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Components of Comprehensive School Reform

The CSRD legislation outlines nine components of comprehensive school
reform:

1. Effective, research-based, replicable methods and strategies
2. Comprehensive design with aligned components
3. Professional development
4. Measurable goals and benchmarks
5. Support within the school
6. Parental and community involvement
7. External technical support and assistance
8. Evaluation strategies
9. Coordination of resources

These components apply to each school's reform program, not to the external
model or models the school chooses to adopt. However, it is important for schools
to know how external reform models are likely to assist them in incorporating the
components. This document describes how support from The Learning Network®
enables schools to meet the above components in their efforts towards comprehensive
school reform.

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(1) Effective, research-based, replicable methods and strategies: A
comprehensive school reform program employs innovative strategies and proven
methods for student learning, teaching, and school management that are based on
reliable research and effective practices, and have been replicated successfully in
schools with diverse characteristics.

In the report of the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future, the
authors point out that "What teachers know and can do makes the crucial
difference in what children learn. And the ways school systems organize their
work makes a big difference in what teachers can accomplish." The focus of TLN
is on developing understandings and skills of teachers and on helping schools make
changes in the way they organize for teaching and learning. Building capacity within
the school occurs as a result of the consistent application of the design over time.

Based on research conducted over the past twenty years, Brian Cambourne (an
Australian teacher-researcher) has concluded that language learning occurs naturally
and easily, given certain conditions. There are eight basic conditions for learning that
are interrelated, are all dependent on the learner's engagement, and need to be
facilitated by skillful teachers to produce effective learning. These conditions are
immersion, demonstration, expectation, responsibility, use, approximation, and
response. Schools supported by TLN continually evaluate to ensure these conditions
are in place in all aspects of instruction.

Vygotsky's theory of the zone of proximal development has made a substantial impact
on current views about teaching and learning. This zone is defined by Vygotsky as the
difference between what a child can do on his or her own and what can be achieved
with assistance from someone who is more skilled. Schools supported by TLN and
the teachers in those schools make instructional decisions that are based on a continual
process of assessment, evaluation, and planning. Teaching is then provided by a skillful
teacher who has determined the appropriate amount of support in order for new
learning to occur.

New Zealand research in the 1980s that focused on school change established the
concept of the critical triangle. Schools that had significant impact on practices of
teachers constructed a strong working relationship between the principal, key members
of the faculty, and an outside consultant.

Work in the 1980s by Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers revealed that new learning
by teachers has little application in the classroom when the form of support is limited
to presentations of theory, the use of demonstration, or even with the opportunity for
practice. Changes in classroom practice occur when all three forms of training are
present along with feedback. The instructional dialogue that is embedded in the
training of TLN provides constructive feedback from a more knowledgeable peer.

Prawat (1992) in his research regarding teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning
says that many teachers believe teaching and learning should occur through the
traditional structure of transmission and absorption. His research shows that
incongruities exist between approaches espoused by education reform efforts (which
are based on constructivist theories) and actual teacher beliefs. In order to compensate
for and overcome ideological differences, staff developers working with teachers
must attain great depth of understanding. The support provided to schools by TLN is
delivered by a coordinator from TLN. The TLN coordinator receives extensive
training and on-going support in order to attain depth of understanding, not only about
literacy, but about school development as well.

In the 1960s and 1970s Madeline Hunter developed a rich perspective on assessment
driven instruction. Decisions about what to teach and how to approach instruction,
according to Hunter, come from data gathered in the classroom during the course of
teaching. We have built on her work in giving shape to the teaching/learning cycle. In
the T/L cycle, the teacher evaluates assessments on individual children that lead to
planning appropriate grouping for instruction and determining the level of support
needed for new learning to occur.

(2) Comprehensive design with aligned components: The program has a
comprehensive design for effective school functioning, including instruction,
assessment, classroom management, professional development, parental involvement,
and school management, that aligns the school's curriculum, technology, and professional
development into a school wide reform plan designed to enable all students (including
children from low-income families, children with limited English proficiency, and children
with disabilities) to meet challenging state content and performance standards and
addresses needs identified through a school needs assessment.

Much of the work of TLN in the school is on changing classroom practice. But the
alignment of components comes through most clearly in looking at the drafting and
development of policy statements in which the faculty and parents work together to
establish broad goals in literacy regarding reading, writing, spelling development, and
handwriting. In the process they answer the questions:

1. What is the goal we have in this school for all students in each curriculum area
   by the time they exit the school?
2. What are the objectives we are working to achieve in order to reach this goal?
3. What does the teacher need to understand about the theory that is driving her
   practice?
4. What do students need to know?
5. How will the knowledge be assessed and evaluated?
6. How will teacher understandings be reflected in consistent practices throughout
   the school?
7. How will progress toward the goal and objectives be reported to parents and
   the community?

The work that occurs in establishing a school policy statement aligns directly with state
and district guidelines.

(3) Professional development: The program provides high-quality and continuous
teacher and staff professional development and training.

