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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Closing the achievement gap: breakthrough in the urban high school

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Closing the achievement gap: breakthrough in the urban high school

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CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP:

BREAKTHROUGH IN THE URBAN HIGH SCHOOL

by

Edward Antonios Trimis

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

May 2009

Copyright 2009 Edward Antonios Trimis

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EPIGRAPH
“Our future success requires us to close the achievement gap that exists between
our white students and our students of color, as well as gaps with our English learners,
poor students, and students with disabilities. The achievement gap can be seen in test
scores, drop-out rates, and rates of college entry and completion. The gaps in all of these
measurable indicators influence a student’s future ability to earn a living wage, pursue a
satisfying career, and own a home. These indicators show up later in terms of measurable
gaps between the haves and have-nots, and you can directly relate those gaps to
impoverishment, imprisonment, even lower longevity and level of health. We simply
must recognize that the students of today are our greatest asset for tomorrow, and we
must build those assets for all of us to succeed.”
Jack O’Connell
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
State of Education Address
January 22, 2008

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DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this study to those hard working school staffs and
communities, teachers, principals, support staff, parents, community members, and
others, who are making a difference every day to eliminate the achievement gaps at their
schools and doing anything and everything what they can to help all of their students
achieve at the highest levels.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to express my appreciation for my family for their support and
understanding, my wife, Moira, and our children, Jessica, Nick, Olivia, and Alexander.
Special thanks to my daughter Jessica, a Teach for America Corps member in her second
year of teaching high school chemistry, for our long discussions of how we could tackle
the achievement gap and the challenges at our respective schools. Thank you to my chair,
Dr. Stuart Gothold, and dissertation committee including Dr. Dennis Hocevar, Dr. Kathy
Stowe, and Dr. Laurie Love for all of their support and guidance. Thank you to my
mother, Michaele and Step-Father Charles for their unending support. Thank you to my
brother, Nonda, for all his support. Thank you to my co-administrators and Rossier
School of Education, Ed.D. peers at Manual Arts High School, Ben Lupejkis, Darnise
Williams, and especially my friend, Victor Gonzalez, for sharing the challenges of
leading a large inner-city high school while completing doctoral studies at the same time.
Thank you to my dissertation team, Mark Brown, Michelle Doll, Kathy Fundukian,
Karen Kaiser, Vicky Soderman-Roloff, Tammy Steel, Matt Torres, and Mary
Westendorf, for their support and friendship. And thank you to the staff and students of
North East High School for opening their doors to me and allowing me to study their
wonderful school and all they are doing to eliminate the achievement gap and help all
students achieve at the highest levels. Thank you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EPIGRAPH

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW
a. Introduction
b. Background of the Problem
c. Statement of the Problem
d. Purpose of the Study
e. Research Questions and Hypotheses
Conceptual Model (Figure 1)
f. Importance of the Study
g. Limitations and Delimitations of the Study
h. Definition of Terms
i. Organization of the Study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
a. Introduction
b. Background
c. Different Kinds of Gaps
d. Schools Making Progress: Best Practices and Case Studies
e. The Importance of Principals and Leadership
f. The Power of Professional Learning Communities
g. Emergent Themes from the Literature
h. Summary

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
a. Introduction
b. Research Questions
c. Criteria for Selection
d. Academic Performance Index
e. Methodology Overview
f. Sample and Population
g. Instrumentation
h. Data Collection Procedures
i. Data Analysis Procedures
j. Ethical Considerations
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CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
a. Introduction
a. Description of the School
b. A Typical Day at North East High School
c. Data by Research Question
d. School-wide Programs That Promote Student Achievement
and Close the Achievement Gap
e. School-wide Practices That Promote Student Achievement
and Close the Achievement Gap
f. Instructional Practices Implemented to Close the Achievement
Gap
g. Emergent Themes from the Data Collection
h. Summary of Data

CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
a. Introduction
b. Summary of Findings
c. A Comparison of Emergent Themes from the Literature and
the Data Collection
d. Additional Findings
e. Implications
f. Limitations
g. Areas for Future Research
h. Conclusion

REFERENCES

APPENDICES
A. Survey-Administrators
B. Survey-Teachers
C. Interview Questions-Administrators
D. Interview Questions-Teachers
E. Sample Interview Transcript
F. Sample Completed Survey
G. Data Collection-Document Analysis
H. Data Collection-Observations
I. California Standards for the Teaching Profession
J. Visitation Schedule

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Major Legislation and Federal/State Initiatives

Table 2 API Test Weights

Table 3 North East High School (NEHS) Sub-Group Comparison with State

Table 4 NEHS School-wide Programs that Promote Student Achievement

Table 5 NEHS School-wide Instructional Strategies that Promote Student
Achievement

Table 6 Summary of Data Collection Tools, Emergent Themes, and Research
Questions

Table 7 Document Analysis Tool

Table 8 Observation Tool

Table 9 California Standards for the Teaching Profession

Table 10 Schedule of Site Visits

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ABSTRACT
The achievement gap is arguably one of the greatest social injustices of our time.
Unfortunately, in some people’s minds urban schools have become synonymous with low
achievement, poor safety, poor attendance, and high drop-out rates. However, some
schools have been able to “break through” from what is expected and far surpass other
schools that look like them. These schools regularly stand out with surprisingly high test
scores that continue to improve even more over time. Eventually some of these schools
don’t even appear to be the same school they were years before. In addition to the
schools’ higher test scores, attendance has improved, the schools are safe, and students
tend to stay in school and graduate on time. North East High School (NEHS) is one such
school.
This study looked at NEHS and what they have done to make a difference to help
their students perform beyond expectations. The study examined the practices, policies,
and procedures that appeared to have facilitated the change. Data was collected and
analyzed from four different sources: documents, surveys, interviews, and observations.
There were several attributes that North East had that were integral to their success
including strong leadership, starting with the principal and fanning out to all staff and
stakeholders, data-driven decision-making, strong relationships modeled by the principal
with teachers, students, and all stakeholders, and strong organization and a culture of
excellence that permeated every aspect of the school. What was learned from NEHS
should help other schools and their challenges in eliminating the achievement gap and
helping all students succeed.

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CHAPTER 1
Overview

Introduction

The achievement gap in the United States, the persistent disparity in academic
performance between groups of students, particularly between white or Asian and
affluent students and students of color, poverty and second language learners, has been
called one of the greatest social injustices of our time. It has not happened overnight. It
has not happened because of federal, state, or local law. It has not happened because
students are any less capable. It has not happened just because teachers are less qualified
(though teacher effectiveness might be a factor). It has not happened because of any
direct or indirect effort to make it happen. There are lots of causes for it. The lack of an
even playing field between white students and students of color can start before birth.
There is sometimes a gap in prenatal care. There is sometimes a gap in parent education.
There is sometimes a gap in income and this manifests itself in gaps in child-care, home
environment, and early education. At some point, there can be a gap in self-efficacy.
Ultimately, this leads to a gap in readiness for school and a gap in the skills and
background knowledge students have when they walk into the public school system to
start their K-12 education. And, unfortunately, for many students, the gap widens as they
get older and their skills never catch up to the skills of other students.
The achievement gap is the persistent disparity in academic performance between
groups of students, particularly between white and/or Asian and affluent students and
students of color, minority, poverty and second language learners.

