Research
National Equity Project approaches are research-based and we regularly review new studies and peer efforts to improve our effectiveness. This page lists some key research that informs our work, and evaluations of our work and partner efforts.
Achieving Educational Equity
Karin Chenoweth. It's Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools. Harvard Educational Press, 2007.
"This straightforward and inspiring book takes readers into schools where educators believe - and prove - that all children, even those considered "hard-to-teach," can learn to high standards. Their teachers and principals refuse to write them off and instead show how thoughtful instruction, high expectations, stubborn commitment, and careful consideration of each child's needs can result in remarkable improvements in student achievement."
Chenoweth's findings include a long list of practices found in much of the literature:
• Embrace and use data to focus on individual students
• Embrace accountability
• Focus on student impacts, not adult impacts
• Focus on developing positive behaviors rather than punishment
• Create an atmosphere of trust and respect
• Provide teachers with time to plan and collaborate
• Provide teachers with time to observe each other
• Have principals who are constantly present and engaged with classrooms
• Have leaders at all levels
http://www.hepg.org/hep/Book/65
The Turnaround Challenge (Mass Insight Research, 2007)
This comprehensive report on High Poverty, High Performing schools (HPHP) found that they do not operate like traditional schools, but are more flexible, more responsive to student needs, and have cultures of innovation and shared commitment. Such schools exhibit:
1. Safety, discipline, and engagement
2. Action against adversity - directly address poverty-driven deficits
3. Close adult-student relationships
4. Shared responsibility for student achievement
5. Personalization of instruction
6. A professional teaching culture
7. Authority over resources / autonomy
8. Ingenuity in acquiring resources
9. Agility in the face of turbulence
Low-performing schools tend to fail students because "the challenges they face are substantial, and they themselves are dysfunctional . . . Low-expectation culture, reform-fatigued faculty, high staff turnover, inadequate leadership, and insufficient authority for fundamental change all contribute to a general lack of success." Schools that successfully serve high-poverty populations make fundamental changes to structure and culture to focus sharply on student learning.
http://www.massinsight.org/micontent/trnresources.aspx
Urban School Reform and the "Implementation Gap"
Experts agree that high-achieving schools that serve low-income children share a common set of practices. But the impact of these practices depends on school readiness for change and the quality of implementation. In many urban schools, readiness and implementation are inseparable from issues of organizational culture and staff perceptions of students and families across racial, class, and cultural difference. There is an implementation gap (as well as opportunity gap) underlying the "achievement gap." Following are links to research that supports this view.
Charles Payne, So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools. Harvard Education Press, 2008.
"This frank and courageous book explores the persistence of failure in today's urban schools. At its heart is the argument that most education policy discussions are disconnected from the daily realities of urban schools, especially those in poor and beleaguered neighborhoods. Payne argues that we have failed to account fully for the weakness of the social infrastructure and the often dysfunctional organizational environments of urban schools and school systems. The result is that liberals and conservatives alike have spent a great deal of time pursuing questions of limited practical value in the effort to improve city schools."
http://www.hepg.org/hep/Book/82
Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider, Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement. Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2002.
The authors examine the role of social relationships in schools and their impact on student achievement. They conclude that "a broad base of trust across a school community lubricates much of a school's day-to-day functioning and is a critical resource as local leaders embark on ambitious improvement plans." Bryk and Schneider contend that schools with a high degree of "relational trust" are far more likely to make the kinds of changes that help raise student achievement than those where relations are poor. Improvements in such areas as classroom instruction, curriculum, teacher preparation, and professional development have little chance of succeeding without improvements in a school's social climate. BayCES argues that relational trust can be enhanced significantly by training.
http://www.russellsage.org/publications/books/0-87154-192-0
Ronald Ferguson, "Teachers' perceptions and expectations and the black-white test score gap." In Toward Excellence with Equity: An Emerging Vision for Closing the Achievement Gap. Harvard Education Press, 2007.
A leading scholar finds that teachers have different perceptions and expectations for black students than white students. He argues that these differing expectations lead to different teacher behaviors that, in turn, reinforce lower black student performance. "Stereotypes of black intellectual inferiority are reinforced by past and present disparities in performance, and this probably causes teachers to underestimate the potential of black children more than that of whites. My bottom line conclusion is that teachers' perceptions, expectations, and behaviors probably do help to sustain, and perhaps even expand, the black-white test score gap."
http://hepg.org/hep/book/77
Michael Sadowski, "Closing the gap one school at a time." Harvard Education Letter. November/December, 2002.
According to Sadowski, surveys have shown that on most measures of effort and academic motivation, black students score as high as or higher than white students. But researchers have found that different social expectations often hinder black students' achievement. (1) Evidence suggests that black students feel less connected to school than their white counterparts. (2) Black students battle negative perceptions. One is their sense that they are not treated with the same standards as white students, for instance in terms of disciplinary actions. Black students may also suffer from "stereotype anxiety" that lowers test performance and discourages them from completing homework. (3) Research has found that teachers' expectations for black students are lower than for white students. Such expectations can affect student perceptions of their own abilities throughout their careers.
http://www.edletter.org/past/issues/2001-mj/gap.shtml
"Comprehensive School Reform: The Implementation Gap." RAND Research Brief, 2006.