TLN builds into the fabric of the school the mechanism for continuous professional growth
through the training of teacher leaders who become skillful trainers of other teachers.
The primary mechanism for this work is observation and instructional dialogue based on
action plans written by the learner.

(4) Measurable goals and benchmarks: A comprehensive school reform program
has measurable goals for student performance tied to the state's challenging content and
student performance standards, as those standards are implemented, and benchmarks
for meeting the goals.

Writing action plans and the process of observation and instructional dialogue enables
teachers to set goals for their own professional development and receive feedback on
that produces new learning. Benchmark and indicator documents provide a means for
teacher leaders and administrators to articulate developing understandings. Teachers'
developing understandings of the teaching and learning cycle ensure that individual goals
for can be set for each student while maintaining compliance with school, district, and
state curriculum requirements.

Our role is not to establish goals for the school but to help the school reach the goals
set by the faculty and by the district and state. This occurs through developing
understandings among teachers and by the collected effort at writing and using policy
statements.

(5) Support within the school: The program is supported by school faculty,
administrators, and staff.

The implementation of TLN in the school starts with the advocacy of the principal
and a core group of faculty. Other faculty are kept informed by the leadership team
of the critical triangle and wider acceptance is expected as impact becomes noticeable
in the classrooms of the teacher leaders. Evidence of the broader base of support can
be seen in subsequent years in the willingness of teachers to write action plans and active
involvement of teachers at faculty dialogues. Over time the core group develops into a
critical mass that shifts the culture of the school and creates a learning organization.

Joining The Learning Network is a commitment to changing the attitudes, understandings,
and behaviors of all teachers throughout a school. It is not limited to the education of
teacher leaders alone, with apparent benefit to these teachers only. By the end of the
second year of a standard implementation, there can be as many as sixteen teachers
in addition to the two teacher leaders developing understandings of this model of
teaching and learning. Each subsequent year allows more teachers to become involved.

(6) Parental and community involvement: The program provides for the meaningful
involvement of parents and the local community in planning and implementing school
improvement activities.

Parents and members of the business community are invited to participate with the
faculty in drafting and developing the policy statements. Parents are usually on campus
improvement teams participating in the selection of TLN. Site-based teams make
periodic reports to parents on the effectiveness of this model.

(7) External technical support and assistance: A comprehensive reform program
utilizes high-quality external support and assistance from a comprehensive school reform
entity (which may be a university) with experience or expertise in school wide reform
and improvement.

In addition to the collaboration between those in the critical triangle and the faculty and
collaboration among the faculty itself, The Network involves collaboration between the
individual school and the broader school community. Teacher leader classes of
approximately eight teacher leaders are formed by schools receiving support from The
Learning Network within a 45-minute to one-hour drive of one another. These classes
gather approximately twice monthly over eight months in the school year for Learning
Network focus meetings.

The Learning Network offers several other channels for external support and assistance.
The Learning Network maintains a website with information on upcoming and current
events, an e-mail listserve, and two online forums for teacher leaders and administrators
on the Internet. For the past five years, TLN has hosted the annual Learning Network
Conference, a national conference with three days of concurrent sessions on important
issues from classroom management to district level involvement. The Learning Network
also publishes The Learning Network Bulletin, a periodic newsletter for educators
involved with or interested in learning more about TLN.

A two-day regional seminar, Leadership in The Learning Network focuses on issues
that directly affect the work of administrators in developing a successful school literacy
initiative that meets district, state, and national standards. Leadership in The Learning
Network is a foundation experience for administrators and district personnel interested
in TLN.

The four-day summer institute, Literacy Learning in the Classroom, the foundation
experience for TLN, is offered in as many as twenty-eight locations across the country.
Literacy Learning in the Classroom provides teachers, administrators, and teacher
leaders with an opportunity to explore or revisit the Literacy Learning Model that is at
the core
of The Learning Network.

(8) Evaluation strategies: The program includes a plan for the evaluation of the
implementation of school reforms and the student results achieved.

TLN assists schools with implementing an end-of-the-year review to inform, share
growth, and collect data. The review provides the school with an assessment sample
of current progress in the school development process. A typical end-of-the-year
review includes a brief description of the school and community including demographic
data and brief statements of growth, evidence of growth, and next steps for the school.

After the two-year initial implementation, policy statement objectives are evaluated
during continuing contact in schools supported by TLN. Each objective is evaluated
on a periodic basis through the systematic collection of data by the school and coor
dinator working together. In addition, schools are expected to gather achievement
data that is shared with the TLN organization. That data takes the form of the
Record of Progress in the primary grades and evaluated standardized test data in
the upper grades.

(9) Coordination of resources: The program identifies how other resources
(federal, state, local, and private) available to the school will be utilized to coordinate
services to support and sustain the school reform.

One goal of TLN is to establish focus within the school and to eliminate conflicting
programs that interfere with the development of a consistent emphasis on teaching
and learning. Teachers and administrators with a deep theoretical understanding can
effectively assess and evaluate any external program being proposed to the school.

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What Is Your Next Step?

 

For more information, contact Richard C. Owen Publishers
at 800/262-0787 or e-mail us.

 

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