Compliance hearing exhibits: ''High Schools''

HIGH SCHOOLSO_| ZCD mm z 0) on High Schools 1. Memorandum from Bonnie Lesley to high school principals and others, Sept. 2, 1998, with information on a Ninth Grade Transition program. 2. Memorandum to high school principals from Bonnie Lesley in Dec. 16, 1998, Learning Links with a copy of a new book. Small Schools. Big Imaginations: A Creative Look at Urban Public Schools. 3. Memorandum to high school principals from Bormie Lesley, Mar. 20, 1999, on a High Schools that Work conference. 4. Memorandum to high school principals from Bonnie Lesley, July 19, 1999, with four models for creating small learning communities. -^1^1 5. Memorandum to middle and high school principals from Bonnie Lesley in Dec. 1, 1999, Learning Links with another model for grade 9 transition. ^/<S 6. Memorandum to high school principals and others from Bonnie Lesley, Nov. 6, 2000, on high school reform
attached copy of a new research report, High Schools of the Millennium. -/<^ 1. Memorandum from Bonnie Lesley to high school principals. Mar. 6, 2001, attaching 25 copies of a book. Rethinking High School for use by teachers serving on the action research teams. 8. Memorandum to Carnegie Management Team from Bonnie Lesley, Mar. 26, 2001, on high school systemic issues
attached article, The Lost Opportunity of Senior Year: Finding a Better Way. 9. Memorandum from Bonnie Lesley to high school principals, Apr. 6, 2001, with copies of a book by Mike Schmoker, Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement. 1 TO
FROM: LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCE CENTER 3001 S. PULASKI LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72206 September 2,1998 High School Principals Marian Lacey, Assistant Superintendent - Secondary Education Sadie Mitchell, Associate Superintendent - School Services Dr. Kathy Lease, Assistant Superintendent - Planning, Research & Evaluation Dr. Bonnie Lesley .Waas os( ociate Superintendent for Instruction SUBJECT: Ninth Grade Transition I am attaching some information about a ninth grade transition model developed by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation in New York. You may find these ideas helpful as you develop your plan for moving freshmen to the high school. If I can help in other ways, please let me know. Attachments BAL/adg PROJECT TRANSITION: CORE ELEMENTS These elements were developed based on discussions with education policy experts, a review of past studies of related programs, and discussions with school administrators, teachers and students. Teacher-student teams Teams of approximately 30 grade 9 students, grouped heterogeneously, will take their principal academic courses together. Four teams of students will be taught by a single teacher team, probably consisting of an English, math, science, and social studies teacher. Each teacher team will share a planning period to discuss collaborative efforts to improve instruction and to respond to the needs of their shared first-year students. There will be a one-course reduction in the number of classes taught by participating teachers to provide time for the additional shared planning period and for the extra work they will be required to do. Innovative professional development through teacher learning communities and coaches The teachers in each team will observe each others classes, plan jointly, and work together to develop and implement responses to the problems that they confront in their classrooms and to implement improvements in their instructional methods. The goal is for each team to build a "teacher learning community" that will provide concrete, sustained support for upgrading instruction. A facilitator or coach will support the teacher teams, "holding up the mirror," to keep the teachers focused on the goals of improved instruction and student achievement. Coaching will begin during the summer before the teachers begin their work together. In addition, the coaches will provide direct assistance to teachers in using effective instructional tools, including cooperative learning strategies, applications-based and project assignments, proactive classroom management methods, and clarified expectations for students work. Discipline-specific professional development will be provided through links to teachers departmental colleagues. Use of warning signals and action plans for failing students Professional development will prepare the teacher teams to recognize the early warning signals of student failure and to implement specific action plans for students in need of extra assistance to prevent failure. Action plans will include tutoring by peers and by members of the teacher team
extra instructional time
and student-teacher-parent contracts. 1BENEFITS FOR PROJECT TRANSITION SITES There are eight main benefits for sites participating in Project Transition. State-of-the-art study of Project Transition. Sites selected to participate will receive a rigorous evaluation of their high school transition project at virtually no cost to the school or district. The study will provide an in-depth examination of the implementation, impacts and cost of Project Transition. Funding supplement to cover coaches, professional development activities, and research-related costs. MDRC expects to secure funding for Project Transition to compensate participating school districts for research and data collection costs and the costs of the coaches and summer institutes. The amount of the site payments will depend on the programmatic and research-related activities currently being developed. National and local exposure to help solidify support from the school board, conununity and state. Sites can use their participation in the study as tangible evidence of their involvement in systemic reform. This may be useful in solidifying state and local support in order to preserve the reforms during the test period and justify an expansion if research findings are positive. MDRC will work with the district to try and obtain any sute waivers necessary for the project to be implemented. Opportunities for idea-sharing and information exchange. Participating sites will be selected from several regions of the country. As part of a national network, these sites will have the opportunity to compare experiences, leant about innovative approaches, and share operational lessons and "best practices." Toward this end, there will be two conferences for participating sites. MDRC will cover travel costs for these conferences. Customized technical assistance and training. Site staff will receive training and technical assistance on professional development, coaching, action plans and research and dau collection procedures. The training and technical assistance will be provided at no cost to the site. Teachers will participate in state-of-the art professional development and coaching activities. Lx)cal program and policy development. At the local level, sites wiU have access to specific findings that can be used by administrators and teachers to develop policies for improving student success in the school. MDRC wiU provide periodic interim briefings on the project for district leadership, school staff, local resource partners, and others and work to help districts expand the reforms to other schools if they prove to be effective. (continued) 2BENEFITS FOR PROJECT TRANSITION SITES (continued) State and national policy development. At the state and national levels, advocates of systemic reform are calling for smaller learning environments for students and teachers and better professional development for teachers. Participating sites will be part of a project that promises to provide credible evidence on the effectiveness of these reforms, and will help shape future policy directions. Technology transfer. Through their participation in the project, district research and evaluation staff can learn more about how to design and implement random assignment evaluations and implementation studies so that these research methods can be applied to internal evaluations conducted by the district. 3 PROJECT TRANSITION: RESPONSIBILITIES AND SITE SELECTION CRITERIA High school: Broad support. The participating high school has broad support for the project from the principal, teachers, students and parents
we will proceed with the project in a school only if a sizable majority of the faculty votes to participate. Project phase-in plan. The participating high school seeks to "phase in" the project initially for about half of the ninth grade class with full implementation occurring in subsequent years. Eligibility factors. The schools environment is appropriate for a longitudinal impact study of Project Transition: low to moderate mobility of students, a large ninth grade population, high dropout rates, relatively high percentage of students qualifying for the school lunch program, limited use of ability grouping in the ninth grade (or a plan or willingness to shift from ability groupings), and little use of separate, self-contained programs for ninth grade students. Data collection. The high school staff are willing to cooperate with the projects research and data collection requirements, including making school records available to the research team. Costs are defrayed by MDRC site grants. District: Commitment to systemic reform. The district has implemented teacher-student clusters in the ninth grade in at least one high school and plans and encourages the expansion of clustering to other high schools. Broad Support. There is broad support in the district from the school board, superintendent, teacher union, parent groups, community groups, and other education st^eholders. Large comprehensive high schools. The district has large, comprehensive high schools suitable for the demonstration, serving students from numerous feeder schools, with a substantial number of low-achieving students qualifying for the school lunch program, and high dropout rates. Resource capability. The district will allocate resources for the additional preparation period for participating teachers or provide the equivalent amount for other project-related costs (such as the coaches). (continued) 4PROJECT TRANSITION: RESPONSIBILITIES AND SITE SELECTION CRITERIA (continued) District (continued): Data collection. The district is also willing to cooperate with research and data collection requirements. This will include getting parent and student signatures on consent materials, completing a baseline form on all incoming ninth graders, completing random selection of teachers and students (if a random assignment design is used), and arranging for students and teachers to cooperate with MDRC researchers during field research visits. Conununitv: Availability of a local resource partner (LRP). The community has a local institution or agency either within or outside the school district which will facilitate the professional development and coaching components. This organization has the staff, skills, and cnowledge of the local schools and community needed to support the project. 5 RESEARCH DESIGN: THE USE OF RANDOM SELECTION During the planning year, MDRC plans to explore the feasibility of using random assignment to carry out the research. If random assignment proves not to be feasible, we will consider other research designs. Random selection has been used successfully in hundreds of studies. MDRC has 20 years of experience using random selection, with over 200,000 people randomly assigned. The reason to use random selection in a major evaluation is to be able to compare two groups that are essentially identical (on both measurable and unmeasurable characteristics, such as motivation)
one group receives the project being evaluated, the other receives the regular school program
subsequent differences between the two groups can be attributed with confidence to the reform being tested. Random selection provides a fair and totally objective method of deciding who receives services when resources are limited. Random selection provides an equal opportunity for access to services. It is often considered fairer than discretionary admissions. Many school districts currently use a lottery to select students for magnet programs and other programs that have limited slots. Random selection is identical to this type of lottery. Random selection is generally accepted by students, parents, and the public when it is fuUy explained in advance and is understood by aU parties. MDRC assures ethical protection and confidentiality for aU participants. MDRC provides training to school staff involved with the random selection process, including scripts, Q and A materials and suggested responses to questions. Other evaluation methods are subject to great uncertainty and dispute. Random selection has been endorsed by numerous national panels of experts, including the National Academy of Sciences. "Although the [educational] reform sentiment is strong, most of these proposed alternatives are not fully articulated and are of unknown merit. . . [identifying appropriate control groups can be dijficult, and following a mobile student population for several years is never easy. But without high-quality and credible evaluations, school districts will never be able to choose wisely among available innovations. . . The committee is convinced that widespread school reform will require partnerships between researchers and practitioners. Each has much to contribute to the quest. Researchers can provide breadth and depth of inquiry and rigor of investigation
elaborate new theories, conduct carefully controlled experiments, study programs and practices in multiple sites, and prepare national indicators of educational progress." - National Academy of Sciences, 1992 6ETHICAL PROTECTIONS: PROJECT TRANSmON Meeting all students basic needs All ninth grade students, regardless of whether they are randomly selected for the project group or the regular high school group, are eligible for all public school entitlements. Provision of full information on the evaluation All ninth grade students and their parents receive a fuU explanation of the random selection process and of their status regarding the project. Parents must give consent to their children being in the study. Provision of a fair and equitable way to allocate scarce resources Random selection, a lottery process, is used to allocate slots. This can be fairer than discretionary decision-making. Protection of privacy and data confidentiality Information on participants in the evaluation is carefully collected and securely maintained, with fuU confidentiality as required by law. Institutional Review Board The research protocol will be reviewed by an independent institutional review board (TRB) to assure that student protection is adequate and students are not put at undue risk because of the research. 7PROJECT TRANSITION: Tentative Project Timeline Key activities: Fall 1994 - Spring 1995 Planning Year Site selection Consensus building Vote by teachers Local resource partner identification Further development of four core elements Finalization of research design Key Activities: Summer 1995- Spring 1996 Demonstration/ Evaluation Year Summer institutes for teachers with followup activity during the school term Random assignment of incoming 9th grade students and teachers Data collection and research on impacts and costs Report preparation and dissemination Research on implementation Key Activities: Summer 1996- Summer 1997 Expansion Year Summer institutes for teachers with followup during the school year Implementation of Project Transition for all 9th grade students and teachers 8 MAJOR OPEN ISSUES Resolution of the following open issues will be based on discussions with potential sites: - Tuning and nature of extending the intervention to the upper grades Validation of the feasibility of using a random assignment design The length of the followup period beyond the tenth grade Selection of teachers for Project Transition Content of professional development and the link to subject area department Selection process for coaches and local resource partners Non-educational outcomes to be measured Possible special activities for students at the beginning of the ninth grade Division of labor between the school district and the local resource partner Amount of the site grant 9BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON MDRC The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) is a nonprofit social policy research organization with offices in New York City and San Francisco. For 20 years it has developed and tested interventions aimed at improving the economic and life prospects of disadvantaged Americans. MDRC has been widely recognized as providing highly credible, practical, and policy- and program-relevant information on education, job training, welfare-to- work, and adolescent parenting programs. MDRC was formed to respond to the need for more definitive information in the employment and training field and it has pioneered the use of longitudinal, field-based studies involving 300 counties or communities in 40 states. Distinguishing features