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Background of the Problem
The achievement gap is found throughout the education system, at all grade-levels
and in all content areas. The focus at the local, state, and national levels is usually on
math and English/Language Arts, but it goes further than that. Gaps are found in the other
core content areas, such as history/social studies and science, and in areas that some may
not think, of such as music and the other arts.
I experienced the power of the achievement gap crisis when I was a teacher at
Huntington Park High School in the 90’s. This school had a rich history, was founded
in the late 1800’s, and was in a community plagued by neighborhood street gangs and
large urban school issues. The biggest challenge at the school was developing
students’ sense of self-efficacy so they really believed they could achieve great things
and giving them the tools they needed to achieve that success. Being very active in the
state music educators association, I also had an opportunity to regularly see what other
students from throughout the state were doing in the field. The achievement gap
concerns that were starting to come to the forefront of my mind were glaring when I
saw the all-state honor ensembles perform one year.

I noted the ethnic imbalance in the honor groups along with the other music teachers
and administrators listening next to me. Except for some Asian students in the Honor
Orchestra, most of the students participating were white kids from Central and
Northern California. The imbalance had nothing to do with the organizations that
sponsored the groups. The taped auditions were totally colorblind; there is really no
way to tell what ethnicity the students are who submits tapes. The problem becomes
apparent when the final rosters for these groups include mostly white, middle class
kids. It is easy to make a false assumption that students of color and/or with low socio-
economic status do not have some of the same capabilities other kids have. This can't
be any farther from the truth. It's amazing what kids can accomplish, regardless of
where they grew up or how much money their families have. So I decided in my mind
one year, in my own way, I would start to change this dynamic. Whatever it took, I
would get at least one of my students into one of these groups. I was on a mission.

The All-State Honor Jazz Choir music came the last week of school even though the
tapes were due over the winter vacation, just one week later. While the other teachers
were cleaning out their classrooms and finishing their grades, I worked a grueling 7
hours with 5 students on their Honor Jazz Choir audition music. In the end, there were
two students who were able to complete the recordings. Although they were tired and
ready to quit towards the end of the day, the tapes were finally completed and mailed

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in. We found out some weeks later that both Mary and Chris were accepted.

Mary talked about making the tapes at an interview on a radio program just before the
Honor Jazz Choir trip took place. "I remember when we made the tapes. It was really
hard, the music was tough, and I just wanted to quit. I said, 'No. I can't do it'. And
Trimis just said. ‘YES you can. You HAVE to FINISH. You have to do it again. You
can do this, I know you can.'”

The concert was great. I think I was more proud of my "all-staters" than I have been of
any students in all my years of teaching. There they were, dressed to the nines, right
up on the stage with these all star kids from all over the state. Singing their parts,
holding their own, and swinging with the best of them!

And at that point I knew that what they learned from this experience is that they can
compete with anyone else. If you work hard, you can make your dreams come true. I
also knew that after this experience, Mary and Chris would have just a little bit bigger
view of the world. They experienced something many of our students do not have a
chance to experience. They saw, listened to, and experienced true excellence: the best
of the best. And they wouldn't be able to settle for less anymore. The positive impact
on the rest of the HPHS Jazz Singers since Chris and Mary returned proved my point.
After their return, the group sounded the best they had sounded in 6 years. Singing in
multiple parts, improvising, singing in tune and with good phrasing and style, and
always trying to be better, trying to be the best they could be. Comments of “do we
need to sing today?" were replaced by "can you play that part, again? I need to fix it".
They truly became a top-notch jazz choir, always trying to improve and singing music
sung by the best jazz vocal groups! And I think the main reason this big change
happened was because of Chris’ and Mary's experience in the honor group. They were
exposed to the best, experienced the best, and felt that they were the best. Excellence
and the drive for excellence are contagious so it's not surprising that Chris and Mary
made such a big impact on all of the other students. Their lives really were changed,
and they in turn changed the lives of those around them. And I know that they will
always strive for excellence, since they experienced it themselves (Trimis, 2005).

This was an illustration of what can be done at a micro level with a few students
in one program, at one school. The achievement gap did not grow overnight, nor will it
be eliminated overnight. The achievement gap in student performance has grown over
several years. This is disheartening, in one respect, because it appears that it will take
several years to eliminate the gap. But there is hope on the horizon. Some schools are

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managing to greatly reduce or eliminate the gap. Their stories and methods are being
researched and documented, and a roadmap for others to follow is slowly, but surely,
being created. The research from Marzano (2003), Haycock (2001), Reeves (2003),
Blankenstein (2004), Schmoker (2006) and others are helping school staffs eliminate the
gap in their own communities. These are still isolated cases and there is still much work
to be done. The bigger question remains. What can be done to eliminate the achievement
gap on a school-wide level, a district-level, or a national level? What are the programs,
policies and practices that some schools are implementing to eliminate the achievement
gap? This study will examine one school that has started to eliminate the achievement
gap and tell their story so other school communities may replicate their methods and start
to eliminate the achievement gap in their own school communities.
Statement of the Problem
Most urban schools have not been successful in closing the achievement gap. The
achievement gap started years ago, and does not appear to be going away except for a
few isolated cases. Some are called to fight to end it. Others are called to do the best they
can with their students in spite of it. Examples of schools that are starting to successfully
eliminate the achievement gap are cited in the literature review that follows. We have a
better understanding now than we ever had about what causes the achievement gap and
what some schools and districts have done to start to eliminate it. We have research that
paints a clear picture of what the problem is and what might be done, and what is being
done, to solve it.

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What we need are specific steps that school communities can take to eliminate the
achievement gap at their schools. Educational leaders, teachers, counselors, parents, and
other stakeholders, need examples of schools that are breaking through the barriers that
have held their students back for years. Our school communities need examples of
schools that have started to eliminate the achievement gap, have ensured all students are
achieving at high levels, and that have students who have succeeded beyond everyone’s
expectations.
Purpose of the Study
This particular study takes an in-depth look at North East High School (NEHS) to
see what the school has done to eliminate the achievement gap and help all students
succeed. Specifically, what programs, practices, and strategies have been implemented at
NEHS that may have led to: 1) the school eliminating the achievement gap and helping
all students be successful, 2) students in the school scoring higher than state averages for
one or more groups of students on standardized tests, and, 3) students in the school, as a
whole, scoring on standardized tests better than most other similar schools across the
state?
The purpose of the study is to identify factors that have helped to successfully
close the achievement gap. Specifically, the study identified attributes and actions of a
high school principal that moved a school community to mitigate or eliminate the
achievement gap and substantially increase student achievement for all sub-groups of
students, particularly groups of students who traditionally have not been successful in a
large, urban high school setting. The school that was studied has broken through from

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low-achieving to high-achieving. The study outlines how the breakthrough occurred,
what specific action steps school leadership made that may have helped to facilitate that
breakthrough, if any, the timeline for the break-through, and future prognosis for the
school including possible changes in principal leadership and the impact that will have on
the school.
Research Questions and Hypotheses
More specifically, the main research questions are:
• What school wide programs promote student achievement and contribute
to the closing of the achievement gap?
• Which school wide practices promote student achievement and contribute
to the closing of the achievement gap?
• What instructional strategies were implemented to target the closing of the
achievement gap?
This study provides insights to practitioners and researchers into what one school
has done to ensure their students consistently achieve at levels far above similar schools
across the state. It examines one successful, out-performing school; intentionally a school
with many large-school, urban challenges, and sees what they have done to eliminate the
achievement gap between their students and students across the state. Before visiting the
school-site, a conceptual model was created by the researcher in collaboration with the
team of researchers from the University of Southern California Closing the Achievement
Gap Team that indicates background factors that all affect student achievement or
performance, based on the research literature, and which factors might improve

