Secret of Successful Schools

"Its Learning Stupid!" 

New York State's Department of Education established a list, in 1989, consisting of schools where few students achieve minimum competency in math or reading and test scores steadily decline. As of 1996, 102 had at one time or another been assigned to that list with 25 of them eventually being removed.

More recently, a coalition of 26 New York City civic and parents groups, collectively called The Educational Priorities Panel, examined 10 schools that were removed from the state list last year - 6 elementary, 2 middle and 2 high schools. The panel's specific task: what does it take to fix a failing school?

Noreen Connell, executive director of the panel, explained that she found it embarrassing to learn after such a prolonged effort just how obvious the answer is. Condensed, "Its learning stupid."

The panel found no strong and clearly affecting correlation between a variety of standardly proposed solutions -- replacing the principals, the infusion of new money, improved staff development, building maintenance, etc. -- and increased student proficiency. What it found was that student performance improved or declined in direct relation to the extent of principal, teacher, administrator and parent participation in a shared and unified approach to how students should be taught.

District schools coordinated what each teacher provided, so that what was learned in one grade was built upon in the next. They used data to monitor student performance. A concerted effort was made to involve greater numbers of parents in the day-to-day operations of all manner of things school related. And ALL ten schools proved to benefit from a change in teaching staff through attrition and "persuasion." Principals and staff members gave primary attention to solving the problem of low student achievement. Teachers doggedly monitored performance and phoned parents when a homework assignment or day of attendance was missed.

Within two months the effects were noticeable. Grades improved. "They don't let [my son] get away with anything," said one mother. "It shook him up a lot."