diverse staff with backgrounds in social science research and program operations
allows for combining research expertise with operational know-how successful in balancing research requirements with program operation needs to minimize the burden and intrusion of research the successful implementation of random assignment evaluations in diverse institutional settings which provides the most reliable information on program effectiveness effectively and broadly disseminating results to improve policy and practice Examples of education and youth projects: Career Academies Evaluation MDRC is conducting a longitudinal evaluation of Career Academies which are schools within schools organized around a career theme. Ten schools are participating in the evaluation which will be measuring the effects of the Academies on educational and labor market outcomes and reductions on risk-taking behaviors. School-to-Work Transition MDRC conducted a major implementation study of 16 school-to-work programs incorporating the range of options (Career Academies, Tech prep, youth apprenticeship, etc.). The results of the study helped shape the recently enacted School-to-Work Opportunities Act and is guiding educators and employers in their development of school- to-work plans under the new legislation. (continued) 10BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON MDRC (continued) Youth Entitlement MDRC managed and evaluated the largest, federally sponsored youth employment program called Youth Entitlement which guaranteed jobs to all 16-19 year olds disadvantaged students in 17 communities on the condition that they stay in or return to school. Over 76,000 youth participated. LEAP MDRC is conducting an evaluation of Ohios Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP) Program, an unusual statewide initiative that uses financial incentives, case management, and support services to induce teen parents on welfare to stay in or return to school. JOBSTART MDRC developed and evaluated JOBSTART, an alternative education and trainin
program for school dropouts which operated at 13 sites throughout the country. ig New Chance MDRC conducted a 16-site demonstration of New Chance, a comprehensive program for young women on welfare and their children featuring education, parenting, life skills, work readiness and job training for participating mothers and on-site child care for their children. I 11MANPOWER DEMONSTRATION RESEARCH CORPORATION MDRC Three Park Avenue New York, NY 10016-5936 Tel: (212) 532-3200 Fax: (212) 684-0832 Regional Office: 88 Kearny Street, Suite 1650 San Francisco, CA 94108 Tel: (415) 781-3800 Fax: (415) 781-3820 --.I I NOV 1 4 (994 i Board of Directors: I-November 11, 1994 Dr. James Hensley Superintendent Kansas City School District 625 Minnesota Ave. Kansas City, KS 66101 Richard P. Natbaa. CJtairman Paul H. O'Neill, rrearitncr Eli Giiuberg. Chainnan Ejnentus Rebecca M. Blank Antooia Hernandez Alan Kistler Richard J. Mumane Rudolph G. Penner Franklin D. Raines Robert Solow Gilbert Steiner Mitchell Sviridoff William Julius WQsoa Waiiam S. Woodside Judith M. Gueron, Presidons I J I I Dear Dr. Hensley I am writing to you at the suggestion of Susan Wally at The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to introduce you to the Manpower Demonstration Research Coiporation and the work we are doing on education reform. In October, I met with staff at The Kauffman Foundation to discuss MDRCs work in the school-to-work field and our emerging portfolio of education projects. MDRC is launching a new education demonstration called Project Transition which will attempt to reform large, comprehensive high schools starting in the ninth grade, by creating a more supportive and personalized learning environment for students during their first year of high school. After discussing Project Transition with the Kauffman staff, I discovered that The Kauffman Foundation has been involved with a similar project at Harmon High School. I learned that the Interdisciplinary Team Teaching Project at Harmon High was an outgrowth of an earlier project called. Project Choice, which Kauffman supported at Westport High in Kansas City, Missouri and five high schools in Kansas City, Kansas. Susan WaUy was kind enough to share a copy of the video on the Harmon Interdisciplinary Team Teaching Project with me and after watching it I could not believe how much the approach had in common with our proposed plans for Project Transition. We are in preliminary discussions with The Kauffman Foundation to determine if they would be interested in supporting Project Transition. This wiU depend, in part, on fmding strong candidate high schools in Kansas City, Kansas or Kansas City, Missouri. This letter begins with background information on MDRC and then provides a more detailed description of Project Transition including the benefits and responsibilities of participating in the demonstration and our selection criteria for choosing potential high schools. We would greatly appreciate it if you could have a member of your staff provide us with a preliminary indication of your interest in Project Transition by filling out the enclosed form and faxing it back by November 23th. Background Information on MDRC Before providing a more complete description of Project Transition, let me first give you some background information on our organization. MDRC is a nationally known nonprofit research organization with offices in New York City and San Francisco. For the past 20 years, MDRC has been conducting rigorous multi-site evaluations of promising social policy initiatives designed to improve the life circumstances and economic weU-being of people from low-income families. We have worked in the fields of education, job training, youth employment, teen parenting, and welfare-to-work programs. Our work has three distinctive features. First, we are very selective about the programs we take on by focusing on projects that are on the cutting edge of policy. Second, we place a high priority on aggressive and sustained dissemination of research findings as a vehicle to both inform the public, improve policy, and institutionalize programs which work. Third, we use research techniques which provide the most reliable measures of whether programs work and are cost-effective. Over the years, we have developed a reputation as one of the most trusted and reliable organizations in studying program effectiveness. g Our work in education during the past five years includes a study of 16 school-to- work programs which helped shape the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (signed into law in May), analyses of the effectiveness of adult education programs for welfare recipients, and the evaluation of Ohios LEAP program which uses a combination of financial incentives and penalties to induce teen parents on welfare to stay in or return to school. Our largest education project is a comprehensive evaluation of a promising school restructuring initiative called High School Career Academies which are schools-within- schools organized around a career theme. We have successfully launched this study in eight schools and we will be adding several more this year. Recently, MDRC received a challenge grant from The Ford Foundation to provide seed funding for a series of evaluations and demonstrations of promising school-based interventions and reforms in high schools and middle schools. Funds for Project Transition are budgeted in our challenge grant from Ford and through our affiliation with the new Department of Education Center for Research on the Education of Youth Placed At-Risk (CRESPAR). Project Transition Project Transition focuses on the first year of high school - a particularly vulnerable time in the schooling career of many students often characterized by poor attendance, sliding grades, and disengagement with school which can result in dropping ig out. A large part of the problem is attributable to the characteristics of large, comprehensive high schools which can be formidable, intimidating environments for ninth graders who may take a conveyor belt of disconnected 50 minute classes and have limited opportunities to buUd relationships with teachers. The project has three key elements: Teacher-student teams: Teams of approximately 30 grade 9 students, grouped heterogeneously, wiU take their principal academic courses together. Four teams of students wUl be taught by a single teacher team, probably consisting of an English, math, science, and social studies teacher. Each teacher team wUl share a planning period, to work on improving instruction and to respond to the needs of their shared first-year students. There wiU be a one-course reduction in the number of classes taught by participating teachers, to provide time for the additional shared planning period and for the extra work they wiU be required to do. Innovative professional development through teacher learning communities and coaching: The teachers in each team wUl observe each others classes, plan jointly, and will work together to develop and implement responses to the problems that they confront in their classrooms in order to improve their instructional methods. The goil is for each team to build a "teacher learning community" that wUl provide concrete, sustained support for upgrading instruction. A facilitator or coach wUl support the teacher teams, "holding up the mirror" to keep the teachers focused on the goals of improved instruction and smdent achievement. Coaching will begin during the summer before the teachers begin their work together. In addition, the coach will provide direct assistance to teachers in using effective instructional tools with an emphasis on strategies which promote active learning, including cooperative learning strategies, applications- based and project assignments, proactive classroom management methods, and clarified expectations for students work. If appropriate, support for multicultural education may also be involved. Discipline-specific professional development wUl be provided through links to teachers departmental colleagues. We plan to work with a local resource partner (LRP) to carry out the projects professional development and coaching components. Use of warning signals and action plans for failing students: Professional development wUl prepare the teacher teams to recognize the early warning signals of student failure, and to implement specific action plans for students in need of extra assistance to prevent failure. Action plans wUl include tutoring by peers and by members of the teacher team, extra instructional time, and student-teacher-parent contracts. We plan to start Project Transition in two districts (and up to two schools in each district) and expand through a staged growth process. The eligibility factors that we wUl be looking for in choosing high schools include a strong commitment to high school restructuring, high need indicators as detennined by low test scores, low graduation rates, and high drop out rates, and a willingness to cooperate with research and data requirements. Milwaukee is likely to be one of the districts and we are interested in exploring both Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri in connection with possible support from The Kauffman Foundation. 3There are a number of potential benefits for schools that participate in the study. These benefits include: receiving free technical assistance to implement an important educational innovation
receiving a cost-free, state-of-the art evaluation of the effectiveness of the innovation, thereby responding to accountability and performance goals
becoming part of a network of innovating schools across the country, and participating in conferences with those schools
influencing state and national education policy
and the suture and prestige attached to being part of an important national innovation. I should also point out that we plan to award grants to schools to compensate them for the coaches, the professional development activities for teachers, and research related costs associated with the study. School districts or schools are expected to^absorb the staffing costs associated with creating additional preparation periods. Schools in MDRCs evaluations can also expect to receive considerable exposure and visibility because of MDRCs suture and repuUtion among the policy community, practitioners, and press. To further acquaint you with our work, I am enclosing a discussion paper on Project Transition as well as our annual report. Once we receive your nominations, we would like to schedule a conference call to answer any questions that you might have and explain Project Transition in more detail. This could lead to a future site visit in December to meet with principals from prospective high schools. Please feel free to call me with any questions or concerns. Again, we would appreciate it if someone from your staff would complete the attached form and fax it back to us by Thanksgiving. I look forward to learning more about school reform in Kansas City and hearing from you soon. Sincerely, Ma Rob Ivry / Senior Vice President cc. Susan Wally 4PROJECT TRANSITION Please fax this information to: Mary Andes Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation 3 Park Avenue New York, New York 10016 FAX: 212-684-0832 Please return this information no later than Wednesday, November 23rd. District name: District contact person: Is your district interested in being considered to participate in Project Transition? ___ YES (Please complete the remainder of this questionnaire.) ___ NO (Thank you for responding to our inquiry.) High schools can only be considered if they have more than 400 students in grade 9, low graduation rates, high poverty rates, and they have not already instituted the Project Transition reforms. This questionnaire provides space for you to nominate up to three high schools