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achievement for all students and the elimination of the achievement gap at the particular
school site. Factors influencing student achievement or performance based on research
are School Personnel Practice, School Programs, School Culture, School-wide
Professional Development, School Teacher Instruction and Practice, and School
Leadership. Important background influences on achievement or performance , which
schools have little or no control over, are the federal legislation (No Child Left Behind),
the school population/demographics, influences of the global community, expectations of
the community, accountability at all levels, and the state testing program. Possible factors
that were hypothesized to be found making a difference in closing the achievement gap at
the school-site include parent communication, improving teacher quality, early
intervention, and collaboration/use of data. The conceptual model is below (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Conceptual Model

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Importance of the Study
Throughout the study it was clear that the study school was like many other
schools in regards to their efforts towards improving student achievement. The staff and
community were trying a number of things, coming at the problems and challenges from
several different angles, but had little time to stop to evaluate their successes and
challenges in order to make changes as needed to improve the school program and
maximize student achievement.
This study followed North East and looked specifically at what they were doing to
improve student learning outcomes. Specifically, the study describes the programs,
policies, and instructional practices that the school is utilizing to improve student
achievement and eliminate the achievement gap at their school. While every school is
different and every community is different, the programs, policies, and instructional
practices that this particular school is implementing should be replicable at other schools
and provide one way for schools to get a head start at eliminating the achievement gap
and helping all students succeed at their own school.
Limitations and Delimitations of the Study
There are a few limitations. Ideally, this kind of research would be done over an
extended period of time, such as Marzano’s work based on 35 years of research (2003);
however, the scope of this project must be limited. Schools are busy places. With
extensive state and local testing and assessments, teacher planning, district and team
meetings, other mandated activities, student activities, services, and supervision, it is

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unreasonable to ask for even more time out of the day than is absolutely necessary from a
teaching and support staff that do not have any time to spare.
There is also another challenge with the NEHS study. The most current year’s
API ranking was not released at the time of the study. However, the API point totals were
released for 2007 and for the first time in 10 years, the score dropped somewhat. This
anomaly was somewhat explained through the interviews and observations at the school.
It is important to note that even with a drop in API numbers; the school’s API was still
higher than the state average.
There are also a few delimitations. The programs, policies, and instructional
practices at this particular school may be replicated. However, there are attributes of this
particular school that may not be replicable for other schools. For example, the school is
an International Baccalaureate (IB) school; the main program at the school is IB. If a
school is not able to provide an IB program for whatever reason, this may have an effect
on them achieving the same kinds of results that were found at the study school. Also, the
study school is a school of choice. There is a small attendance boundary at the school; a
large percentage of students and their families elect to attend the school from within or
outside the district boundaries. This is another factor that may limit the same kinds of
results at other schools that have larger attendance boundaries and fewer openings for
outside students to attend their school.

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Definitions of Terms

• Achievement Gap
According to the University of Southern California’s thematic dissertation group,
the achievement gap is the persistent disparity in academic performance between
groups of students, particularly between White and or Asian and affluent students
and students of color, minority, poverty and second language learners.

• Academic Performance Index (API)
Per the California Department of Education, “the Academic Performance Index is
the cornerstone of California's Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999
(PSAA). The purpose of the API is to measure the academic performance and
growth of schools. It is a numeric index (or scale) that ranges from a low of 200 to
a high of 1000. A school's score on the API is an indicator of a school's
performance level. The statewide API performance target for all schools is 800. A
school's growth is measured by how well it is moving toward or past that goal. A
school's API Base is subtracted from its API Growth to determine how much the
school improved in a year” (CDE Website).

• Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
Per the California Department of Education, “The federal No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) Act of 2001 requires that California determine whether or not each
public school and local educational agency (LEA) is making Adequate Yearly
Progress (AYP). (An LEA is a school district or county office of education.)
AYP criteria encompass four areas: participation rate, percent proficient (also
referred to as Annual Measurable Objectives or AMOs), API as an additional
indicator for AYP, and graduation rate. Each of these four areas has specific
requirements. Participation rate and percent proficient criteria must be met in both
English-language arts (ELA) and in mathematics” (CDE Website).

• California Standards Test (CST)
Per the California Department of Education, “The California Standards Tests in
English-language arts, mathematics, science, and history-social science are
administered only to students in California public schools. Except for a writing
component that is administered as part of the grade 4 and 7 English-language arts
tests, all questions are multiple choice. These tests were developed specifically to
assess students' performance on California's Academic Content Standards. The
State Board of Education adopted these standards that specify what all California
children are expected to know and be able to do in each grade or course” (CDE
STAR website).

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• English Language Learners (ELL)
Per the California Department of Education, "English learner" is defined as an
English learner or as a reclassified-fluent-English-proficient (RFEP) student who
has not scored at the proficient level or above on the CST in ELA for three years
after being reclassified” (CDE website).

• Four Frames
Bolman and Deal (2003) research focuses on the four aspects or traits that a leader
may or may not encompass; structural, human resource, symbolic or political.

• Growth Targets
Per the California Department of Education, “Schools must meet their annual
school wide API growth target as well as API growth targets for each numerically
significant ethnic/racial, socioeconomically disadvantaged, English learner, and
students with disabilities subgroup at the school. If the school's (or subgroup's)
Base API is between 200 and 690, the growth target is 5 percent of the difference
between the school's (or subgroup's) Base API and the statewide performance
target of 800. If the school's (or subgroup's) Base API is between 691 and 795, the
growth target is a gain of five points. If the school's (or subgroup's) Base API is
between 796 and 799, the growth target is the following:
API of 796 - a gain of four points
API of 797 - a gain of three points
API of 798 - a gain of two points
API of 799 - a gain of one point
If the school's (or subgroup's) Base API is 800 or more, the school (or subgroup)
must maintain an API of at least 800” (CDE Website).

• High Performing School
A High Performing School is a school that has large percentages of students who
traditionally perform in the upper deciles of standardized tests such as the
California Standards Tests and the High School Exit Exam. Often such schools
have high numbers of students who excel in Advanced Placement or International
Baccalaureate programs. Often such schools are recognized by the United States
Department of Education as National Blue Ribbon Schools or the California
Department of Education as California Distinguished Schools.

• National Lunch Program
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a federally assisted meal program
operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care
institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children
each school day. The program was established under the National School Lunch
Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946 (United States Department of
Agriculture, 2008)

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• Outperforming School
An Outperforming School is a school that has consistently performed in the upper
deciles of similar schools rankings for 2 or more years. “Outperforming” is a
relative term; it means the school is outperforming other schools like it (schools
of the same type and similar demographic characteristics).

• Similar Schools Ranking
Per the California Department of Education, “The similar schools rank compares
a school to 100 other schools of the same type and similar demographic
characteristics” (CDE Website).

• School Accountability Report Card (SARC)
Per the California Department of Education, “In November 1988, California
voters passed Prop.98, also known as The Classroom Instructional Improvement
and Accountability Act. This ballot initiative provides California's public schools
with a stable source of funding. In return, all public schools in California are
required annually to prepare SARCs and disseminate them to the public. SARCs
are intended to provide the public with important information about each public
school and to communicate a school's progress in achieving its goals” (CDE
website).

• Socio-economic Status (SES)
Per the California Department of Education, “Socioeconomically disadvantaged"
is defined as a student whose parents both have not received a high school
diploma OR a student who participates in the free or reduced-price lunch program
(also known as the National School Lunch Program)” (CDE Website).

