Diploma Matters E-Book

Linda Murray

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 224

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

DIPLOMA MATTERS In our current education system too many high school students wind up with too few choices. Students are locked into what is decided for them by a broken system. Too often, they are handed a diploma that holds an empty promise. This practical field book is filled with effective tools from The Education Trust-West. Diploma Matters helps school leaders and teachers examine the current high school experience and develop a detailed action plan that will transform curriculum and ensure that all students are ready for college and the workplace. "This is a book for practitioners who have seen it all. Linda Murray captures in a straight-forward way the nuts and bolts of how to do the work of reform. Linda, who was an extraordinary superintendent, proves to be a captivating storyteller." --PETER J. NEGRONI, senior vice president, College Board "This is a story worth reading, including the specific implications for schools and districts nationwide." --MICHAEL W. KIRST, emeritus professor of Education and Business Administration, Stanford University; president, California State Board of Education; author, Political Dynamics Of American Education "This book is a definitive 'how to' for effective, meaningful, and lasting school reform." --KATHY BURKHARD, former president, San Jose Teachers' Association

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Praise for Diploma Matters

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Preface

The Author

Introduction

San Jose Unified—A Success Story

What Did We Do?

Chapter 1: Dispelling the Myths

Myth 1: A College-Prep Curriculum Hurts Kids Who Aren't Going to College

Myth 2: The Curriculum Will Be Watered Down

Myth 3: Grades Will Plummet

Myth 4: Students Will Disengage and Drop Out

Myth 5: Disadvantaged Students Will Suffer the Most

Myth 6: High School Is the Wrong Place to Make Changes

Myth to Reality: Higher Standards Help Everyone

Quick Facts

Reader Reflection

Chapter 2: Expectations Matter

Setting the Foundation for Reform

Finding Common Ground

A Defining Moment: The Students Speak

How Good Is Good Enough?

Getting the Teachers' Union on Board

Setting Our Stake in the Sand

Reader Reflection

Chapter 3: The Journey Through High School

How Do You Turn Ideas into Action?

The War Room

Analysis of Student Transcripts

The Master Schedule

Just-in-Time Interventions

Getting Serious About Summer School

Summer Bridge

Creating Opportunities for Acceleration

Students with Special Needs and English Language Learners

Reaching the Outliers: Safety Nets and Supports

Bricks, Mortar, and Science Labs

Reader Reflection

Chapter 4: Teachers

Finding the Teachers We Needed

Teaching the Teachers: Professional Development That Works

Accountability with Collaboration

Results First

Reader Reflection

Chapter 5: The Educational Opportunity Audit

How Long Will It Take?

Start by Defining Your Requirements

Gathering Your Team

Gathering Your Materials

Collecting Achievement Test Data

Transcript Study

Master Schedule Analysis

Focus Groups

Community Conversation

Surveying Department Heads

Educational Opportunity Audit Findings

Reader Reflection

Chapter 6: The Blueprint

Here's Where the Real Change Begins

Setting up Committees to Get the Work Done

Work to Be Done by District Departments

Developing Action Plans

Reader Reflection

Chapter 7: A Look at “District X”

This Is What It Looks Like

District X: Transcript Study

District X: Master Schedule

District X: Focus Groups and Community Conversation

Recommendations Based on All Findings

Reader Reflection

Chapter 8: College and Career Readiness in Our Nation's Schools

How Is College and Career Readiness Playing Out in Other Districts?

Yes, You Can

Reader Reflection

Chapter 9: The Journey Continues

Now What?

Creating a College-Going Culture

A Data-Driven District

Where the Work Is Heading

The Good News: Universal Access

“D” Grades Remain the Greatest Barrier to College Eligibility

The Path Is Clear

Reader Reflection

Appendix 1: Focus Group Protocols

Protocol for Student Focus Group Work

Protocol for Teacher Focus Group Work

Protocol for Counselor Focus Group Work

Protocol for Parent and Community Focus Group Work

Appendix 2: Community Conversation Protocol

Plenary Session

Breakout Sessions

Closing Plenary

Appendix 3: Survey Protocols

Budget Survey

Curriculum and Instruction Survey

Human Resource Survey

Facilities Survey

Professional Development

Safety Net and Support Interventions Survey

Special Education, Alternative Education, and English Learner Survey

Career Technical Education (CTE) Survey

Index

Praise for Diploma Matters

“The San Jose, California, experience in raising academic expectations for all students at the high school level is a model for others to consider. Under Linda Murray's leadership, San Jose Unified School District instituted significant reforms in graduation requirements, which resulted in improved college readiness. This is a story worth reading, including the specific implications for districts nationwide.”