you may add more if you wish. 1) HIGH SCHOOL: CONTACT PERSON AND PHONE: GRADE 9 ENROLLMENT: % OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS WHO DO NOT GRADUATE (approx.): % OF STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR FREE OR REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH: % OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS WHO FAIL ONE OR MORE COURSES (approx.): ABSENTEE RATE FOR GRADE 9 STUDENTS: % OF GRADE 12 STUDENTS ACCEPTED BY A COLLEGE (approx.): PLEASE BRIEFLY LIST AND DESCRIBE CURRENT SPECIAL PROGRAMS OR INITIATIVES FOR GRADE 9 STUDENTS AND THE PERCENTAGE OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS THEY INCLUDE:2) HIGH SCHOOL: CONTACT PERSON AND PHONE: GRADE 9 ENROLLMENT: % OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS WHO DO NOT GRADUATE (approx.): % OF STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR FREE OR REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH: % OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS WHO FAIL ONE OR MORE COURSES (approx.): ABSENTEE RATE FOR GRADE 9 STUDENTS: % OF GRADE 12 STUDENTS ACCEPTED BY A COLLEGE (approx.): PLEASE BRIEFLY UST AND DESCRIBE CURRENT SPECIAL PROGRAMS OR INTIIATrVES FOR GRADE 9 STUDENTS AND THE PERCENTAGE OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS THEY INCLUDE: 3) HIGH SCHOOL: CONTACT PERSON AND PHONE: GRADE 9 ENROLLMENT: % OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS WHO DO NOT GRADUATE (approx.): % OF STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR FREE OR REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH: % OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS WHO FAIL ONE OR MORE COURSES (approx.): ABSENTEE RATE FOR GRADE 9 STUDENTS: % OF GRADE 12 STUDENTS ACCEPTED BY A COLLEGE (approx.): PLEASE BRIEFLY LIST AND DESCRIBE SPECIAL PROGRAMS OR INTTIAHVES FOR GRADE 9 STUDENTS AND THE PERCENTAGE OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS THEY INCLUDE: MDRC is very grateful for your assistance. If you have any questions, please call Robert Ivry or Mary Andes at 212-532-3200. PROJECT TRANSITION
BLkLDING HIGH SCHOOL REFORM STARTING IN GRADE PNE A Discxission Paper Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation August 1994 Project Transition: Achieving a Successful Transition to High School Overview High dropout rates, low achievement, and a lack of hope for the future are part of most students daily lives in many large, comprehensive high schools across the United States, particularly in urban areas. Responses to this problem encounter many barriers: entrenched school practices that resist change
teachers and administrators uncertainty about the feasibility 3.id effectiveness of reforms
limited local access to the kinds of support and expertise needed to intrc luce and implement high school reform
and limited local capacity to support and institutionalize reform. MDRCs Project Transition seeks to build a parmership with selected local school districts that are committed to reform, in order to test the effectiveness of promising reforms focusing initially on the first year of high school. The goals of Project Transition are to build the local capacity to implement and institutionalize reform in high schools
to provide valuable expertise in designing, planning, and executing a major high school reform
and to demonstrate the feasibility of reforming large, comprehensive high schools that serve concentrations of students who are placed at risk of educational, failure by the existing public school system. School reform efforts have concentrated on the elementary and middle schools, while changes in high schools lag behind. Many policymakers want to support high school reforms that are seen as "winners," but there are few promising reform efforts underway, particularly in large urban high schools. MDRC seeks to build policymakers interest in large-scale support for high school reforms by conducting a state-of-the-art evaluation and - if the results are positive - using this evidence to leverage a major expansion of state and federal support for high school reform. MDRCs planned role in Project Transition is to identify several partner school districts that are committed to high school reform
to build a consensus enabling major reforms to be implemented effectively
to suppon the initiation of the reform process in selected high schools
and to build the districts capacity to implement and sustain key reforms. In addition, MDRC will document and evaluate the reform process through three studies: a major impact and implementation evaluation, an implementation study examining the lessons from local high schools that started their reforms before the impact-evaluation schools, and a study of issues affecting the institutionalization of the reforms in the partner districts. Project Transitions high school reforms will start in grade 9 and will have four components: 1 organizational changes aimed at creating smaller, more supportive learning experiences for students (using ideas developed by the middle school reform movement)
innovative professional development for teachers based on learning communities and collaboration (reflecting recent research on the school as a workplace)
coaching for teachers
and the use of early warning signals to identify students who need extra help, and Action Plans for teachers to use in helping these students catch up. A detailed description of these components, and of the implementation-institutionalization perspective that is the basis for Project Transition, are presented in this discussion paper. The Problem Young peoples life chances depend directly on their performance in high school. A high school diploma is a requirement for college entrance and for many high-wage Jobs, and jobs with good earnings potential increasingly require the communication skills, math, and science knowledge taught in high school and post-secondary programs. Yet many young people either perform poorly in high school or drop out. High school achievement levels are substantially lower for young people of color and those from families in poverty than for other young people, greatly reducing their economic prospects. The National Center for Education Statistics (1991) reports that there is a "tenfold difference between the dropout rates of students from families with low as compared to high incomes." Sadly, studies of dropout prevention and dropout recovery programs have found mostly discouraging results. Consequently, there is a pressing need for school reforms thatprevezir students failure while they are still in high school. For many students, the traditional structure and practices of large, comprehensive high schools appear to be major sources of low achievement and dropping out. The research of Milbrey McLaughlin and Joan Talbert (co-directors of the Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching [1993]), Robert Felner, and others highlights the lack of fit between the structure and norms of many large, comprehensive high schools and the needs of their students. Moreover, recent research strongly suggests that the first year of high school (typically grade 9) creates particularly difficult problems for many students, particularly those in large urban Their experiences during the first year of high school appear to push many who had areas. previously done well in school down the path toward school failure and dropping out. There are several reasons for this: A threatening environment. 1. The high school environment is very different from the elementary' and middle school settings. From the perspective of first-year students, the high school is full of hundreds of strangers, most of them older, more confident, and more aggressive than first-year students
older students often harass younger students
sexual harassment of both girls and boys is commonplace (AAUW Educational Foundation, 1993)
students may have well-founded fears of violence and crime in school and while traveling between home and school
and drug use and drug sales may occur in and around many large high schools. 2Many students feel anonymous and isolated because they know and are known by only a small proportion of their classmates, reducing the support they receive (Felner et al., 1981). Many African American and Hispanic students perceive a lack of understanding of and respect for their ethnic and racial background among some teachers and classmates, further undermining their engagement in school. 2. Impersonal treatment. The large high school is a far more impersonal place than middle and elementary schools. Because students have a different teacher and, in many cases, different classmates in each class, and because each teacher has 150 or more students, teacher-student and student-student relationships are often aloof and detached. In these circumstances, many students respond to school problems or anxieties with truancy. When a student is absent from school, it is typically a school clerk who calls the students home, rather than an adult the student and parent knows. 3. Attendance problems. Students absences increase dramatically in their first year of high school. Professor Roger Weissberg is an expert on school settings who has extensively studied the schools in a northeastern city with a large proportion of African American and Hispanic students. His data show that in this district, students in the first year of high school have far more absences than students in any other grade. He found that in 1990-91, the average student in the first year of high school was absent more than 32 days fifty percent more days than in the preceding grade, and more an one-sixth of the school year. A study by Felner et al. (1981) found that in the first year of high school, 45 percent of the students studied were absent more than 20 days (four school weeks), while in the year before high school only 23 percent had that level of absences. Frequent absences undermine students ability to keep up with their course work, and classes with high rates of student absence disrupt teachers ability to provide interesting, high expectations, high content instruction. Students absences during the first year of high school appear to predict dropping out, low achievement, and other problems, according to recent research by Roderick (1990). 4. Changes in students school pejformance. Evidence is emerging that many students school performance declines markedly in their first year of high school even students who had previously been doing well in school. One study of a district with a high concentration of African American and Hispanic students found that students grade averages fell by more than one half of a letter grade in the first year of high school
the proportion of students achieving less than a C average was 40 percent in the first year of high school, compared to 22 percent in the year before high school, and these problems were concentrated among African American and Hispanic students (Felner et al., 1981). In 1990-91, only 35.5 percent of ninth graders in the Chicago Public Schools passed all of 3 5. 6. their courses
more than half failed two or more courses
and in some schools, only 15 percent passed all of their courses (Roderick and Novotny, n.d.). Ineffective instruction. Many high school teachers make little use of the newer instructional practices that can be highly beneficial in teaching a wide range of students, including project assignments, cooperative learning, hands-on activities, applications-based lessons, and other active learning methods. McLaughlin and Talbert (1993) found that perhaps because many teachers are under great pressure to cover the curriculum and have not received the support they need to try new approaches, "many of the teachers who continue traditional practices see the behavioral and achievement problems in todays classrooms primarily as students problems... and justify their practices in terms of traditional subject area standards and orthodoxies." The teachers of low-achieving students typically have less access to professional development than other teachers. Most high school teachers have no one to turn to for sustained and personal assistance in upgrading their teaching practices and subjectmatter knowledge, so it is not surprising that many simply accept students high course failure rates and continue to use ineffective instructional practices. The high schools limited ability to link students v/ith supportive adults and peers. At a time in their development when students need close attention and support as they test their growing independence, most high school norms and practices result in many students having little close contact with teachers. This lack of engagement of students with their teachers takes away an important opportunity for students to receive needed adult support. In addition, many students receive little school-related support from their classmates, because of the difficulty of forming friendships when students share only one or two courses in common. Students who have few classmates as friends experience difficulty countering the anti-school peer culture with peer relationships and support that are based on shared courses and daily classroom experiences. High schools typically do little to connect students growth as adolescents - including their new interest in the relevance of their education to adult life and their changing affective and psycho-social connections to classmates, schoolwork, and extracurricular projects with in-school learning. According to this evidence, the organization, norms, and standard operating procedures of the large high school appear to be highly problematic for students (and particularly for students of color) in their first year of high school. Events during this year can undermine students success throughout high school, and can eventually cause them to drop out (Roderick, 1990). In contrast, students who do well in their first year of high school have a much better chance to graduate from high school and to succeed in the labor market. 4 These findings on the transition year from middle school or junior high school to high school are consistent with the large body of research showing that significant transition experiences are occasions of stress, morbidity, mortality, family disruption and divorce, job failure, and other major problems (literature reviewed by Wapner, 1981). These problematic transitions include the first year of retirement, the first months in a new job, the first year of marriage, the occasion of a divorce, and it is now increasingly clear - the first year of high school. Even when high schools consistently fail many of their students - as evidenced by high dropout rates and a pattern of low achievement - they often resist change. Large, comprehensive high schools are locked into a structure that keeps the failed approaches going, limits teachers opportunities to change, and ignores the untapped resources that lie within teachers and students. The lack of significant change in failing high schools can be attributed to several deep-seated characteristics of most large, comprehensive high schools
Heavy teacher workloads. Most high school teachers have five 50- - minute classes to teach each day, with 30 students or more per class. Adding more work or new .kinds of tasks for teachers is therefore seen as infeasible. A subject matter emphasis. High school teachers traditionally view their work as being focused on the subject matter of the courses they teach, and high schools organization and practices place great emphasis on moving students through a prescribed sequence of courses
most high schools and many teachers place much less emphasis on teacher-student relationships and adolescent development issues. Rigid course requirements. Prescribed course sequences, graduation requirements, and college entrance requirements make it difficult for school administrators and teachers to alter many current practices and divisions of labor. Limited capacity to deal with developmental and behavior issues. High school teachers have little training and few resources enabling them to respond to the developmental issues and behavior problems of their students