• Urban School
An Urban School is a school that either 1) is located within the city limits of what
is considered a large city, or 2) has two or more traditional demographics or
characteristics of schools that are located in large cities. A dictionary definition of
urban is 1) of, pertaining to, or designating a city or town, 2) living in a city, or 3)
characteristic of or accustomed to cities; citified (Random House, 2008).
Characteristics that are typical of large city schools are a diverse student body or
high numbers or non-white students, a diversity of commonly spoken languages,
low attendance rates, high suspension rates, low test scores, low teacher
attendance, high numbers or uncredentialed teachers, high drop-out rates and low
graduation rates, low college-going rates, low parent participation, and high rates
of crime in the areas surrounding the school.

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Organization of the Study
Following a review of the literature in Chapter 2, the methodology used in the
study will be explained in Chapter 3, followed by findings in Chapter 4, and an analysis
of those findings with implications for other schools and further research in Chapter 5.

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CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review

Introduction

The achievement gap in the United States is the persistent disparity in academic
performance between groups of students; particularly between white or Asian and
affluent students and students of color, poverty and second language learners. After
outlining the background elements of the achievement gap through the literature, and
describing school gaps and gaps that occur outside of the school day, this chapter will
examine research conducted around schools and programs making progress, the
importance of principals and leadership, and the power of professional learning
communities.
While there are several programs and success stories in eliminating the
achievement gap and improving learning for all students, both teacher effectiveness and
principal leadership are key to any improvement effort. This study will add to the
literature by exploring how one school that has demonstrated success in drastically
reducing the achievement gap and improving student outcomes for all students, and
demonstrating a number of best practices that may be adopted by other schools with
similar challenges. The study focused primarily on principal leadership, what the
principal did to facilitate the improvements, what the principal did to sustain the school
improvement effort, and what the principal did to ensure school improvement efforts are
sustained in the future should there be a change in leadership. It would take additional

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research to prove a causal relationship between principal leadership and high achieving,
large urban high schools. However, this study significantly adds to the literature by
demonstrating this relationship can be shown with this particular school community.
Background
The achievement gap has a history rooted in our educational systems that closely
aligns with the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education, the
Supreme Court declared it illegal to intentionally separate schools by race. Brown vs.
Board of Education was a landmark case. It brought national attention to an injustice that
had been systemic and clarified that “separate but equal” schooling was unfair to all
students and their families. The case is so important to the foundation of public
education, it is likely to be studied in credential programs in every state of the United
States. But it wasn’t until 1964 that Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing
discrimination in any institution receiving federal funds including schools (Clemmitt,
2007). The Civil Rights Act would be followed by several major research studies,
reports, and legislation calling national attention to the state of public education and
calling to reform the system to ensure all students has an equal opportunity to learn. This
research was often coupled with or followed by vision documents or guides for schools
and school systems to make these needed changes.
On April 11, 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed into law the first
comprehensive education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
including Title One funding to support students from low-income families. Title One
programs supplement school budgets that meet the needs of low-income students and

16

students who are at least two grade-levels below their peers. The introduction of Title
One funds in ESEA is a major development for the system of education in the United
States. For years each state has been responsible for the education of their students. The
federal government has only been involved in setting national policy and often federal
funding from the government was minimal. Federal funding of public education, and
specifically Title One funds that target specific groups of students, continues to be a
major component of the education system and educational reform.
One of the first major research studies was requested by the Civil Rights Act of
1964. The massive, 737-page, Equality of Educational Opportunity (Coleman et al.,
1966), also known as the Coleman Report, found that black children started out in their
school training behind their white counterparts and never caught up. The authors
concluded that family background was a major cause of the lack of students’
achievement, and that this mattered even more than school in determining students’
academic success. What was set into motion by Brown vs. Board of Education, ESEA,
and Title One, was brought clearly into focus with the Coleman Report. One of the things
the Coleman Report did was to let the public know and understand that the inequities that
children face start even before they start their formal education in Kindergarten. Many
school districts are offering early education programs, publicly funded pre-school, as part
of the public school system to help students with gaps in their academic skills catch up
and meet grade-level standards in Kindergarten, 1
st
grade, and beyond.
A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform (National Commission
of Excellence in Education, 1983), the study from President Ronald Reagan’s National

17

Commission on Excellence in Education, continued to remind the public of the urgency
of the state of education in the United States and may be attributed with sparking many of
the changes in education to follow at both the national and state-levels. The Commission
included 38 recommendations based on the findings of several studies divided into 5
different categories including Content, Standards and Expectations, Time, Teaching,
Leadership and Fiscal Support. Many of the strategies found in vision documents and
later legislation can be traced back to A Nation at Risk including standardized tests and
targeted assistance for specific groups of students that need it (National Commission of
Excellence in Education, 1983).
Caught in the Middle: Educational Reform for Young Adolescents in California
Schools (1987), developed by California State Superintendent Bill Honig’s Middle Grade
Task Force, provides recommendations for lawmakers and practitioners to best meet the
needs of middle grade students. The report addresses 22 principles of middle grade
education organized by five main categories including Curriculum and Instruction:
Achieving Academic Excellence, Student Potential: Realizing the “Highest and Best”
Intellectual, Social, Emotional, and Physical Development, Organization and Structure:
Creating New Learning Environments, Teaching and Administration: Preparing for
Exemplary Performance, and Leading and Partnership: Defining Catalysts for Middle
Grade Educational Reform. The report is credited with defining the middle school model,
a switch from the traditional junior high school. In general, junior high schools are 7
th
-9
th

grade and are very similar in organization and practice to high schools (six different
classes taught by six different teachers without much collaboration to plan or implement

18

instruction). The middle school model calls for a 6
th
-8
th
grade experience with each grade
organized according to students’ age/academic and socially-developmentally appropriate
supports and systems. The 6
th
grade year, a transition year from elementary grades,
usually provides students with a fewer number of teachers who plan lessons together and
have their classrooms grouped close to one another to minimize students’ travel time
between classrooms. Often the students are given only 4 teachers: one teacher who
teaches English and social studies, one teacher who teaches math and science, one
teacher who teaches physical education and one teacher who teaches an elective. In the
7
th
and 8
th
grade years, students are starting to transition into their high school experience
with 6 different teachers and 6 different classes. However, in these grades students are
usually grouped together in cohorts with teachers grouped by interdisciplinary content
teams that plan and implement instruction for a specific cohort of students. The additional
teacher collaboration that the model provides for allows a more personalized and
powerful experience for the students, increasing student achievement and minimizes the
numbers of students who drop out (Fenwick et al., 1987). Caught in the Middle was the
first national initiative designed for students who, in several ways, were the middle
children. Too old to be called children, really, the young adults in the middle grades have
academic and social adjustment issues unlike what students face in elementary school or
high school.
In 1991, the California Department of Education published a vision for high
school reform, Second to None. Second to None recommended several actions, many of
which have been successfully implemented in California high schools including creating

19

curricular paths to success, developing powerful teaching and learning, establishing a
comprehensive accountability and assessment system, providing comprehensive support
for all students, including language-minority students and those at risk of failure,
restructuring the school, and creating new professional roles (California Department of
Education, 1992). The Second to None model provides students with a strong academic
foundation in 9
th
and 10
th
Grade followed up with career-specific and advanced, focused
study in 11
th
and 12
th
Grade. Under this model, career academies and internships are
offered to students in the upper grades. Ninth grade transition programs or academies are
offered at many schools to help with the often difficult transition to high school. These
programs are aligned with Second to None because they offer a strong academic
foundation in the lower grades (Black, 2004).
The standards movement became a major force in the education system in 1994
when President Clinton signed into law the Goals 2000, Educate America Act, funding
the development of standards at the state level. Standards-based teaching and learning
were integrated into the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
in 1995. The law required states to develop standards and assessments and an
accountability system to ensure all students are proficient, but there was no deadline. By
1997, only 17 states were complying with the law (Mantel, 2005). However, it was only a
few years later that most states did, in fact, adopt learning standards for major content
areas for most grades. Standards-based education has been heralded by many as being a
sure way to improve student learning outcomes. Teaching to the academic content