—Michael W. Kirst, Emeritus Professor of Education and Business Administration, Stanford University; president, California State Board of Education; author, Political Dynamics Of American Education

“After spending more than four decades in the field of education, I have read a multitude of books on transforming schools into places that work for all kids. Many of those books have been good or excellent, but none has had the power and punch of Diploma Matters by Dr. Linda Murray. Linda, who was an extraordinary superintendent, also proves to be a captivating storyteller. The words flow off her pen and onto paper, telling an impressive story of what it takes to get school reform right. Linda tells it like it is, and her untiring support for educating all of the kids is overwhelming. She captures, in a straightforward way, the nuts and bolts of how to do the work of reform. This is a book for practitioners who have seen it all. I've always felt that Linda Murray was an extraordinary educator. Read the book and you will see why.”

—Peter J. Negroni, senior vice president, College Board

“As Mayor of San Jose during Dr. Murray's tenure as Superintendent of San Jose Unified School District, I observed firsthand her commitment to ensuring that underserved, low-income students would be given a chance to go to college. Our shared vision of college readiness for all spurred a strong partnership between the city of San Jose and the school district, and we collaborated throughout the years by providing important supports such as after school homework centers. Our partnership and shared vision continues today as we work together as civic leaders to strengthen the vision of college readiness for the most needy students in our city.”

—Susan Hammer, former mayor of San Jose; member of the State Board of Education

“A practical, real-life approach that is easily replicated is just what the doctor ordered for education systems across the United States. Dr. Murray has created a marvelous recipe for success within these pages, and her well-articulated experiences are a gift to everyone in pursuit of improving outcomes for students.”

—Mark Walker, managing director of Global Community Affairs, Applied Materials, Incorporated.

“This book is a definitive ‘how to' for effective, meaningful, and lasting school reform.”

—Kathy Burkhard, former president, San Jose Teachers' Association

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Murray, Linda, 1944-Diploma matters: a field guide for college and career readiness / Linda Murray.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-00914-7 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1-118-07732-0 (ebk.)

ISBN 978-1-118-07733-7 (ebk.)

ISBN 978-1-118-07734-4 (ebk.)

1. College preparation programs–United States. 2. Universities and colleges–Entrance requirements. I. Title.

LB2351.2.M87 2011

373–dc22

2011014365

Foreword

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. Several thousand mostly white teachers of mostly black and brown kids on their feet and cheering as their superintendent called them to action on one of the most audacious district-level policy changes of our time: kids would henceforth take the rigorous academic course sequence heretofore required only of those bound for the elite University of California. Mind you, I said “cheering.” Not groaning. Not grumbling. Not rolling their eyes or any of the many things that teachers do when their superintendents get what they describe as “hare-brained” ideas.

Of course, the story didn't begin in that gymnasium. It began over a year earlier when superintendent Linda Murray honestly confronted the growing body of research on the harmful effects of the way we “do” high school in America—allowing students too young to know any better to pick and choose their way through high school, often avoiding the challenging courses that would force them to develop the skills and knowledge they would need in the twenty-first century. Indeed, the sad reality in the San Jose Unified School District—like almost every other school district in America—was that adults in the system often exacerbated this problem by choosing who was “college material” and who wasn't, steering many students—especially minority and poor students—away from the tougher courses.

Not prone to issuing edicts, Linda carefully built support for the idea of teaching all students the so-called A–G curriculum required for admission to California's two public university systems. She started with her school board and with the principals whose job it would be to make this work. But she also engaged the union president very early on. “They don't all have to go to a state university,” she argued. “In fact many will enter community colleges or technical training or go right into the workforce. But they will be prepared, no matter which route they choose.”