consequently, many teachers are reluctant to deal with these issues more than they do now. Guidance counselors and other specialized school staff have little impact on many students. Weak support for teachers. Professional development activities for high school teachers have often been ineffective and of poor quality, further limiting their capacity to improve existing practices. In order to succeed, efforts to bring about major reforms in high schools need to recognize and respond to these sources of high schools resistance to change, both in their design and in the way they are implemented. Project Transitions concrete responses to this problem are discussed later in this paper. 5The problems of the large high schools educational ineffectiveness, its resistance to change, and students needs during the transition to high school are interrelated. Students special vulnerability during their first year of high school underscores the need to provide extra support during this important transition, and strongly suggests that creating a successful transition to high school may yield large and sustained benefits for many students
yet most large high schools do not provide effective support for students and the rigidity of many large comprehensive high schools is likely to block most efforts to improve students first year of high school. Thus, resolving any of these problems is likely to require an approach that responds to all of them. A Response to the Problem The available evidence strongly suggests that there is an important opportunity to increase the educational success of students who are currently placed at risk of failure by their high school, if reformers can change students experiences during the critical period of their transition to high school. By targeting a particularly important time in students development, a carefully-designed effort might produce results that substantially exceed those of innovations at other points in school, and there is some reason to believe that these results may be sustained over time (Felner et al., 1993) and can serve as the basis for reforms in the upper grades in high school. However, it is well known that changing a schools established practices is very challenging and requires extensive work with the affected teachers, administrators, and students (Pauly, 1991). For this reason, MDRG plans to base Project Transition on an implementation-institutionalization approach (Fullan, 1990). This approach focuses on the process of building a local capacity to support and institutionalize high school reforms so that they become firmly embedded in local policy and practice long after MDRCs project has been completed. To do this, MDRC plans to build partnerships with selected local school districts that are committed to reforming their high schools and that meet additional criteria reflecting their ability to collaborate with MDRC on supporting the reform process. (Site selection criteria are discussed later in this paper.) Project Transitions reforms which are built on research and experience in both middle schools and high schools - concentrate initially on improving the school structures and practices that are directly related to the core classes taken by first-year students. This focus will avoid many of the problems and difficulties that are encountered by efforts to restructure the whole high school at once. There are several reasons that the structures and practices in grade 9 are likely to be more amenable to change than those in other grades, at least initially. In grade 9, most of a schools students take similar courses and have few electives, reducing the complexity of restructuring their schedules. The teachers of 9th grade students already bear the brunt of the educational, behavioral, and absenteeism problems of students just making the transition to high school, and they are therefore likely to be more willing to try new practices and organizational approaches than uppergrade teachers. Ability grouping issues are less complicated in grade 9, and changes in grouping practices are more practical, than in upper grades. Finally, most students entering grade 9 are still relatively engaged in the world of the school
with each passing year, the problems of student disengagement become more severe. An implementation-institunonalizanon approach. To succeed and to be sustained, any school reform effort must be carefully implemented in ways that are sensitive to the particular 6context of each school, and that build strong local involvement in and ownership of the reforms. The first step toward effective implementation is careful site selection. MDRC will use the site selection process to identify districts and schools with the capacity for implementing the projects reforms effectively. Site selection criteria will include: Selecting partner school districts that have already started the kinds of reforms contained in Project Transition in some of their high schools, demonstrating their commitment to this reform approach and enabling teachers in the evaluation sites to observe peers in neighboring schools
Selecting partner school districts that are seeking to pursue Project Transition reforms district-wide and are committed to providing financial support for the reforming schools
Selecting high schools in which at least 85 per cent of the staff vote to collaborate with Project Transition, after consensus-building discussions
Selecting high schools whose principal is committed to supporting the reforms, and who agrees to participate fully in all of Project Transitions summer institutes and other professional development activities
and In each site, a local agency or institution (the projects "local resource partner," or LRP) will collaborate with MDRC to conduct Project Transitions main reform activities
this agency will be selected based on its capacity to develop and provide the support, technical assistance, coaching, assistance in professional development activities for teachers, and other roles needed to implement and sustain the reforms and to spread them to additional high schools after MDRCs role in the project is complete. By forming partnerships based on these criteria, MDRC will be able to work with school districts, high schools, and LRPs that can implement, sustain, and build on key reforms (with assistance and expertise provided by MDRC). This is a local capacity-building strategy that reflects the lessons of the extensive research on the implementation and institutionalization of reforms in schools (Fullan, 1990
Pauly, 1991). The proposed approach will be based on major structural reform components, described below, which can be widely used by large, comprehensive high schools, with opportunities for schools to make their own adjustments and adaptations in the over-arching approach. By combining these core structural components with the flexibility derived from adaptations to the local school context. Project Transition can avoid the resistance that undermines prescriptive, top-down models. Four components. Project Transition has four key reform components: organizational changes affecting the classes and homeroom of first year students
a new approach to professional development for teachers
the use of a facilitator or coach to support teachers efforts to improve their instructional practice
and the use of early warning signals and action plans for failing students. Currently, MDRC is working with teams of experts and practitioners to refine and develop Project 7 Transitions central elements
this work will continue the adaptation and strengthening of the reform approach. 1. Organizational changes: teacher-student clusters The proposed organizational changes in Project Transition are intended to create a small, family-like "school within a school" for students in the first year of high school. Students and teachers will be grouped together in clusters. A cluster of approximately 30 students will take all of their principal academic courses together. Several clusters of students will be taught by a specific group of teachers
for example, four clusters of first-year students could be taught by a single teacher cluster consisting of an English, math, science, and social studies teacher. The teachers in a cluster will also serve as the homeroom teachers for their four student clusters. Each cluster of four teachers will share a common planning period to discuss their shared first-year students and their problems, enabling them to make sure that cluster students do not "fall between the cracks" in a large, anonymous high school. Classroom assignments will be adjusted so that all clusters of first-year students will have their classes in a single part of the school building, thus reducing their contact with older students and keeping them with a stable group of peers. In addition, the homeroom period will be lengthened slightly (perhaps to 20 minutes) so that homeroom teachers can meet regularly with individual students to check up on their progress and problems. (These organizational changes follow the ideas developed and disseminated by Felner et al., 1982, and Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989). The goal of the organizational changes is to break with the traditional organization of the high school, which provides little interpersonal support for entering students and treats them in impersonal ways. Instead, this reform approach aims to increase the engagement of students with their teachers and classmates, and similarly to increase the engagement of teachers with their students. For students, these organizational changes are aimed at creating small, stable groups of classmates who take their principal classes together and who know their classmates and their teachers well. For teachers, the changes seek to create small teacher clusters whose members work with the same students and come to know them well, learn from each other, solve educational problems together, and identify and resolve students problems before they become overwhelming. By fostering closer, more supportive relationships between students and their teachers (as well as between classmates within each cluster), this reform is expected to increase the support for students psycho-social development in school. MDRC believes that the additional work that will be required for teachers using the approach described in this paper will necessitate a one-course reduction in participating teachers course load, and the addition of a shared planning period for joint work by the teachers in each cluster. For example, in a school in which teachers normally are responsible for five courses, the teachers who participate in Project Transition would teach four courses
these teachers would also have added responsibilities for shared work with the other teachers in their cluster and for responding to students absences and other student problems. Some of this additional work would be done during the additional planning period for participating teachers. Overall, their workload would equal or exceed the normal five-course workload. District financial support for reducing the course load of participating teachers will be negotiated as part of the site selection process. (Districts Chapter 1 funds for secondary schools, which are likely to increase under the proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, are a potential funding source.) MDRC will work with 8 school staff (including teachers, union representatives, department chairs, principals, and district staff), LRPs, and education experts to develop and refine the proposed approach. 2. Professional development: teacher learning communities The goal of Project Transitions innovative professional development activities is to help teachers use the cluster organizational approach to improve the quality of their instructional practices and to strengthen student-teacher relationships. Each cluster of teachers will become responsible for working together to identify and implement needed responses to the problems that they confront in their classrooms, and for improving their classroom practices. own The key to this approach is for each cluster of teachers to become active participants in their own professional development: observing each others classrooms, working together to solve the problems they confront in their classrooms, and providing concrete and sustained support for each others efforts over time to make needed changes in their classrooms. Currently, most professional development techniques for teachers are lectures and workshops that try to transmit canned, prescriptive information on teaching methods to teachers, with little benefit. In contrast, the proposed approach will use the teacher clusters to conduct their own ongoing, shared professional development activities that respond to teachers classroom problems, adapt to the particular issues in their student clusters, and are directly relevant to the needs that teachers perceive for improvement in their instruction and other practices. Compared to traditional professional development methods, this cluster-based approach is much more intensive and much more tailored to teachers need for specific and concrete assistance in adapting new instructional methods to the circumstances in their classrooms. For example, a cluster of teachers can use their shared planning period to work on improving instruction in their classes
they can observe each others classes during their (regular) preparation period
and they can work with their coach on ways to use new instructional methods in their cluster (coaching is discussed under the next heading). Because their work on improving instruction and support for students in their cluster will be conducted continuously over time, they will be able to reinforce, review, and revise their improvement efforts through a continuing give-and- take process. A major goal of this professional development approach will be to provide teachers with the training, assistance, and support they need to use their clusters for these kinds of professional development activities. McLaughlin (1993) has described the valuable professional development experiences that are created by the "learning communities" of teachers that were found in recent studies by the Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching. These teachers used their collaborative relationships with colleagues to identify aspects of their practice that were not working, to find changes that held the promise of improving students achievement, and to implement the changes effectively. As the teachers tried these changes in their classrooms, they were able to get ideas from their teacher learning community about how to respond to unanticipated problems, enabling them to keep making progress rather than giving up when things went badly. I These teacher learning communities were created by the teachers emselves, and were not art of a planned intervention or mandate. Consequently, it is not yet known whether a reform such * . ______k/i kAriAfitC anH as this one can consistently produce teacher learning communities. However, the many benefits and 9satisfactions that the teachers in McLaughlin's research received from their learning communities shows that many teachers are likely to value the assistance that they can receive from learning communities. Consequently, it seems likely that the proposed approach can create and sustain teacher learning communities. Among the key unanswered questions for Project Transition is how teachers should be grouped together for these activities. One possibility is to support and encourage each cluster of teachers to work together as a learning community
another is for the teachers in several clusters to work together