20

standards is expected when schools go through the accreditation process, when teachers
complete credential programs, and when teachers are evaluated (Lauer et al., 2005).
In 1996, the National Association of Secondary School Principals with the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published a report on the high
school of the 21
st
century, Breaking Ranks. The priorities outlined in the report include
curriculum, instructional strategies, school environment, technology, organization and
time, assessment and accountability. In order to meet these priorities support systems
and programs are also described including specialized professional development,
diversity, governance, resources, connections to higher education, building relationships,
and leadership (National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1996). It is
important to note that NASSP is a national organization composed of active practitioners
in the field, those on the front lines, not researchers and politicians. Breaking Ranks can
be looked at as a “how-to” manual to give school leaders and teams across the nation
specific information and guidance that would be helpful in their efforts to implement
much-needed school reform.
The second major document from the California Department of Education aimed
at improving the public school system for middle school students was Taking Center
Stage: A Commitment to Standards-Based Education for California’s Middle Grades
(Adelman et al., 2001). The publication focuses on the standards-movement at the middle
grades with several practices and principles designed to help schools implement
standards-based instruction. The study highlights the content standards, assessment,
accountability, culture, team teaching, use of time at the middle school, literacy, social

21

promotion, after-school programs, health and safety, and professional development. The
attention that middle schools have been given, starting with Caught in the Middle and
continuing with Taking Center Stage is attention much overdue. While student
achievement for elementary school students has improved in many areas, middle school
and high school students have continued to struggle. High schools, in general, have a
much higher profile than middle schools. Reasons for this might be because of athletics,
advanced placement programs, media attention, graduation rate concerns, and interest in
college prep. What is found in the research literature beginning in the 1990’s is in direct
response to the low student achievement data that can be found for middle school and
high school students.
Aiming High, California’s blueprint for high school reform, was published in
2002 and is built on the work started with Second to None. The recommendations
centered around standards-based teaching and learning. The document recommends
schools create a standards-based school culture, offer appropriate professional
development, target the essential standards and local outcomes, and design curriculum
and pedagogy to maximize mastery of standards and outcomes. The document also
recommends schools align content standards and performance levels with feeder middle
schools, ensure that target standards and outcomes are taught and assessed multiple times,
and provide substantial additional support for students having difficulty mastering the
standards or achieving the outcomes. And lastly, the document calls for school staffs to
involve families, postsecondary education, and the community in the process, and to

22

collect, analyze, and use data to ensure continual improvement (California Department of
Education, 2002).
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was re-authorized in 2003
as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and can be considered the ultimate law in the long
battle for equal opportunities and high learning outcomes for all students that started with
Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. NCLB called for closing the achievement gap by
increased accountability and high standards, annual academic assessments, and
consequences for schools that fail to educate disadvantaged students. The law also called
for a focus on reading in early childhood education and in the early grades and expanding
flexibility and reducing bureaucracy. And, lastly, the law called for rewarding success
and sanctioning failure, promoting informed parental choice, improving teacher quality,
and making schools safer.
The repercussions of these accountabilities are far-reaching. NCLB is often
criticized by school officials as a mandate without funding, not realistic, and not fair.
Schools that do not meet minimum benchmarks for two consecutive years become “at-
risk” and go into Program Improvement (PI) status. Each year, more and more schools
fall into this category. Much has been said about the negative affect being labeled as a
Program Improvement school has on students, teachers, administrators and school
communities. While most people in and out of the education system believe in the
philosophy behind NCLB, some school administrators don’t believe it will be possible to
achieve 100% proficiency in math and English/language arts by 2014.

23

In the two years that followed the NCLB rollout, states made progress in reading
and math at the elementary level, but gaps and low achievement continued to persist in
the middle grades and high school. Math in the middle grades improved in 24 states while
four states saw no improvement and no decline. Reading achievement improved in only
16 of the 27 states examined. High schools didn’t fare as well. On high school math tests,
14 states made overall gains, six dropped in achievement, and one made no gains nor did
they decline. Since each state sets its own standards, the rigor of the standards varies
widely (Education Trust, 2005).
Breaking Ranks II was released in 2004 with several core recommendations not
found in the first version of the document. The recommendations included: to increase
learning, to increase positive interactions between students and everyone else, to
implement a comprehensive advisory program, to ensure teachers use varied instructional
strategies, to implement flexible schedules, to involve stakeholders in decision-making,
and to align the professional development program. Additional recommendations
included the use of collaborative leadership, professional learning communities, the
strategic use of data, personalizing the school environment, and personalizing curriculum,
instruction, and assessment (National Association of Secondary School Principals, 2004).
Breaking Ranks II took the document to the next level with the additional
recommendations. It added many of the elements that are echoed throughout the school
reform literature as critical for improved student learning and closing the achievement
gap. The attributes in the list of recommendations from Breaking Ranks II can be found
in many schools that have improved student achievement for all students. Breaking Ranks

24

II was followed by Breaking Ranks in the Middle: Strategies for Leading Middle Level
Reform (Rourke, 2006). The third report in the Breaking Ranks series focused on specific
strategies school staffs could take to make needed changes at the middle school level.
The report profiled many successful schools and offered guidance in establishing
collaborative leadership and professional learning communities, personalizing the school
environment and relationships, strengthening student relationships to improve
curriculum, instruction, and assessment, and a focus on transition. What makes Breaking
Ranks in the Middle (and the other Breaking Ranks reports) especially valid for school
staffs is that it was written by practitioners, a committee of school leaders at all levels
who are doing the work on a daily basis. The National Association of Secondary School
Principals produced the report.
In 2004, there was continuing resistance to NCLB, mostly due to the funding
level and achievement required timeline for students to meet adequate yearly progress
targets. Legislatures in 31 states introduced bills challenging aspects of the law with some
states allowing schools to opt out of the law and offering to replace the federal funds they
would lose with supplemental state funds. Some feel the effectiveness of NCLB to
promote positive change falls short of what was intended when the law was written.
Student achievement is, in general, improving, but it is questionable if every student will
meet proficiency targets by 2014. Many schools are labeled as “in need of improvement”,
so many, that it is uncertain of state and federal accountability systems can handle all the
support that the schools need. NCLB requires highly qualified teachers, but the need is so
great, alternative certification programs are needed to meet the need for teachers,

25

especially in math and science. Unfortunately, the quality of alternative certification
programs is sometimes questionable (Mantel, 2005). Often, poor and minority children
are often not given the most qualified or experienced teachers (Penske & Haycock,
2006). Teacher quality has a direct impact on the achievement gap in schools and NCLB
has the accountability measures written into it that are intended to ensure schools are
making progress in closing the gap.
The rise in accountability policy has coincided with an increase in the
achievement gap between white and non-white students. While student achievement
made some gains in the 1980’s, it was clear that in the 1990’s the gap between white and
non-white students increased (Harris & Herrington, 2006; Lee, 2002 and Johnston &
Viadero, 2000). Most school communities have not been successful in mitigating or
eliminating the achievement gap at their schools. Current instructional strategies are
failing to improve academic proficiency (performance) for students who are from
families with a lower socio-economic status (SES). Students’ proficiency in using
Standard English is tied to their success on standardized tests. The gap in achievement
between white students and African/American and Latino students continues to widen
(Education Trust, 2006).
The standards-based movement, including the creation of academic content
standards, coincided with the widening of the achievement gap between groups of
students. Prior to the standards movement, high-stakes testing programs were not always
aligned with state textbooks, curriculum and teacher training programs. With poor
alignment or no alignment, it becomes nearly impossible to measure student achievement