The point, in other words, was to give San Jose students real choices.

This book is the story of the process of bringing this idea to fruition in a medium-sized urban school district. It provides a close look at many things that have to be done along the way to make a change as sweeping as this one work for students without killing their teachers. It also provides important insights into what ethical leadership looks like at the district level—how such leaders build a shared sense of moral purpose as well as where they push and where they support.

But though it tells a powerful story, Diploma Matters is not simply the tale of change in one California school district. The subtitle says “field guide,” and that, indeed, is what this book is designed to do: provide a set of tools to help leaders from other communities who want to move in the same direction.

The timing, of course, couldn't be better. After decades of fighting over how many kids should be educated for college and how many for work, political and education leaders in the United States have acknowledged two new realities that make the old fight moot: (1) that the knowledge and skills necessary for success in today's workplace are pretty much the same as those necessary for success in college and (2) that almost all of our young people will need some postsecondary education to secure work that pays a family-supporting wage. Under the leadership of the nation's governors, state education leaders have even gone so far as to fashion a new set of common “college and career-ready” standards that will replace the current uneven patchwork of state-generated standards and form the foundation for common examinations.

Although better standards and assessments will help us get the goals right, they don't provide much of a roadmap for the serious changes in teaching and learning that will be necessary to get students to achieve the new standards. After all, our system hasn't been designed to get all students ready for college and careers. How exactly do we go about identifying and dismantling policies and practices that are no longer suitable? How can we get both educators and the public on board? What pieces of the problem should be tackled first?

That's where this field guide can be enormously useful. Not simply because the San Jose case study is itself so instructive but because, after Linda “retired” from San Jose, she assumed the role of superintendent in residence at The Education Trust–West, the California outpost of a national educational advocacy organization, and built a talented team that worked for several years helping other districts in California to move along this same path.

In Diploma Matters, readers not only get a window into what Linda's team learned in that hands-on work but also get access to the tools they built along the way. Tools to help educators and community members see the fractured journeys that many students are taking through high school now and the choke points that block many students from upward movement. Tools to organize focus groups and develop communitywide consensus on more productive paths. And planning tools to help make necessary changes in everything from building new master schedules to assessing whether participating schools have adequate science laboratories and building in the necessary supports for struggling students.

Though some of these tools might seem useful individually, they are designed to work comprehensively. And a comprehensive approach is what the nation's superintendents will need if we're to turn around flat achievement patterns in our high schools and close the long-standing gaps between groups that have hobbled our country for too long.

July 2011

Kati Haycock President, The Education Trust, Washington, DC

Acknowledgments

The inspired leaders of The Education Trust—especially Kati Haycock, president, and Russlynn Ali, former executive director of The Education Trust–West—have been my source of inspiration for many years. Kati's impassioned presentation on the devastating gaps in achievement and opportunity for low-income students and students of color across our country—and right in our own backyard—captured the hearts and minds of my educational team in San Jose. She helped catapult us toward a new vision, in which the opportunity to go to college and enter good careers would no longer be available to the privileged few.

On my retirement from San Jose Unified School District, Russlynn asked me to join The Education Trust team and take the San Jose story on the road. Kati's and Russlynn's passion for closing achievement and opportunity gaps was contagious, and what started as a two-year commitment to build on the San Jose experience has led to six years of building the tools presented in this book and making them available throughout the state.

My deep gratitude goes to my colleagues at The Education Trust and The Education Trust–West, who work tirelessly to close achievement gaps every single day and who show me again and again that this work is important and doable; and to the practice team of The Education Trust–West, who have honed the tools we developed together and made them meaningful to those in the field who are committed to this work. Their insights have made these tools powerful agents of change.

Thanks go as well to the people quoted and highlighted in this book who gave their time to be interviewed, especially to Don Iglesias, whose experiences have helped me tell the story of our success.

Finally, my thanks to those who worked with me to bring this book to fruition: Karl Soehnlein, Kevin Clarke, and Christine Murray. They helped me sort out the most important things to share, present them in ways that tell the story, and bring the written words visually alive. In truth, it is they who have helped me find my voice.