Effective Principals for California Schools: Building a Coherent Leadership Development System
This proposal, prepared by Integrated Leadership Development Initiative (ILDI) and written by ILDI member Karen Kearney, former Director of WestEd’s Leadership Initiative, suggests an organizing frame for principal development. The frame—a continuum of career stages, with related system support—recognizes that principals develop their capacity to successfully lead schools over the course of their career and that the career stages are distinct, but interrelated.
This document examines each stage of the leadership development continuum, providing related research, best practices, and any relevant information from earlier state task force reports; in doing so, it draws on the authors’ collective years of on-the-ground leadership development experience. For each stage, readers will also find a summary perspective, as well as implications for action that are tailored to the roles and responsibilities of various sectors of the California education community.
Taken as a whole, the proposal is intended to guide the state’s education community in planning and implementing a cohesive set of improvements to strengthen the principal pipeline so as to better ensure a quality workforce that would make it possible, and more probable, for every California school to be led by an effective principal.
Decentralizing Resources in Los Angeles High Schools: California’s Quality Education Investment Act
This paper, coauthored by WestEd’s Neal Finkelstein, examines how QEIA dollars were spent in the first year of funding at four low-performing Los Angeles high schools, who was involved in decision-making, and the conditions under which funds were focused on improving teaching or the instructional program.
The investigation yielded encouraging results. Principals, teacher leaders, and school site councils were allocating QEIA dollars to improve teaching, enrich learning materials, or improve relationships. Positive signs included:
- Strengthening small learning communities. QEIA dollars supported extra instructional hours, special workshops for students, and related activities aimed at strengthening pupil-teacher relationships. Categorical aid, blended with QEIA dollars, further strengthened small learning communities by bringing in employers and community college instructors to discuss job opportunities, and by enriching math materials, computers, and lab equipment.
- Drawing human resources from community agencies and universities to better support students. Two schools used QEIA dollars to bring mental health specialists onto campus to work with students experiencing family or interpersonal problems. Another school supported local university students who serve as academic advisors for students aspiring to enter college after graduating from high school.
- Extending instructional time. The small learning communities often hosted Saturday courses and college prep activities. One school offered special tutoring sessions to ensure that more first-year students pass algebra. After-school tutoring programs were more clearly structured and better staffed with QEIA dollars.
- Improving instructional materials. QEIA-supported materials ranged from calculators and laptops, to laboratory equipment in one math-science small learning community, as well as supplementary readers for English classes. Small learning community leaders clearly articulated what materials were relevant for their courses, including college prep activities.
- QEIA dollars were also used to maintain current staffing levels in the face of state budget cuts. The biggest single allocation of QEIA dollars was for teaching posts, often intended to hold onto younger teachers who were identified as contributing energy and innovation to the instructional program. Some principals reported the desirability of pricing QEIA teacher posts below the average salary level, which would incentivize them to hire more teachers, which, in turn, would help reduce class size.
One-Shot Deal?: Students’ Perceptions of Assessment and Course Placement in California’s Community Colleges
This report examines the assessment and course placement practices across California’s community colleges for incoming students and recommends strategies for overall improvement.
Community colleges have processes in place for new student orientation, counseling, assessment, and course placement. Nonetheless, students, by and large, view their matriculation process as a one-shot deal—an isolated event that happens one day with minimal to no advance information.
Yet the assessment and placement process involves very high stakes for students and can negatively impact their future success. Course placement affects not only how quickly students can earn a certificate or degree—a factor affecting the cost of their program of study—but also their likelihood of completing a credential at all.
Drawing from quantitative analyses and interviews with counselors and students, the authors uncover substantial variance in assessment and placement policies statewide, as well as confusion among both students and counselors about the policies. The authors provide recommendations directed toward making assessment and placement part of overall diagnostic and learning processes that span high school and college.
An executive summary is also available.
The Supply’s the Limit: Meeting the Challenge of Knowledge and Capacity Constraints to Significant Educational Improvement: A Presidential Essay
In this thoughtful essay, Martin Orland, former Director of Evaluation and Policy Research at WestEd, tackles the challenges policymakers face as they design and administer comprehensive school reform initiatives in the United States.
Orland describes both the rarity of successful and sustained turnaround and the complex and varying constellation of factors that appear to be associated with dramatic school improvement. He also examines the research base on the effectiveness of school turnaround strategies, and extrapolates some early lessons from highly effective charter school models.
Three key policy implications surface in this essay:
- The need to develop a positive but realistic perspective on the role of successful charter school models in fostering school turnaround
- The need to create more polices and programs that focus directly on knowledge limitations and financial, human, and social capital shortfalls that inhibit taking successful school turnaround to scale
- The need to prioritize investments that hold promise for significantly enhancing the quality of teaching in the lowest performing schools, as well as securing the family and community supports that contribute to successful outcomes
This essay was published in the Winter 2011 issue of Education Finance and Policy.
Making Sense of SCIENCE: Force & Motion for Teachers of Grades 6-8, Teacher Book
Published in collaboration with NSTA Press.
Proven through more than a decade of rigorous research to be effective with both teachers and students, Making Sense of SCIENCE helps teachers gain a deep and enduring understanding of tricky science topics, think and reason scientifically, and support content literacy in science, thereby increasing student achievement.
The materials presented in this book help teachers gain a solid understanding of tricky science concepts and common misconceptions, support productive and worthwhile professional learning communities, and prepare teachers to implement standards-based science curriculum. Topics are central to the Next Generation Science Framework and aligned with the Common Core State Standards in literacy.