26

accurately and fairly and also nearly impossible for school communities to understand
what they need to do to improve student learning. If students are not being taught the
same content that is on the standardized tests, it makes an unfair accountability system
that is based on what students already know, not what they have been taught. With the
standards movement, there is some hope for improvement. In most areas, academic
content standards are aligned with state testing programs, textbook adoptions, teaching
credential programs, and school accreditations.
While there has been a widening of the achievement gap up to this point, there are
some schools and school districts that are beginning to close the gap. There are new
programs, practices, and instruction al strategies being developed, based on the available
research, that are making a difference in helping all students improve academically at
higher levels than expected. The table that follows outlines the major legislation and
federal/state initiatives to improve learning outcomes for all students and close the
achievement gap.
Table 1
Major Legislation and Federal/California State Initiatives

Legislation/Case law (Achievement
Gap/Equity)
Year Summary
Brown v. Board of Education 1954 Illegal to intentionally separate schools by race.
Civil Rights Act of 1964 1964 Discrimination outlawed for any institution
receiving federal funds.
Elementary and Secondary Education
Act (ESEA)
1965 Title One funding, targeted assistance for students
based on income and academic achievement.
Coleman Report 1966 Proposes gaps in students’ background cause
achievement gaps in school.
A Nation At Risk 1983 Presents research on “crisis” in education and 38
recommendations for reforms.

Table 1, Continues

27

Table 1, Continued

Caught in the Middle 1987 Report identifying 22 principles for middle grade
reform.
Second-to-None 1991 Vision document for California High Schools,
comprehensive support for all students and career
paths.
Goals 2000: Educate America Act 1994 Federally funds standards.
Elementary and Secondary Education
Act (ESEA)Reauthorization
1995 Incorporates standards-based teaching and learning.
Breaking Ranks 1996 Vision document for high schools of the 21
st

century. Comprehensive including teaching and
learning, programs, relationships, and leadership.
Taking Center Stage 2001 Vision document for California Middle Schools
focusing on standards-based education.
Aiming High 2002 Vision Document for California High Schools, use
of content standards, professional development, and
8th to 9
th
grade articulation.
No Child Left Behind
(Reauthorization of ESEA)
2003 Sanctions with funding support for schools in
Program Improvement; requires minimum
proficiency in English and math for each sub-group.
Requires “highly qualified” teachers.
Breaking Ranks II 2004 Added standards-based education and career paths
to Breaking Ranks.
Breaking Ranks in the Middle 2006 Strategies for leading middle school reform.

Different Kinds of Gaps
It is necessary to identify the various kinds of gaps in schools and communities,
components contributing to the achievement gap, as well as what factors have led to the
achievement gap in a school community, in order to identify strategies that schools have
used to successfully mitigate or eliminate that gap. When looking at the various types of
achievement gaps, it may be helpful to further break down “achievement” into different
areas. There are fourteen areas related to educational achievement that may be
categorized into groups, School and Before and Beyond School. School includes
Teaching and Learning Environment. Teaching and Learning includes the instructional
infrastructure, the quality of leadership, pedagogy, professional development, rigor of the

28

curriculum, teacher preparation, teachers’ experiences and attendance, class size,
availability of appropriate technology-assisted instruction (Gitomer, 2003). The Learning
Environment includes the general conditions of the school, expectations, commitment of
teachers and staff, and school safety. Before and Beyond School includes The
Development Environment which involves the early experiences and conditions of life
and living and connections with the home and community (Barton, 2003). Schools can
make improvements in every area except, at times, Before and Beyond School which has
very much to do with the students’ family background and the responsibility of the
parent.
Achievement Gap
The achievement gap is often examined on local, state, and federal levels and can
be analyzed by looking at various outcome measures such as grades, test scores, selection
of courses, and college completion rates (Johnston, 2000). Gaps occur between students
of varying ethnicity or race, nationality, socio-economic status (SES), gender, and
language. Initially, the gaps between white and non-white students were explored in the
research (Coleman, 1966). Much of the research lists specific sub-groups of students
including ethnicity such as black and Hispanic or Latino. “Hispanics” or “Latinos” is a
diverse group of people from several different nationalities including Mexican-American,
Central and South American or Caribbean, Puerto Rican, Cuban. The major difference in
the achievement gap in regards to Hispanics or Latinos is language (Johnston & Viadero,
2000).

29

International Achievement Gap
The achievement gaps are not only found within the United States, but between
students in the United States and students in other countries. While most previously
industrialized countries are making extensive investments in education, the United States
ranks poorly, largely due to the persistent achievement gap (Darling-Hammond, 2007).
Students in the United States have achieved at lower levels in mathematics and
reading/English, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) than most industrialized states at an increasing pace since the 1950s. NAEP is
considered the “nation’s report card” (Lee, 2002). The achievement at all levels is
analyzed and studied by the Education Trust in Washington, DC and the Education Trust,
West in Oakland, California. The NAEP scores are examined each year by the Education
Trust and the organization works with legislators and practitioners to help them
understand the gaps and exemplary programs and models that are closing the gap that
they might evaluate for use at other schools.
Internal and External Gaps
The internal gap (differences between distinct groups of peers at the school level)
and the external gap (differences in scores for each sub-group at the school with scores
for sub-groups across the state) are two gaps that may be analyzed at the school level
(Anderson, Medrich, & Fowler, 2007). In many of the larger cities, it becomes difficult to
measure some internal gaps because there are sometimes too small numbers of a
particular sub-group to make a valid comparison. If a sub-group has less than 100
students in California schools they are deemed “not significant” and their test scores are

30

not considered in the accountability system. Some schools have very small numbers of
white and Asian students, for example, but large numbers of Latino and African-
American students. In these cases, schools can look at the external gap between their
Latino and African-American students in the same sub-groups and the white or Asian
sub-groups at the state level.
School Gaps and the Opportunity-to-Learn: Teacher Quality, Class Size,
and Rigor

The “opportunity-to-learn” is one area that many gaps are found between different
groups of students. Opportunity-to-learn gaps can be found in many different areas such
as the opportunity for students to all have experienced and high-quality teachers as well
as high quality and rigorous instruction, the opportunity to have high quality facilities, the
opportunity for high quality leadership, the opportunity for adequate time to learn and
support in all areas of their education. Students not seeing the relevance of what they are
learning and the lack of positive relationships (social capital) are also factors.
Students’ academic achievement is closely related to rigor in the classroom.
Rigor is indentified in the literature by challenging curriculum, academic environment,
and “academic press” (Barton, 2003). Increasing rigor in the classroom is one of the key
components of many reform strategies and plans to help schools improve including
Breaking Ranks and Breaking Ranks II (1996 and 2004). Studies have shown, according
to Dagget (2005), “that students understand and retain knowledge best when they have
applied it in a practical, relevant setting.” In Dagget’s Rigor/Relevance Framework,
levels of knowledge (levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy from knowledge to evaluation) are