a third possibility is for participating teachers to form their own self-selected groups. Other variants are possible, as are combinations of these approaches. There may even be substantial benefits if some, but not all, of the teachers in a cluster participate in the groups professional development activities. Professional development in the teacher clusters will be based on concrete and specific activities designed to improve teachers instructional methods, increase teachers subject-specific knowledge and pedagogy, and strengthen the connections between teachers and students. These goals will require a range of techniques. These may include, for example, instruction in and shared development of cooperative learning lessons, and observation and practice in subject-specific teaching methods. Community-building activities for teachers and diversity training may be needed if teachers expectations for students are low, or in schools where there is stereotyping of students based on their race or ethnicity. MDRC will work with its local parmers, and particularly with the LRP, on the design and management of the professional development activities. These activities will be implemented and supported by the LRP and the participating teachers, with active and continuing involvement by each schools principal. The following professional development activities are proposed: The clusters of teachers will start working together before the beginning of the school year (probably in a summer institute), participating in activities aimed at developing collaborative relationships and substantive problem-solving skills that they can apply to the problems that they confront in their cluster of classrooms. To build strong connections between teachers and students and among students, team-building and diversity training will be used as appropriate, both during the summer institute and subsequently. Teachers will receive training in using their shared planning period to work with the other teachers in their cluster to solve students problems, and in effective methods of establishing strong bonds with students early in the school year. While it seems likely that each teacher will have at least 120 students (making it difficult for a teacher to form close contacts rapidly with every student), a cluster of teachers can divide the responsibility for making early contact with each student so that each teacher in the cluster can focus on a manageable number of students - 30 or so. Teachers will receive brief training in adapting a lengthened homeroom period into a teacher-based advisory period, and in techniques for 10 identifying students academic and other problems, making referrals, providing support by listening to students concerns, and other basic problem-solving and advisory practices. Depending on the situation in each participating school, it may be useful to involve the schools guidance counselors in providing these training activities and working with teachers
however, this is unlikely to be practical in all schools, since the skills and effectiveness of guidance counselors vary among schools. However, the proposed approach is not intended to convert teachers into guidance counselors. When a student is absent, one of the teachers of the students cluster will contact the parent and student, and will initiate any actions required to get the student back into school and engaged in learning. Parents will also meet with teachers to discuss students accomplishments and needs. Professional development activities for each cluster of teachers may include activities designed to strengthen their instructional methods (including their use of cooperative learning and other high-student-engagement methods) and strengthen the links between teachers and students (for example, diversity training and team building). These activities will be adapted to meet the particular needs of teachers and students in each school. Some professional development activities will focus on improving teachers subject-specific instructional methods and subject matter knowledge. Support for these activities will be sought from the schools departments, and department-based activities will be used to strengthen teachers practice. These changes will be initiated through pre-school-year summer training lasting approximately 1-2 weeks
it will be developed and maintained during the school year through the continuing work of each cluster of teachers, with coordination across the clusters in each participating school. The LRP will conduct the professional development activities (with assistance from MDRC), and will build its capacity to support innovative professional development processes in local high schools after the projects completion. A potentially valuable activity for improving teachers effectiveness may be engaging the teacher clusters in developing thematic curricular activities. Current research by Judith Warren Little, Joan Talben, and others suggests that when groups of teachers from different disciplines work together to create new cuniculum units on a common theme (such as the health professions, the concept of discovery in science and in the exploration of the New World, or the documentation of the local communitys history), they not only produce substantively valuable and challenging new lessons for students - they also give teachers the basis for shared work to improve their teaching practice. These researchers suggest that many teachers may need to have a substantive project, such as developing a new curriculum unit, as the initial basis for their discussions with peers on the sensitive subject of improving classroom practices. Before this approach is implemented, MDRC staff will work with practitioners and experts to determine whether students are likely to benefit from 11 cluster teachers joint work developing new curricular units and from related collaboration among the teachers in their cluster. This curriculum development activity will only be used if it is highly likely to benefit both students and teachers. If thematic curriculum development activities are used, they will supplement, rather than replace, the other professional development activities. There is still considerable work to be done to flesh out the projects professional development activities, and particularly to determine the best ways to help the teacher clusters become active and effective in conducting much of their own professional development. MDRC is working with experts and practitioners to design professional development activities that will build teacher learning communities
improve the instruction, support, and daily classroom experiences of grade 9 students
help the teacher clusters to increase students engagement with teachers and school
and help teachers improve the quality and content of instruction. 3. Coaching: instructional support and feedback for dusters of teachers The goal of this component is to help the teacher clusters reflect on their current practice, identify effective strategies for engaging students in schoolwork, use innovative instructional methods, and develop the curriculum being used in their cluster. A facilitator or coach will work with the teacher teams, "holding up the mirror" to keep the teachers focused on the goals of improved instruction and student achievement. Coaches provide an intensive, one-on-one source of assistance and prodding that is typically missing from the low-intensity help that is typically available to teachers
it represents a sharp break with traditional school organization and with many other reform approaches. Coaching will begin during the summer before the teachers begin their work together. In addition, the coach (and possibly other, more specialized resource staff) will provide instruction on the use of effective instructional tools, including cooperative learning strategies, applications-based and project assignments, other active learning methods, proactive classroom management methods, and clarified expectations for students work. When needed, discipline-specific professional development (such as improved methods of teaching algebra) will be provided, with support from the schools subject-matter departments. Cooperating experts, LRPs, and MDRC will develop the coaching approach and will provide ongoing support to the coaches. The training and support for coaches will include preparing them to work with teacher learning communities
making sure that they understand the issues that teachers face when they implement new pedagogical methods such as cooperative learning
and building their expertise in helping teachers work effectively with students of color and confronting diversity issues. Coaching activities will be conducted by the LRP, with assistance from MDRC. No decision has been reached on whether or not the coaches will be teachers in the participating high schools
this and other aspects of the coaching plan will reflect the projects implementationinstitutionalization perspective. 4. Warning signals and action plans: extra support for failing students The goal of this component is to help students who are failing a course to catch up with o their classmates, while avoiding the typically ineffective strategy in which students are "referred out" of their home classes for remediation. It acknowledges that teachers typically encounter entering 12students who quickly fall behind their peers, and breaks with the usual lack of response to this common predicament by providing teachers with useful, classroom-based ways to respond to this situation. Students who fall behind their classmates in grade 9 courses are likely to fail those courses and to be placed at high risk for dropping out, and their teachers often have little in the way of extra support or assistance to respond to their needs. Professional development will be used to help teacher teams recognize the early warning signals that a student is failing a course, and to implement specific action plans for students in need of extra assistance to pass their courses. Action plans will build on students talents, and will include tutoring by peers and by members of the teacher team
extra instructional time
and student-teacher-parent contracts. With assistance from staff members of the Center for the Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University, MDRCs team will develop sample action plans for use by the teacher clusters. As part of the teacher clusters preparation for implementing the project, they will use part of the summer professional development period to work together to adapt, revise, and add to these sample action plans, readying them for use with their students in September. Action plans differ in three ways from the individualized education programs (lEPs) typically used for students who need extra assistanc a variety of action plans designed to respond to a range of student educational needs will be prepared in advance so that they are ready for immediate use when failing students are identified
the resources for the action plans will be readily available, so there are no delays in getting students into needed services
and the action plans will maintain students in their home classes and under the responsibility of their original teachers, rather than referring them out so that they become the responsibility of non-classroom specialists. Discussion of the Proposed Reforms Will Project Transitions reforms make enough of a difference in students schooling to produce dramatic improvements in their achievement and graduation from high school? To answer that question, it is useful to summarize the ways that the reforms are intended to change students daily experiences in high school: Students will remain with a small group of classmates for most of the school day in grade 9, thereby dramatically reducing the flux in their environment and stabilizing the membership of and linkages within their school peer group. Teachers will be able to form strong bonds with their students early in the school year, before students school problems become overwhelming. Students attendance, behavior, homework, course work, and personal issues will be identified and addressed by adults who know em well, before these problems are likely to cause school failure. Teachers will use their meetings with the other teachers in their cluster to identify and solve students problems, to identify the early warning signals that a student may be failing, and to implement action plans to help those students catch up with their classmates. 13 A strong feeling of support, welcome, and family-like acceptance will be created and maintained throughout the first year of high school. Groups of teachers will receive sustained support from knowledgeable colleagues aimed at improving their instructional practice. Teachers will identify ineffective instructional methods and will receive sustained assistance from their peers in adapting new methods to improve their practice. Students who are at risk of failing will receive extra support and instruction to prevent failure. By the time students enter grade 10, they will have established a strong support network of high school peers
they will have strong bonds with several teachers in the school
they will have learned how to manage the relati^'ely independent work requirements of high school (including homework and long-term assignments)
and they will be less vulnerable to harassment fri.m older students in the school. Broad coverage. These reforms possess a significant advantage that is missing from many other efforts to improve students achievement and to reduce dropping out: they affect virtually all of the first-year students in a high school, thus eliminating the need to identify and target students who are thought to be at risk of dropping out or failing in school. Project Transition is intended to prevent school failure for students who have previously succeeded in school (Felner et al., 1982), and to reverse a downward pattern in the school performance of students - enabling them to break out of negative peer networks and negative behaviors and to begin new and positive kinds of school experiences. Target group. Project Transition is designed to benefit students in large high schools that have a history of high dropout rates and weak student engagement. In these settings, it can be implemented for all students who take mainstream classes in their first year of high school. This will presumably exclude those special education students who are not mainstreamed, and those students who are assigned to special advanced placement or honors classes, since these students already participate in a cluster-like educational setting. Because this project is designed to meet the particular student needs described earlier in this paper, it is not appropriate for high schools that do not have those needs. High schools that are relatively small, have high graduation rates, and have entering ninth graders who already know most of their classmates well (because they come from a single feeder school, for example) are not appropriate sites for this project. Intended effects and outcome measures. If Project Transition is effective, its combination of changes in the schools instruction and social supports will improve students outcomes in their first year of high school. Key student outcomes to be measured will include: achievement, as measured with state-of-the-art assessments 14attendance homework completion grades course credits earned discipline referrals survey measures of students sense of efficacy, locus of control, and other measures of empowerment and social skills
reports of peers support for school achievement