Studies of Comprehensive School Reform found that most schools did not fully implement their reform model, in part due to low levels of training, support, and teacher commitment.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2006/RAND_RB9221.pdf
Lynn Olson, "Following the Plan." Education Week. April 14, 1999
"If whole-school reforms practiced truth-in-advertising, even the best would carry a warning like this: ‘Works if implemented. Implementation variable.' As states and districts embrace the concept of school-wide change, the degree to which a school carries out the ideas and practices of a particular reform model in the way its designers envisioned has emerged as the weak link. Research suggests that if they're well-implemented, some of these designs can produce substantial gains in student achievement. The better the implementation, the bigger the payoff. But study after study has found that implementation is often problematic and inconsistent, even at school sites that have been identified as exemplars..."
Coaching as an Education Reform Strategy
Julie Boyd, "Coaching in Context." State of Victoria Department of Education (Australia), 2008.
A useful overview of the theory of coaching. "Coaching is designed to integrate effective staff development and successful change management by providing a continuous growth process for educators at all experience levels. Coaching is embedded professional development to promote positive cultural change in schools and districts, improve the implementation of effective practices, and foster collaborative learning environments for the purpose of improving student achievement."
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/teachlearn/student/coachingincontext.pdf
Barbara Neufeld and Dana Roper. "Coaching: A Strategy for Developing Instructional Capacity." Education Matters and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, 2003.
This overview examines the theory of coaching, conditions and challenges of coaching, and impacts.
Excerpt: "Researchers have found that student learning includes much more than remembering and repeating what the teacher has said; it also includes the capacity to use what has been learned in traditional and novel ways, the capacity to make connections between new knowledge and old... This vision of student learning casts teachers as guides or coaches who ‘facilitate learning by posing questions, challenging students' thinking, and leading them in examining ideas and relationships.' These activities are considered essential because ‘what students learn has to do fundamentally with how they learn it.' The implications of these ideas for schools and teachers are significant. Schools and classrooms need to become places in which children and teachers challenge each other, places in which students approach academic content through problem solving, critical analysis, or higher-order thinking. Teaching that includes all of these components is known as teaching for understanding...To teach for understanding, teachers need new learning as well. But traditional approaches to professional development are not designed in ways that are likely to help teachers learn what they now need to know..."
http://www.edmatters.org/webreports/CoachingPaperfinal.pdf
Kathleen Osta and Margaret Perrow. "Coaching for Educational Equity: The BayCES Coaching Framework." BayCES 2008.
This document summarizes the BayCES coaching model, including our underlying beliefs, our vision, and the key components of our coaching practice. Our coaching model is designed to identify barriers to equity, as well as create and support conditions that can lead to equity. The model both draws on and develops best practices in coaching, instructional leadership, professional development, school design, and school-district-community partnerships.
http://www.bayces.org/filemgmt/visit.php?lid=42
"Learning to Change: School Coaching for Systemic Reform." Carol J. Brown et al. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2005.
A review of coaching practices at several Gates Foundation grantee organizations, including BayCES.
http://www.spu.edu/orgs/research/Learning%20to%20Change%204-5-05.pdf
The Role of Leadership
"How Leadership Influences Student Learning." Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, University of Minnesota; Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 2004.
Leadership not only matters: It is second only to teaching among school-related factors that affect student learning. And its impact is greatest in schools with the greatest needs, according to a comprehensive review of evidence on school leadership by researchers at the Universities of Minnesota and Toronto... There are virtually no documented instances of troubled schools being turned around without intervention by a powerful leader. Many other factors may play a role in such turnarounds, but leadership is the catalyst.
Michael Fullan. The Moral Imperative of School Leadership. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press, 2003.
From the Education Review: "Fullan agrees with the conventional opinion that reform has swept through our education system and with it has overtaken many educators who were not able to face the added demands but could have been the people to lead the reform. Meanwhile, the methods by which change has been implemented have been ineffective causing resistance, subverting actions or apathy among educators. The result is a system not meeting required standards and left with many experienced but aging leaders and disillusioned or inexperienced teachers. Fullan advises that there is great need now for strong leaders to provoke a cultural change that will lead to the development of professional learning communities with a sustained capacity for leadership and learning."
http://edrev.asu.edu/reviews/rev270.htm
"Professional Learning Communities: What Are They And Why Are They Important?" SEDL Issues..., Vol. 6, No. 1 (1997)
An overview of the PLC model for continuous professional development in schools and districts.
http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues61.html
Small Schools: Research and Evaluations
Kathleen Cotton, "School Size, School Climate, and Student Performance." NWREL, 1996.
Research has repeatedly found small schools to be superior to large schools on most measures and equal to them on the rest. This holds true for both elementary and secondary students of all ability levels and in all kinds of settings.
http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/10/c020.html
Stanford University Evaluation of Oakland's New Small Schools. Powerpoint Presentation, School Board Meeting, October 1, 2008.
This recent evaluation of Oakland Unified School District's New Small Schools, conducted by a team led by Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, finds that new small schools have "added value" to student achievement in Oakland, meaning they improve student learning at a higher rate than existing schools at all levels, and especially at the high school level. Results vary by school, but more mature schools add more value than newer schools. See:
http://www.bayces.org/article.php/stanford
New Small Autonomous Schools Evaluation
In October 2007 the Oakland Unified School District released the first of two external evaluations that demonstrates that the new small schools supported by the National Equity Project are accelerating student learning as measured by California Standards Tests. The evaluation also showed that graduation rates have increased greatly, and that students, parents, and teachers are more satisfied with new small schools than with other schools. Read more about the evaluation here:
http://www.bayces.org/article.php/nsaseval
