was provided to the students as they completed the work.

Students in the Junior ROTC program put together and made a presentation on their community service. The students were invited to present their video and audio presentation for a community group the evening prior to the site visit. On the day of the site visit, the students presented it for the visitors. The presentation, whether considered an assessment by their teachers or not, was an excellent example of students documenting what they had accomplished. According to the students, they have completed more than 13,000 hours of community service toward their goal of 25,000 hours this school year.

But not all assessment observed provided opportunities for application of learning or was integrated into an effective teaching and learning process.

An assignment in an English class required students to respond to a video by writing a paragraph in response to the question, "Do you have the right to smoke anywhere?" The teacher reminded students to support their thesis statements with examples from the video and to write one- sentence conclusions. Then the teacher explained a grading scale that focused on punctuation, grammar, and spelling; nothing in the grading scale addressed writing of an effective argument.

In a music class, for example, students were observed during a listening quiz. The quiz required the students to identify the form of a recorded musical example from the Baroque period (concerto grosso, recitative, aria, harpsichord concerto, etc.). After completing the quiz, students were directed to correct their papers. The teacher asked students what the correct answers were; few students had written any correct answers. The teacher provided the correct answers and gave the quiz again, using different musical examples. The students' performance on the second quiz was not much better than the first.

Improving Student Achievement

The principal reported a focus on improving student achievement, described some efforts to do so, and shared some results.

During the previous school year, the school's probation plan was strengthened and enforced. Students who did not meet the standards for passing classes or attendance were given a warning and then de-admitted if their performance did not improve.

The College Prep course was instituted to help all students improve their performance on the ACT. This course, required of all juniors for a minimum of one semester, provides a review of the content included on the ACT. According to the principal, about 80 percent of the course content is mathematics, with the other 20 percent addressing test taking skills.

A perennial problem at the school has been attendance and performance of seniors. Many seniors needed only a few credits to graduate, and they enrolled in only those classes. These students often had poor attendance records during the senior year, with the resulting poor achievement in the classes in which they were enrolled. Beginning this fall, the school is requiring that seniors take at least five classes each semester; the classes can include college level courses for which the students can earn credits that can be transferred to the college or university of their choice.

According to the principal, ACT scores for the school as a whole have increased about one and a half points, even as the number of students who take the test has increased. Between 70 and 80 percent of Paseo graduates attend some form of post-secondary education, either college, university, conservatory, or art institute. Nearly $2,000,000 in scholarships is awarded to students at the school each year. Although no formal follow-up data have been gathered, the principal noted that students go to schools all over the country, and that they are well-prepared for arts programs.

Summary

While there has been much improvement at Paseo Academy in the past few years, and, according to the principal, the school's strong focus on the arts and academics has been restored, the quality of instruction and the level of implementation of the Core Curriculum was observed to vary greatly from classroom to classroom. Teachers at the school in general seemed conscientious and committed to teaching and the learning of their students, but some of them were observed to use instructional practices that did not engage students in learning the kinds of academic content included in the Core Curriculum.

Professional development at the school seems to be sporadic and not the result of any focused professional development plan or commitment to improved teaching. The school must develop a comprehensive professional development plan that focuses on quality of instruction through implementation of the Principles of Learning and the Core Curriculum. Using teachers at the school to provide professional development at faculty meetings is an effective means of professional development delivery, but if the content of those presentations is not part of a comprehensive professional development plan, then they have little potential to improve teaching and learning. The efforts to provide professional development for Advanced Placement teachers is commendable; understanding how the content of that professional development aligns with KCMSD instructional priorities, the Core Curriculum, and the Principles of Learning adopted by the KCMSD will be critical to organizing and teaching AP courses in the KCMSD.

A focus on assessments that are part of instruction and aligned with the Core Curriculum and MAP is essential. Setting clear standards for student performance that are agreed upon by teachers, aligned with instruction, the Core Curriculum, and the Show Me Standards, and then creating rubrics that reflect those standards that can be used both to guide student performance and to evaluate that performance are the critical tasks in creating an assessment system. Paseo already has some good examples of assessments in performance arts; the challenge is to find ways to use these examples as models to develop assessments in other curriculum areas.

Appendix A. Protocol

KCMSD Protocol, Fall 2000

1. Interview the principal.

a. Gather demographics such as

1. Number of students

2. Poverty

3. Mobility

4. Themes

b. What efforts have there been in the past year to increase implementation of the Core

Curriculum?

c. Describe the professional development you and your staff have participated in last school

year and this school year.

d. What kinds of assessments are being used here to document progress towards the Missouri

Show Me Standards and the Core Curriculum?

e. What kinds of strategies are being used at this school to improve student achievement and to

close the achievement gap?

2. Visit as many classrooms (all core curriculum areas, all grade levels) as you have time to do during the school day. Take fieldnotes about what you observe. Look especially for examples of:

· basic skills/application in context of meaning

· work displayed - fill in the blank, color in the lines/creative, writing, thinking

· evidence of constructivist practice, knowledge of child development

· passive learning/active learning

· teacher directed/student directed or initiative, choice

· teacherÕstudent talk/ studentÕteacher talk/studentÖstudent talk

· evidence of professional development described by principal

· evidence of performance assessments/rubrics, assessment embedded within curriculum

3. Talk informally with teachers if possible. Ask teachers

· whether they have adequate and appropriate instructional materials

· about professional development

· about how they assessment student work

· about efforts to improve student achievement

4. Look for student work displayed in common areas of the school