students expectations for post-high-school education and employment, and the steps they have taken to prepare for these planned activities survey measures of students risk-taking behaviors A key measure of Project Transitions effectiveness will be its long-term impacts on students. Consequently, MDRC plans to gather data on student outcomes after the first year of high school, including
graduation rate cumulative high school outcomes (same as those measured at the end of grade 9: achievement, attendance, grades, course credits earned, discipline referrals, attitude measures, expectations and steps taken to achieve plans for the future, and risk-taking behaviors) post-secondary enrollment and completion employment Data on students graduation and other school-reported outcomes can be collected from school records. The other long-term outcomes would require a survey, for which MDRC will seek funding if other outcome data are sufficiently positive to make a survey worthwhile. Adaptation to local circumstances. Implementation research has consistently shown that new educational approaches must be adapted to the circumstances in each school if they are to gain long-term acceptance. MDRC will use two approaches to adapt Project Transition flexibly to the needs and circumstances of participating schools, while maintaining the learning opportunities of a unified project. First, the LRPs will identify and respond to local concerns and circumstances
because they have extensive knowledge of their community and its schools, they can determine the best ways to fit the projects components into each school. Second, the projects four components were designed to be strong, clearly described, yet adaptable approaches that can be implemented in ways that are relevant to the particular circumstances of each school. The four components form a concrete approach to school reform, without forcing schools into a narrowly prescriptive set of activities. 15MDRCs research on the implementation of Project Transition represents a major learning opportunity, equal in importance to the impact evaluation measuring the projects effectiveness. The implementation research wilt tell the story of "what the schools did, how they did it, and what they learned in the process." These lessons will be an essential resource for educators and LRPs working to change the basic structure of the large comprehensive high school, and for policymakers seeking effective ways to support effective school reforms. Tracking. Previous efforts to create small instructional units within high schools have sometimes led to increases in the use of tracking, which often results in lowered expectations and watered-down instruction for low-achieving students (Oxley, 1994). For example, in schools whose
rade 9 math classes are grouped by ability level, the introduction of student clusters could result g in the tracking of students - by math ability level - in all of their courses. Consequently, a critical challenge for Project Transition is to make sure that the creation of teacher-student clusters does not inadvertently increase the use of tracking. One possible way to avoid this pernicious and stigmatizing result would be for MDRC to select high schools in which most grade 9 students already take the same courses and can be heterogeneously grouped. Another approach would be to teach two levels of math in each cluster. In addition, the projects implementation plan will specify agreed- upon levels of diversity in student grouping
these will be confirmed by MDRC when students class schedules are examined before the beginning of the school year. These or similar measures will be combined with consensus-building to reach agreement on avoiding increases in the use of tracking. (As noted previously, those special education students and honors students who are not mainstreamed will not be included in the project, so heterogeneous grouping will not affect them.) Grades 10-12. If Project Transition produces large and positive impacts on students achievement, it can be used as the basis for restructuring some or all of the upper grade levels in high schools. MDRC staff will work with school staff and experts to consider expanding this project to include grades 10, 11, and 12. The upper-grade restructuring effort could include assigning students who were in grade 9 student clusters together to similarly-clustered classes in grade 10
using teacher learning communities for professional development in grades 10-12
expanding the use of coaching to the upper grades
expanding the use of action plans for failing students
and other changes. It appears to be highly advantageous to begin the process of restructuring high schools by introducing changes in grade 9. Grade 9 instruction is less specialized than instruction in the upper grades
consequently, it easier to group students into heterogeneous clusters in grade 9 than in the upper grades. Grade 9 teachers may be more willing than upper-grade teachers to participate in major restructuring efforts, since they currently face particularly difficult teaching problems and often recognize that major changes are needed if they are to succeed. Students take more elective courses in grades 10-12 than in grade 9, and consequently it is easier to implement the teacher-student clusters in grade 9 than in the upper grades. If Project Transition is successfully implemented in grade 9, and if it produces positive impacts on students engagement in school, attendance, credits earned, and achievement, the expected resistance of upper-grade teachers to school reform may be easier to overcome. For these reasons, the goal of school-wide restructuring may be easiest to achieve by starting in grade 9 and expanding into the upper grades. Many experts believe that all change efforts are inevitably incremental
for them, the key question is, how big should the increments be in order to achieve the best results? The design of 16grade 9 and (if the results are positive) would later expand to effective, incremental, step-by-step implementation Project Transition which starts in the upper grades - is an attempt to foster an process for major school reforms. MDRC and our advisors will continue to work on the issues surrounding the res^cturing of erades 10-12 and the best ways to connect Project Transitions grade 9 restructuring with school- Xge. iTe goal is to idLtify the most effective and practical reforms to enable previously low-achieving students to succeed in all four years of high school. Outcomes of similar interventions. Careful studies of efforts to improve the first y^ of are svaxvc, b^au^e until relatively recently, few researchers have recogmzed^^e of this transitional period. A study of the School Transitional Environment Project high school are scarce, because importance (STEP), an intervention based on teacher-student clusters and teacher-based advisories, was niervenuun ua^cu uu iwvuvi ---------- conducted by Robert Felner and colleagues in the early 1980s in a nor^eastern urban high school serving mostly African American and Hispanic students. By the end of grade 9, th^e 59 group ^students had significantly better attendance and grades than the 113 matched students. Data collected five years after the demonstration showed.that fce droui. showed , the dropout rate for the .............. - for the comparison group was 43 percent ^Tim'pr^siv^fmding (Felner et al., 1993). Felner and his team have t. - _J____crhnnk in Tllinnis and other states to extend and refine STEP, dau irom treatment group was 24 percent, while the dropout rate schools and many middle schools in Illinois and other states to these schools also point to the benefits of this approach (ibid.). These promising studies are important because they set the stage for independent evaluations that can stimulate policymakers to support large-scale implementation of proven^ STEP ^d Velated mforins have not yet been subjected to a multi-site field test using a high-reli^ility rXXign, the logical next step is to test the effectiveness of these reforms by conductmg_a S- -liable research design. By defnidvely deiemdning X'ettS^eZ of this reform approach in high schools, such a smd, lev^e a major expansion in its use by educators and policymakers m a wide variety of school districts. lack of consistency of STEP and related high Little is now known about the consistency or Little IS now mown duuui uit ------------ . ___ school reforms impacts in diverse settings, and this knowledge gap could be remedied by the implementation research linked to a multi-site field test. MDRC has taken steps to investigate whether Project Transition s reforms could feasibly be of low-achieving students. MDRC imnlemented in a wide range of schools serving concentrations staff visited several high schools that are implementing innovative programs for firj-year students
SSX. X.U- approaches vary, Mt experiences appear to show that tee tads of refo^ are feasible. MDRC is also learning about the "charters" in Philadelphia s high schools (^Fine, 1994)- their organization is in some significant respects similar to Project Transition s tocher-student uicii V o ................. .______ n.mDr't nrniprf in Philadelohia s clustersVand there are some valuable implementation lessons for MDRCs project in Philadelphias with Robert Felner the issues that a major implementation experiences. MDRC staff are discussing and evaluation study should address. 17Research Questions A rigorous, multi-site study can produce reliable evidence about the effectiveness of Project Transition, and if the evidence is positive, can set the stage for major and widespread changes in American high schools. In addition, positive findings will lay the foundation for improvements in the remaining years of high school. MDRCs planned study will enable practitioners and policy makers to learn the answers to the following questions about the implementation and the impacts of the Project Transition reforms: In large, comprehensive high schools with high dropout rates and numerous low-achieving students, is it feasible to implement reforms that alter the organization of teachers and students work and schedules in the first year of high school, creating clusters of students and teachers that function as schools within a school? Is it feasible to support and encourage groups of teachers to work together in collaborative groups resembling the teacher learning communities studied by McLaughlin, Talbert, and Little? What activities, training, feedback process, and supports contribute to this? Is it feasible to use coaches and structured reflection to improve teachers instructional practices? How can the coaches work be most effective? Is it feasible to meet the educational needs of students who fall behind in grade 9 by combining action plans and extra resources with students continued participation in the teacher-student clusters? approach be effectively implemented? How can this In what ways does the school and community context of participating high schools shape the implementation and the day-to-day operation of the grade 9 reforms? How do these contextual effects work, and what lessons do they provide regarding ways to improve grade 9 education for teachers and students? How do students experiences in the Project Transition clusters differ from the experiences of other first-year students in large, comprehensive high schools? How do their teachers experiences differ from those of other teachers of first-year students? Do participating teachers and students view the clusters as desirable or not? What reasons do they give for these views? How can the grade 9 reforms be implemented in other schools and communities that may wish to adapt it to their circumstances? What appear to be the core elements at other implementers should strive to maintain, and which elements can be altered in response to local circumstances? What lessons can be learned from the implementation process in the participating schools? 18 What is the impact of Project Transition on students performance in their first year of high school
on their achievement, attendance, homework completion, grades, course credits earned, assignment to high-cost special services, discipline referrals, motivation, perceived efficacy and locus of control, and perceptions of the classroom environment? What is the impact of Project Transition on students longer-term school performance
on the same outcomes in later grades, plus grade promotion and high school graduation? What is Project Transitions impact on the psycho-social and emotional growth and development of students? If the reforms produce substantial positive impacts on students school performance, what are the impacts on students post-high-school outcomes
post-secondary enrollment and completion, transition to work, and earnings? Do boys and girls differ with respect to the reforms impacts and their perception of the reforms? If so, how and why does this happen? Do low- achieving students and students of color differ from other students with respect to the reforms impacts and their perception of the reforms? If so, how and why does this happen? What are the incremental costs of implementing the reforms, over and above the cost of the regular comprehensive high school program? Research Design some The research questions described in the previous section are intended to provide answers to coma of the major unanswered policy questions about high school reform
Are Project Transition s reforms capable of being implemented in large high schools with a history of high dropout rates and low achievement, and if so, do they produce substantial positive impacts on students achievement, graduation rates, and healthy development? In other words, can these reforms turn around a failing high school, and can they change the outcomes for students who would have failed without the O' reforms? In order to create the leverage to get policymakers and practitioners to take action if the reforms produce substantial positive impacts, the answers to the research questions must be seen as being highly reliable and not attributable to causes unrelated to the reforms - such as students or teachers motivation, prior achievement, socio-economic status, or other factors resulting from the ways that people are selected to participate in the reform demonstration. In addition, the research design must be clear and readily explainable to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. MDRCs work places great emphasis on the creation of research designs that meet these criteria. The implementation research design will document the process through which the reforms are introduced, adapted by teachers to fit into their practices, and experienced by students. It will 19 examine the daily experiences of students and teachers who participate in the reforms, and will make comparisons with the experiences of others who do not. The implementation process will be studied for at least the first 2^ years in each participating school. In each district, additional implementation lessons and comparisons will be gathered from another high school that has lengthier experience with teacher-student clusters and other reforms in grade 9. This part of the research design will build on the implementation-institutionalization perspective described previously in this paper. The impact research design will determine what difference the reforms made for the students who were assigned to the classes that are part of the reform demonstration. This determination requires the researchers to determine what these students outcomes would have been if they had not been part of the reform demonstration. Consequently, the research design needs to compare the outcomes for students who are in the reform demonstration to the outcomes for students who are equivalent in all ways (including motivation, prior achievement, socio-economic status, and other characteristics) except that they do not receive the reforms. MDRC has considered three types of impac research designs for this project: random assignment designs, regression discontinuity designs (t .so known as interrupted time series designs), and matched comparison group designs. All have strengths and limitations. Random assignment designs, when properly executed, create equivalent treatment and control