31

measured along with levels of application (from knowledge in one discipline to applying
knowledge in real-life, unpredictable situations) to design lesson plan elements including
acquisition, application, assimilation, and adaptation.
The opportunity students have to participate in rigorous, college-prep courses
contributes to maintaining or widening the achievement gap. In 2001, the North Carolina
Board of Education called for a study to examine the underrepresentation of minority ad
at-risk students in honors courses, advanced placement courses, and Academically and
Intelligently Gifted (AIG) programs, and whether or not this contributed to the
achievement gap in the state. The study found that though causality could not be
determined without experimental designs, the gap in representation in the advanced
courses between White and minority students (Black, Hispanic, and American Indian), is
“significant and wide-spread”. The study also concluded that learning and achievement
gaps that were found in the early grades led to underrepresentation of minority students in
AIG programs which led to low enrollment for these same students in high school
advanced placement and honors courses (Darity, 2001). Again, this makes sense, but
doesn’t make it acceptable nor make it impossible to be improved upon. Students come to
school with all kinds of gaps. It becomes critical for school systems to ameliorate those
gaps as soon as possible so all students have access to rigorous programs and courses,
and to continue that work of closing the gaps as students progress through each step of
their education.
Another way to define the practice of not providing access to a rigorous program
for all students is de facto or intentional tracking of students. Tracking has contributed to

32

the widening of the achievement gap. Though many educators will state they believe that
tracking students into a low achieving series of programs and courses over several years
is inequitable and morally wrong, tracking still sometimes occurs, and the challenge with
closing the achievement gap and providing equal access remains. Lucas and Berends
(2002) also claim that this de facto tracking is one reason that traditional achievement
gaps persist in schools.
This gap in access to honors or advanced programs and courses is especially
critical in the ninth grade year, the transition to high school, when counselors may not
program students into rigorous courses because of transition issues (Cooper & Liou,
2007). Again, this speaks to the importance of rigor in the classroom and the program in
which students are enrolled. Many students have skill deficits and unfortunately when
schools enroll students in the most basic courses to remediate skills, sometimes they do
not accelerate that learning so students have the opportunity to catch up with their peers.
The experience of teachers and class size are also critical factors. Many of the
schools with the lowest family income also have the lowest student achievement, the least
experienced teachers, and the largest class sizes. Specifically, disparities in mathematics
education may be traced to initial opportunity gaps in access to experienced and qualified
teachers and high expectations for achievement (Flores, 2007). Teacher preparation, as
well as the academic skills and knowledge of teachers, can vary greatly from teacher to
teacher. Experienced teachers are sometimes not spread out evenly among schools or
even within each school. Very often, the most experienced teachers are assigned the most
advanced and smallest classes (such as advanced placement courses) while the least

33

experienced teachers are assigned the larger and sometimes lower-level, difficult to teach
classes (such as algebra). This is found at all levels of education, most dramatically in
high school where this gap can be particularly damaging for at-risk students who may be
on the verge of dropping out. An example of this gap at the college level is when large
freshman seminar classes have over 100 students and are taught by graduate assistants
and not be full professors. Much of the research says this is a backwards practice and the
students with the most needs should have access to the teachers with the most experience.
Gaps Before and Beyond School
Other major factors that influence the achievement gap are the levels of social and
emotional support received at school and at home in addition to student self-efficacy.
There is a growing body of literature that suggests students’ lack of social capital is a key
factor that worsens the achievement gap (McCabe, 2006, Dika & Singh, 2002). This was
explained as early as 1966 when the Coleman Report indicated students of varying
backgrounds achieved at different levels, specifically looking at African-American and
white students. The Search Institute has conducted extensive research into the power of
developmental assets in helping students be successful in school and after graduation.
The Institute has developed asset lists for different ages of students that range from the
importance of family and connections with others and a positive sense of self. The
Institute has also concluded that there is a correlation between student achievement as
measured by grade-point average and the kinds of developmental assets student possess
(Scales & Roehlkepartain, 2003).

34

Struggling learners often have low self-efficacy for academics. Students who
struggle in school have often struggled for many years and their confidence level drops
more for every year they have difficulty in school. The building of students’ social
capital, including their self-efficacy, often leads to improved student achievement.
According to Margolis and McCabe (2006), low-efficacy causes motivational problems.
If students believe they cannot succeed at a task, they will superficially attempt them,
avoid them, or resist them altogether. Margolis and McCabe offer suggestions for
improving students’ self-efficacy leading to improved student achievement including
what to do and what to say. What to do: plan moderately challenging tasks, use peer
models, teach specific learning strategies, capitalize on student choice and interests,
reinforce effort and correct strategy use. What to say: encourage students to try, stress
recent successes, give frequent, focused, task-specific feedback, and stress functional
attribution statements.
Other researchers have also found that building social capital for students is
critical for student achievement to improve. Pong, Hao, & Gardner (2005) found that
parenting styles and social capital have been shown to have a direct impact on student
performance in immigrant Asian and Hispanic students; Duncan & Magnuson (2005)
discovered family socioeconomic resources may account for racial and ethnic score gaps;
and, Becker & Luthar (2002) demonstrated that social-emotional factors undermine
student academic performance and must be addressed at multiple levels to eliminate the
achievement gap.

35

West Ed outlines reforms to narrow the achievement gap including greater
income inequality, stable housing, school-community clinics, early childhood education,
after school programs, summer programs, identifying the dangers of false expectations,
and teacher morale (Rothstein, 2006). Some of these reforms can be implemented at the
school-site or district level and others must be addressed at the community level. This
may be why some argue that it is critical for legislators at all levels, local, state, and
federal, to work together and with their communities to improve education from the
“ground up”, including services needed to support families and whole communities in
order to close the achievement gap.
There are a vast number of reasons why some students are not achieving at high
levels and why there is an achievement gap. As the research has shown, some of these
factors are difficult to influence at the school level, such as changes in socioeconomic
status and family conditions (Lee, 2002, Barton, 2003, Rothstein, 2006). Sometimes
suggestions to improve student achievement are comprehensive and include school
changes as well as changes in the community. Improving student learning is an all
encompassing task that often must reach outside of the school walls. Lee (2002) found
that changes in socioeconomic (resources) and family conditions and changes in youth
culture and student behaviors have contributed to the achievement gap. Factors such as
school safety, parent participation, student mobility, birth weight, lead poisoning, hunger
and nutrition, reading to young children, and television watching, and parent availability
all contribute to the achievement gap (Barton, 2003). These are all factors that have an
effect on the achievement gap, but that schools have little control over. Again, this is why

36

some of the reform initiatives include the community in their scope. Without addressing
the needs of the students and their families outside of school, school officials may be
unable to make adequate progress on meeting goals for students inside of school,
including the closing of the achievement gap.
Schools Making Progress: Best Practices and Case Studies
Best Practices
Some school communities are making progress in mitigating or eliminating the
achievement gap in their schools. There is a growing body of research that indicates some
schools are starting to help all students achieve at high levels and close the gaps. Flores
(2007) identifies actions within the classroom, actions beyond the classroom, and actions
beyond the school that may be taken to eliminate the achievement gap. Rothstein
articulated several reforms, inside and outside of school, that could narrow the
achievement gap including greater income inequality, stable housing, school-community
clinics, early childhood education, after school programs, summer programs, the dangers
of false expectations and adequacy suits, and teacher morale (Rothstein, 2004).
Detracking, offering high-track curriculum to all students, is a method used to
close the achievement gap that has been explored in New York. By providing
heterogeneous classes in mathematics, biology, and other content areas (every course in
the ninth grade), schools in New York were able to start to close the achievement gap.
This was assessed by improving passage on the New York Regents Exams dramatically
for all students and significantly raising the achievement results for African American or
Hispanic students (from a 32% to 88% pass rate). The pass rate on the exams for White