This book guides teachers through investigations of motion, changes in motion, force, and the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration, and features:
- Hands-on experiments with easy-to-follow instructions and illustrations
- Clear explanations of tough science concepts
- Examples of classic misconceptions
- A bank of formative assessments
- A CD containing reproducible black line masters
- A guided protocol for evaluating student work in professional learning communities
Note: The complete Making Sense of SCIENCE for Teachers of Grades 6-8 professional development package contains the Teacher Book, plus a Facilitator Guide and additional CD. The Facilitator Guide includes extensive support materials and detailed procedures that allow science educators and staff developers to successfully lead a Making Sense of SCIENCE course for teacher learning.
Also available as part of this course is a set of wall charts that serve as a focal point for teacher learning during the course.
Facilitation Academies, designed to prepare staff developers, district science leaders, and other teacher educators to effectively lead Making Sense of SCIENCE courses, are also available.
Teacher Courses offer five days of engaging and worthwhile learning that help teachers implement science and literacy standards and boost student achievement in science.
Making Sense of SCIENCE: Force & Motion for Teachers of Grades 6–8, Charts
Wall charts serve as the focal point for teacher learning during Making Sense of SCIENCE courses.
This bundle includes 48 pre-made charts (24″ x 32″), making it easy to successfully lead a force and motion course for teachers, grades 6–8.
Making Sense of SCIENCE: Energy for Teachers of Grades 6-8, Teacher Book
Published in Collaboration with NSTA Press.
Proven through more than a decade of rigorous research to be effective with both teachers and students, Making Sense of SCIENCE helps teachers gain a deep and enduring understanding of tricky science topics, think and reason scientifically, and support content literacy in science, thereby increasing student achievement.
The materials presented in this book help teachers gain a solid understanding of tough science concepts and common misconceptions, support productive and worthwhile professional learning communities, and prepare teachers to implement standards-based science curriculum. Topics are central to the Next Generation Science Framework and aligned with the Common Core State Standards in literacy.
This book guides teachers through investigations of energy, potential energy, heat energy, conservation of energy, and energy in ecosystems, and features:
- Hands-on experiments with easy-to-follow instructions and illustrations
- Clear explanations of tough science concepts
- Examples of classic misconceptions
- A bank of formative assessments
- A CD containing reproducible black line masters
- A guided protocol for evaluating student work in professional learning communities
Note: The complete Making Sense of SCIENCE for Teachers of Grades 6-8 professional development package contains the Teacher Book, plus a Facilitator Guide and additional CD. The Facilitator Guide includes extensive support materials and detailed procedures that allow science educators and staff developers to successfully lead a Making Sense of SCIENCE course for teacher learning.
Also available as part of this course is a set of wall charts that serve as a focal point for teacher learning during the course.
Facilitation Academies, designed to prepare staff developers, district science leaders, and other teacher educators to effectively lead Making Sense of SCIENCE courses, are also available.
Teacher Courses offer five days of engaging and worthwhile learning that help teachers implement science and literacy standards and have been proven to boost student achievement in science.
Visit the Making Sense of SCIENCE website for more information about Making Sense of SCIENCE for Teachers professional development books and Facilitation Academies.
Making Sense of SCIENCE: Energy for Teachers of Grades 6–8, Charts
Wall charts serve as the focal point for teacher learning during Making Sense of SCIENCE courses.
This bundle includes 36 pre-made charts (24″ x 32″), making it easy to successfully lead an energy course for teachers, grades 6–8.
For more information about Making Sense of SCIENCE courses and Facilitation Academies, visit the Making Sense of SCIENCE website.
The Road Ahead for State Assessments
States that have adopted the Common Core State Standards are in the early stages of revising curriculum frameworks, adopting new instructional materials, developing new assessment systems, and providing professional development for teachers to prepare them to deliver instruction aligned to the new standards.
This process has the potential to fundamentally transform public education for the majority of U.S. students. It is therefore essential that policymakers and education leaders take full account of the issues and challenges as early as possible in the implementation process.
This report, produced by the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy and Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), includes three papers that address critical issues in assessment policy. Former WestEd Senior Research Associate Robert Linquanti contributed a paper on the assessment of English language learner students.
Making Sense of SCIENCE: Energy for Teachers of Grades 6-8
Published in collaboration with NSTA Press.
This comprehensive professional development course for grades 6–8 science teachers provides all the necessary ingredients for building a scientific way of thinking in teachers and students, focusing on science content, inquiry, and literacy. Teachers who participate in this course learn to facilitate hands-on science lessons, support evidence-based discussions, and develop students’ academic language and reading and writing skills in science, along with the habits of mind necessary for sense making and scientific reasoning.
Energy for Teachers of Grades 6–8 consists of five core sessions:
- Session 1: What is Energy?
- Session 2: Potential Energy
- Session 3: Heat Energy
- Session 4: Conservation of Energy
- Session 5: Energy in Ecosystems
The materials include everything needed to effectively lead this course with ease:
- Facilitator Guide with extensive support materials and detailed procedures that allow staff developers to successfully lead a course
- Teacher Book with teaching, science, and literacy investigations, along with a follow-up component, Looking at Student Work™, designed to support ongoing professional learning communities
- CD with black line masters of all handouts and charts to support group discussion and sense making, course participation certificates, student work samples, and other materials that can be reproduced for use with teachers
Charts that serve as a focal point for teacher learning during the course as well as additional Teacher Books can be purchased separately.
Also available are Facilitation Academies designed to prepare staff developers, district science leaders, and other teacher educators to effectively lead Making Sense of SCIENCE courses.
For more information about Making Sense of SCIENCE courses and Facilitation Academies, visit the Making Sense of SCIENCE website.