roups whose outcomes can appropriately be compared. The reliability and credibility of impact CT- findings that are based on a sound random assignment research design would be very helpful for presenting Project Transitions results to policymakers. In this research design, a high schools grade 9 students would be divided into two groups through a lottery-like process
one group would receive the reform demonstration and the other would receive regular grade 9 instruction. If it is impossible to divide the grade 9 students in a school into these two groups, and to operate the reform methods and the regular grade 9 methods within the school simultaneously, then it would not be feasible to use a random assignment research design in that school. This might occur in schools that decide to include all grade 9 students in the reform demonstration, from the very beginning of its implementation
however, it is worth noting that MDRC staff have visited several schools that "phased in" key elements resembling Project Transition, starting with half of the students in grade 9 - and thereby demonstrating the feasibility of this approach. Currently, MDRCs preferred strategy is to use a random assignment design, provided that it is clearly appropriate to create two groups of students (one receiving the reforms, and one receiving regular grade 9 instruction) in the cooperating schools. Regression discontinuity designs compare the outcomes for students who attend a school before a reform is introduced with those who attend the same school after its introduction. Regression discontinuity designs can be used to measure the changes that result when reforms are introduced for all students in a grade simultaneously. For this research design to produce credible results, there must be a high degree of stability, for several years before and after the introduction of the reform, in the school and in the characteristics of students attending the school. If this condition cannot be met - for example, if a schools average test scores have been inconsistent from year to year before the planned introduction of the reforms - a regression discontinuity research design is not appropriate. Anoer problem with regression discontinuity designs is caused by the fact that it will be difficult to obtain parents permission for researchers to examine student records when parents have moved
this presents a barrier to collecting data on the stability of student 20outcomes prior to the introduction of Project Transition. Subgroup analysis may also be problematic because most school district data systems contain little information on students demographic characteristics. Finally, the cost of obtaining long-term follow-up data for multiple cohorts of students is very high. Taken together, these issues raise questions about the feasibility of using a regression discontinuity design. MDRC staff continue to work on ways to resolve these issues. Matched comparison group designs compare the outcomes for students who are part of a reform demonstration to outcomes for "matched" students who have similar characteristics. In studies using this design, it is often difficult or impossible to know whether the two groups of students were really equivalent when the study began. Often, the matched students are selected in ways that suggest that they are on average less motivated, have different prior achievement, or come from families with different characteristics than students who participate in the reform demonstration. When the matched students are enrolled in a different school than the students participating in the reform demonstration, the unmeasured differences between the teachers, instructional methods, and school climates in the reform and comparison schools are a significant threat to the reliability of the research design. Because of the difficulty of obtaining highly credible impact fmdings from most matched comparison designs, MDRCs research team believes that it would be very risky to use a matched comparison group research design in Project Transition. However, MDRC is gathering information about matched comparison designs that seek to avoid the problems discussed here
if a more reliable comparison group design is identified, it will be considered for use in this project. While random assignment designs appear to be, on balance, the most promising research designs for this project, it is possible that the most reliable and robust approach may be a combination of a random assignment design with a comparison to a single pre-Project Transition smdent cohort. This approach would take advantage of some of the strengths of regression discontinuity designs, without the feasibility problems of collecting data on numerous cohorts of students who attended grade 9 years before the research effort began. Specifically, it would enable the research team to make three kinds of comparisons: Project Transition students versus the randomly-assigned control group
pre-Project Transition students versus the randomly-assigned control group (if this comparison found no difference, it would indicate that the regular grade 9 program was producing consistent and stable effects)
and pre-Project Transition students versus Project Transition students. This combined research approach would provide highly credible and rigorous benchmarks from which to measure the gains of e Project Transition students. Moreover, people who are concerned that there might be contact between the Project Transition and control group students and teachers would benefit from the comparison with pre-Project Transition students, who could not be affected by this kind of potential "contamination." The research team will gaer information from the cooperating schools to assess the feasibility and appropriateness of all three types of research designs. This will include information on the feasibility of phasing-in the reforms, starting with approximately half of the grade 9 students and teachers
the past and likely future consistency of the schools educational activities and student characteristics
and other factors. After weighing this information, MDRC and the participating schools will decide which research design is most likely to be feasible and to produce highly reliable and credible results. Robert Felners (1981) study of teacher-student clusters provides an indication that there are some high schools in which it is appropriate and desired by school staff to implement the proposed 21 reforms in phases, starting with one half of the first-year students and teachers In this situation, it would be feasible to randomly assign students to receive either the new approach or *e regular first- year high school program. All first-year students would be included in the random assignment for those special education and honors students who are already in clusters of classes process, except that are separate from other students classes. Teachers are obviously crucial participants in the proposed study. Consequently a quesuon that requires careful thought is how to select the teachers who will participate in Project Transition For the project to succeed, the support of a large majority of the teachers in a participating school will be required. MDRC will fully inform teachers about the project and will conduct a secret ballot vote to determine whether teachers want their school to participate. If a random assignment r^ch desit^n is used, one possible approach to selecting teachers to participate in the reforms would be to aainthe consent of the participating schools grade 9 teachers to randomly assign them to two . .. . r____ __j *1__________ Hol'jv thPir tr^iimncT and would implement the reforms, and the other group would delay their traimng reforms for the pilot and evaluation period (and would contmue to use the and instructional methods during this time). After the groups
one group participation in the schools pre-existing organizational structure--------- . . evaluation year, the teachers in the control group would have the opportunity to be uam^ and to imolement the reforms, and would receive the necessary support to do so. Considerable discussion and consensus-building with teachers, unions, and school officials will be needed to determine whether it is feasible to randomly assign teachers in this way. If a regression discontinuity research design is used, all of a schools teachers who t^ch arade 9 students would participate in the demonstration. This would eliminate the possibility of bi^ the selection of teachers,'provided that teachers grade-level assignments are not systematically changed when the project begins. Of course, the research would examine teachers grade-level assignments to assess whether they remained stable. Virtually all large-scale demonstration projects encounter issues raised by potential threats the research, including potentially "contaminating factors. As these issues arise in Project to researcn, inciuaiiig povciiu<niy vuuwwuiiauiie Transition, MDRCs research team and its expert advisors will address them. Some may requure changes in the monitoring or implementation of some aspect of the demonstration
others may require changes in the research design. MDRCs staff have extensive experience in identifymg and these challenges. Recognizing and meeting these challenges in designing approp credibility of the projects findings is a central priority for MDRCs work ways that maximize on this project. A crucial component of MDRCs work is the assurance of eical treatment for all Durin< the site selection process, MDRC will work with local participants in MDRC projects. During the site selection process, muku wm - -ub school staff parents, and other stakeholders to design and implement measures insuring the e&ical treatment of all participants in Project Transition
these measures have been used successfully in o MDRCs Career Academies evaluation and other MDRC studies. Site Selection and Roles of Partners MDRC hopes to select three school districts and up to two high schools in each district to participate in Project Transition. 22MDRCs approach to selecting sites for this project and planning the roles to be played by the participating organizations reflects three goals: assuring that Project Transition will be well implemented
conducting a highly reliable evaluation that will provide valuable information for policymakers and practitioners
and building the local capacity to implement, support, institutionalize, and expand the Project Transition reforms if they produce positive impacts. Site selection decisions will be based on the following characteristics of each participating school district and high school: The district is committed to systemic reform in its high schools
has shown this commitment by implementing teacher-student clusters in grade 9 in at least one high school
and is seeldng to expand the use of clusters in grade 9. A local institution or agency is available to support, maintain, and (eventually) lead a local effort to implement the professional development and coaching components of the reforms
is organization has the staff, the skills, and the knowledge of the local schools and community needed to serve as MDRCs local resource partner (LRP) for the project. The district has several large, comprehensive high schools with numerous feeder schools, and these high schools serve a substantial number of low-achieving students and have a high dropout rate. The district is willing to use its own resources for implementing the projects professional development activities, including the additional shared preparation period for participating teachers. (Note that MDRC and its funders will reimburse sites for the costs of research-related activities and coaching.) The district and the participating high school staff are willing to cooperate with the requirements of the projects research and data collection. The participating high school has broad support for Project Transition from the principal, teachers, teacher union, parents, and other stakeholders. The participating school is an appropriate site for a longitudinal impact study of Project Transitions reforms, with a large grade 9 population, limited use of ability grouping in grade 9, little use of special programs for grade 9 students, limited mobility of students (so that students can receive a full year of the reforms), and without other significant barriers to a reliable determination of the reforms impacts The participating high school is an appropriate site for implementing a highly reliable and credible research design. If a random assignment research design is selected, participating schools need to be able to "phase in" the reforms, with a pilot year and an evaluation year in which approximately one-half of the grade 9 students and teachers would participate in the reforms, followed by the use of the reforms for all grade 9 students and teachers (except for students in segregated classes, as described elsewhere in this paper). 23These site selection criteria are intended to maximize the likelihood of successfully unplemX M-t Transition, building a strong local capacity to support system-wide reform, and obtaining an important and policy-relevant evaluation. the results m order to rd that end MDRC^will identify and work closely with a project is local capacity-building, o _ professional development ^racdvWes'Tf ProTe^t" Transition and will provide the infrastructure and expertise to cctain and Land the reforms after MDRCs part of the demonstration ends. sustain and expand the reforms To clarify the ive schedule shows the main tasks for roles that MDRC and its partners will play in this project, the following tentative schedule snows me u.-- which each participatmg orgai^tion is respons planning, pilot, and demonstration/evaluation phases of the project. Planning (fall 1994 - spring 1995) MDRC: Identify potential sites Identify potential local resource partners (LRPs) Continue to develop the reforms, in collaboration with LRPs, districts, and LRPs: schools Formalize agreements with sites and LRPs Consensus-building in sites with all stakeholders Continue to develop the research design Sto Wormatlon<h. feasibility of random assignment and regression discontinuity research designs in potential sites With sites decide which type of research design to use Work with MDRC to build the LRPs capacity for conductmg professional development and coaching Work with sites to prepare for implementation Develop training for coaches and teachers Districts
Formalize district support for Project Tr^ition Allocate resources for the districts contribution to the project school staff and parental support for Project Transition Schools
Formalize _ . Identify teachers for participation m pilot year Pilot year (summer 1995 - spring 1996) LRPs: Train coaches and teachers Collaborate with school staff to plan for fall 1995 activities Conduct summer institutes UOnUUUL iUllUiiw . ___ Implement professional development and coaching in schools Districts
Support school and LRP work S' sSie grade 9 srudenu and teachers for faU 1995 classes Implement Project Transition in grade 9 24MDRC: Begin implementation research data collection and baseline data collection Review and oversee work by LRPs, districts, and schools If a random assignment research design is used, collaborate with schools to plan for random assignment of students and teachers Begin dissemination activities and networking Demonstration/evaluation year (summer 1996 - fall 1997) LRPs: Revise and improve activities based on pilot experiences Implement and support professional development and coaching Districts: Support school and LRP work and data collection Schools: Revise and improve activities based on pilot experiences Schedule grade 9 students and teachers for fall 1996 classes Continue to implement the reforms in grade 9 Provide evaluation data MDRC: Revise and improve activities based on pilot experiences Continue implementation research data collection and baseline data collection Review and oversee work by LRPs, districts, and schools If a random assignment research design is used, randomly assign students and teachers for the evaluation Collect evaluation data Survey students to measure Project Transitions impacts on their attitudes and perceptions Analyze implementation data and impact data and prepare reports, with input from LRPs, districts, and schools Disseminate findings If the fmdings from the demonstration/evaluation phase are positive, MDRC plans to measure Project Transitions longer-term impacts on students achievement, attendance, engagement in school, grades, credits earned, graduation (and dropping out), and post-high-school employment and education. MDRC will also continue to work with districts, schools, and LRPs during the 1997-1998 school year to expand the reforms to include all grade 9 students and teachers in the participating schools and to collect additional data. In addition, MDRC, the schools, districts, and LRPs will work on applying the lessons of the reform effort to the upper high school grades. A major goal of this project is for the LRPs to continue their work with districts and schools after MDRCs role in the project is completed
MDRC will work with the LRPs, districts, and schools to facilitate this process. 25 References AAUW Educational Foundation, 1993. Hostile Hallways: The AAUW Survey on Sexual Harassment in Americas Schools (Washington, D.C.: AAUW Educational Foundation) Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989. Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century. The Report of the Task Force on Education of Young Adolescents (New York: Carnegie Corporation) Robert D. Felner, Judith Primavera, and Ana M. Cauce, 1981. "The Impact of School Transitions: A Focus for Preventive Efforts," American Journal of Community Psychology vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 449-459 Robert D. Felner, Melanie Ginter, and Judith Primavera, 1982. "Primary Prevention During School Transitions: Social Support and Environmental Structure," American Journal of Community Psychology vol. iO, no. 3, pp. 277-290 Roben D. Felne., Stephen Brand, Angela M. Adan, Peter F. Mulhall, et al., 1993. "Restructuring the Ecology of the School as an Approach to Prevention During School Transitions: Longitudinal Follow-ups and Extensions of the School Transitional Environment Project (STEP)," Prevention in Human Services vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 103-136 Michelle Fine (editor), 1994. Chartering Urban School Reform: Reflections on Public High Schools in the Midst of Change (New York: Teachers College Press) Michael G. Fullan, 1990. "Staff Development, Innovation, and Institutional Development," in Bruce Joyce, ed.. Changing School Culture Through Staff Development (Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) Milbrey Wallin McLaughlin, 1993. "What Matters Most in Teachers Workplace Context?", in Judith Warren Little and McLaughlin, eds.. Teachers Work: Individuals, Colleagues, and Contexts (New York: Teachers College Press) Milbrey Wallin McLaughlin and Joan E. Talbert, 1993. Contexts ITiat Matter for Teaching and Learning (Stanford University: Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching) National Center for Education Statistics, 1991. Dropout Rates in the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education) Diana Oxley, 1994. "Organizing Schools into Small Units: Grouping," Phi Delta Kappan vol. 75, no. 7 (March), pp. 521-526 Alternatives to Homogeneous Edward Pauly, 1991. The Classroom Crucible: What Really Works. What Doesnt, and Whv (New York: Basic Books) 1 26 Melissa Roderick, 1990. "The Path to Dropping Out: Middle School and Early High School Experiences," Working Paper H-90-13, Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Kennedy School of Government) Melissa Roderick and Douglas Novotny, n.d. "Student Life in High Schools: A Longitudinal Study Project Description," paper provided by the authors. University of Chicago, p. 1 Seymour Wapner, 1981. "Transactions of Persons-in-Environments: Some Critical Transitions," Journal of Environmental Psychology vol. 1, pp. 223-239 27 PROJECT TRANSITION: REFORMING HIGH SCHOOLS STARTING IN GRADE NINE OVERVIEW FOR SCHLAGLE HIGH SCHOOL Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation August, 1995 I Introduction The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), a non-profit research organization, has asked Schlagle High School in Kansas City, KS to work in partnership with us to develop and implement Project Transition (PT), an approach aimed at improving the instructional environment of 9th grade students. The primary components of PT include: (1) student-teacher clusters or teams
(2) a daily shared planning period for team teachers
(3) teacher-centered professional development
and (4) the use of action plans for failing students. This overview describes the goals of PT and its components, the benefits for and responsibilities of Schlagle High School should Schlagle decide to be involved with PT, and MDRCs evaluation plans. What are the goals of Project Transition? The overall goal of Project Transition is to transform the educational experiences of 9th graders as they make the transition from middle school to high school. This is often a vulnerable period in students schooling, marked by high absenteeism and declining grades which are often the antecedents to dropping out. Specifically, the goals of PT are to: 1. 2. 3. create a more personalized and supportive learning environment for 9th grade students within large, comprehensive high schools
improve the academic performance and achievement levels of 9th grade students
and create a more stimulating and rewarding work environment for teachers in which they have an opportunity to work with their colleagues and a coach to improve instructional practices. What is Project Transition? The core components of Project Transition - which would be adapted by Schlagles faculty - are
Personalized, small-scale learning environments for students based on teacher-student teams of four teachers and approximately 120 - 130 9th grade students. Teacher-student teams enable students to get to know their teachers and classmates well and teachers to respond to students needs. Ideally, each teacher-student team consists of one teacher from each of four academic subjects (English, math, science, and social studies) and students taking the four classes taught by those teachers. 1Intensive professional development for teachers to improve the quality of instruction. Teachers rarely have the opportunity to spend substantial time working together as part of a community of professionals that takes responsibility for improving its performance. The goal of PT is to build a "teacher learning community" that will provide concrete, sustained support for upgrading instruction. In PT teachers get resources that help them collaborate, including daily shared planning and professional development periods for each teacher team
a coach to facilitate the teams shared work, and demonstrate and provide feedback on improved instructional methods
and links with The Learning Exchange to provide further professional development, including summer institutes for the teacher teams and on-going support for teachers on an as-needed basis. Use of action plans for failing students. Professional development will prepare teacher teams to recognize the early warning signals of student failure and to implement specific action plans for students in need of extra assistance to prevent failure. Action plans could include tutoring by peers and by members of the teacher team, extra instructional time, and student-teacher-parent contracts. Taken together, these components in effect create "small schools" or schools-within- schools for 9th grade students which, along with intensive professional development to help teachers work together effectively, can provide an enriched, supportive learning environment for students as well as teachers. How would Project Transition be implemented at Schlagle? Before Schlagle decides to become involved in PT, we hope there will be a process that leads to a decision to go forward that has broad support. In particular, we think that Schlagles administrators, teachers, and other staff need to consider and decide how PT meets their needs as professional educators. We say this because the core elements of PT are only the beginning of a process in which the teachers, staff, and students of participating high schools provide the substance that leads to improved teaching and learning. Participating schools adapt these components to their own, unique school environments, adding their own ideas and approaches to improving student instruction within the PT framework of student-teacher clusters supported by teacher-led professional development. Individual school communities determine the specific structural, curricular, and professional development activities, and the administrators and teachers of the participating high schools run PT. MDRC provides assistance in building a consensus to implement PT and provides resources to support the professional development coach and The Learning Exchange. MDRC will also evaluate the demonstration to provide information on how PT is implemented and its effects on students attendance grades, credits earned, discipline referrals, and graduation, and on students attitudes, engagement in school, future plans, and social development. 2What is the proposed timeline for implementing Project Transition? Project Transition would be phased in over 3 years: 1. Fall 1995 - Spring 1996 Planning and Baseline Year Kev Activities: planning by stakeholders within the Schlagle community on how to tailor PT to their school environment, consensus building, depending on whether or not teachers adopt PT signing the Memorandum of Agreement, identifying the PT teacehrs, collecting baseline data from the current 9th grade, and hiring (with PT teachers involved) the professional development "coach". 2. Summer 1996 - Spring 1997 Demonstration / Evaluation Year Kev Activities: summer institute for teachers, enrollment of incoming 9th grade students into "teams" that generally travel together during the day with the same core of teachers, data collection and research on PT, daily meeting in the common planning period, ongoing professional development with the coach and The Learning Exchange. 3. Summer 1997 - Summer 1998 Expansion Year Kev Activities: summer institute for teachers with follow-up, 2nd year of implementation of PT for 9th grade students and teachers, decision on whether and how to expand PT based on results from the research findings. What are the benefits for schools participating in Project Transition? Funding supplement to cover coaches, professional development activities, and research-related costs. MDRC has secured funding for PT to compensate participating school districts for research and data collection costs and the costs of the coaches and summer institutes, and some additional resources for ongoing professional development. State-of-the-art study of Project Transition. Schools selected to participate will receive a rigorous evaluation of their high school transition project at virtually no cost to the school or district. The study will provide an in-depth examination of the implementation and effects of PT. National and local exposure to help solidify support from the school board, community and state. Schools can use their participation in the study as tangible evidence of their involvement in systemic reform. This may be useful in solidifying state and local support in order to preserve the reforms during the test period and justify an expansion if research findings are positive. 3Opportunities for idea-sharing and information e.xchange. Participating schools will be selected from several regions of the country. As part of a national network, these sites will have the opportunity to compare experiences, learn about innovative approaches, and share operational lessons and "best practices." Locally, Schlagle faculty would be encouraged to establish a professional relationship with Harmon High School, which has successfully implemented student-teacher teams, to serve as a resource. Daily and on-going professional development. School staff will receive daily professional development, facilitated by their "coach", development will be provided by the Learning Exchange. Ongoing professional Local program and policy development. At the local level, school districts and the participating schools will have access to specific findings that can be used by administrators and teachers to develop policies for improving student success in the school. What are the responsibilities of schools participating in Project Transition? Project ownership. Schlagle High School will need broad support for PT from the principal, teachers, students and parents. School staff and teachers must want to develop PTS core components into a promising approach which seeks to improve instruction for 9th grade students at Schlagle. School staff should feel comfortable working with MDRC to secure support from the district, school board, superintendent, teacher union, parent groups, and other education stakeholders in the community. Eligibility factors. Schlagle High School successfully met the eligibility criteria to participate in Project Transition. The schools environment is appropriate for a longitudinal impact study of PT: a large 9th grade population, low to moderate mobility of students, high dropout rates, high percentage of students qualifying for school lunch program, limited use of ability groupings in the 9th grade (or willingness to shift from ability groupings), and little use of separate, self-contained special programs for 9th grade students. We continue to discuss how to incorporate science classes into the PT model. Data collection. High school and district staff are willing to cooperate with PTs research and data collection requirements, including making school records available to the research team, helping to administer student surveys, and participating in field research visits by MDRC staff. 4What other sites are involved in PT? We plan to develop PT in three or four sites nationally. At this time, Pulaski High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is implementing PT in the 1995-1996 school year throughout its ninth grade. We are also having active discussions with school officials in San Antonio, Texas and New York City, New York. How is Project Transition funded? In Kansas City, PT is funded in part by the school district which has agreed to provide resources to allow PT teachers to have a one course load reduction in their teaching responsibility in order to incorporate the common planning period into their daily schedule
the Kauffman Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Educations Office of Ed
This project was supported in part by a Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives project grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Council on Library and Information Resoources.