37

students improved from 88% to 97%; so, there is still an achievement gap but a much
smaller gap than before the detracking program was implemented (Corbett Burris &
Welner, 2005).
The Institute for Learning of the University of Pittsburgh has developed a
program based on the research of Lauren Resnick that identifies specific teaching
strategies that have been shown to lead to improved student achievement including clear
expectations, fair and credible evaluations, celebrating results, extended time as needed,
and student’s right to expert instruction (Resnick, 1995). The Institute for Learning later
fully developed their improvement program to include specific successful strategies to
improve student learning such as organizing for effort, clear expectations, and
recognition of accomplishment. Also in their revised program, the Institute includes fair
and credible evaluations, academic rigor in a thinking curriculum, accountable talk,
socializing intelligence, and learning as apprenticeship (Resnick, 1999). The practices
developed out of Resnick’s research have been effectively used in schools and school
districts throughout the nation to help schools improve teaching practice and improve
student learning outcomes.
Strategies have also been identified by research at the school level and the system
level. Tharp and Entz (2003) identify instructional strategies that have proven effective
across ethnic and socio-economic lines including a productive activity, language and
literacy development across the curriculum, contextualization, challenging activities, and
instructional conversation. Datnow (2007) defines key strategies of performance-driven
school systems: building a foundation for data-driven decision-making, establishing a

38

culture of data use and continuous improvement, investing in an information management
system, selecting the right data, building capacity for data-driven decision making, and
analyzing and acting on data to improve performance.
Douglas Reeves (2000) researched schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1995 that
demonstrated extraordinary achievement in typically low-achieving school communities.
The “90-90-90” schools had three characteristics in common: they had 90% or more
students on the federal free and reduced lunch federal program, 90% minority student
bodies, and 90% or more proficiency on one or more state assessments. The 90-90-90
research has been studied by many different schools and school systems with similar
demographics because it disproved a misconception that many people have about schools
that serve low-income families. All students can learn and learn to high levels, despite the
level of family income and the gaps in their education they need to fill.
Marzano (2003) has spent years conducting research on what works in schools in
a meta-research study. Effective practices are classified into school-level factors, teacher-
level factors, and student-level factors. School-level factors include a guaranteed and
viable curriculum, challenging goals and effective feedback, parent and community
involvement, safe and orderly environment, and collegiality and professionalism.
Teacher-level factors include instructional strategies, classroom management, and
classroom curriculum design. Student-level factors include home environment, learned
intelligence and background knowledge, and student motivation. The study also includes
a process for implementing and using the model and the critical role of leadership. The
Marzano research has been extended in two other studies by Marzano focusing on

39

specific elements of the first study, leadership, classroom instruction, and classroom
management and materials are available for schools that want to explore the research
through professional development on or off their school-sites.
Johnson outlines specific steps for sustaining change in schools that were
developed in Loveland, Colorado including understanding the quality profile, asking
quality questions, making quality a habit, focusing on success, and managing tasks and
leading people (Johnson, 2005). Johnson’s work is important because one of the
challenges that many low-achieving schools face is an inconsistent staff and/or school
leadership. Sustaining change in a school that really needs that change for academic and
social success becomes especially critical when large numbers of students have gaps in
their education and desperately need to catch up with their peers who are on track.
Haycock (2002) found that understanding achievement patterns and differences in
attainment are necessary before being able to successfully begin to close the achievement
gap. Specific strategies that may be engaged to close the achievement gap include
focusing on standards, ensuring students are given a challenging curriculum aligned with
standards, and providing extra help to students who need it, and ensuring students are
given qualified teachers who know their subject matter (Haycock, 2002).
Some schools are closing the achievement gap by targeting students who need
help and providing additional instruction in math and English for those students
(Rothman, 2001). In fact, large numbers of schools are finding it effective to provide a
double-block of English and a double-block of math for students who are behind their
peers or below grade-level in those content areas. Very often, schools will focus this extra

40

attention on 7
th
, 8
th
and 9
th
grade students because as they get into 10
th
grade and the
upper grades, catching up to grade-level for some of them becomes more and more
difficult.
Case Studies
Ed Trust (2005) conducted a study of seven high schools including four high
impact schools (three in North Carolina and one in Southern California), that had
exceptional results helping struggling students make dramatic improvements in meeting
and exceeding learning goals, Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground. The high impact
schools in the study, schools that achieved better than expected results with previously
unsuccessful students, were Jack Britt High School, Fayetteville, NC; Los Altos High
School, Hacienda Heights, CA; East Montgomery High School, Biscoe, NC; and
Farmville Central High School, Farmville, NC. The study noted several attributes they
shared in common including an academic culture, academic core, support for struggling
students, a focus on strategic teacher hires and placement of teachers, and a creative use
of time and other resources (The Education Trust, 2005). Some schools have achieved
academic success by overcoming barriers that have made that success at other schools
difficult.
The fifteen schools highlighted in the Ed Trust study, It’s Being Done, include 10
elementary schools, two high schools, one junior/senior high school, one middle school,
and a school system-8 elementary schools (Chenoweth, 2007). The Education Trust
(2005) also specifically looked at high schools serving low-income students and students
of color that are demonstrating unusually strong results for all students including Granger

41

High School, Elmont Junior-Senior High School, and University Park Campus School.
What was found at these schools was not unlike the results found in their other studies.
School leadership was critical, as was academic support for students that need it, a
rigorous program, and high expectations of all students by all staff.
System-wide Programs and Initiatives
There is a growing body of research that focuses on what can be done to support
schools and improve student achievement at the district or state level. Clearly, the
adoption of content standards, standards-based credentialing programs and training, and
fiscal support at all levels are some examples. State Boards of Education can also help by
putting systems in place, requiring a college prep curriculum, placing qualified teachers
in low-performing schools, better supporting teachers and students, and better funding
low-performing schools (Haycock, 2002).
School districts can effectively improve learning for all students by adopting
specific design principles and implementing programs aligned with those principles.
According to Resnick & Glennan (2002), principles at the district level that help improve
instruction and student learning are a commitment to an effort-based concept of
intelligence and education, a focus on classroom instruction throughout the district, and a
culture emphasizing continuous learning and two-way accountability-the core elements
of nested learning communities-throughout the system. Additional principles are
continuing professional development for all staff, based in schools and linked to the
instructional program for students, and coherence in standards, curriculum, assessment,
and professional development (Resnick & Glennan, 2002).

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The Turnaround Challenge, research funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, describes a program used in high minority, high poverty schools that has
resulted in high achievement (Calkins, Guenther, Belfiore, & Lash, 2007). The
Turnaround Challenge has at its core, targeted assistance and autonomies or targeted
schools based on student achievement. Schools that need additional support because the
level of student achievement is low are given additional support and specific guidelines
and oversight to ensure their success. The study recommends focusing this attention on
the bottom 5% of the nation’s public schools. The study also recommends identifying
“High Performance/High Poverty” or HPHP schools and giving these schools that have
been successful new autonomies and greater choice “outside of the system” over matters
such as textbooks, curriculum, and budgets.
There are many different support/professional organizations that have been
created specifically to help schools that are addressing achievement gap issues. Some
state departments of education and school districts, the State of California and the Los
Angeles Unified School District, for example, actually have Closing the Achievement
Gap units within their organizations to disseminate research and provide professional
development and assistance to schools. Networks of schools including the Minority
Student Achievement Network and the Network for Equity in Student Achievement have
been organized to support the work of individual schools and districts in improving
student achievement for all students and eliminating the achievement gap (Rothman,
2001).

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The Importance of Principals and Leadership
Leadership, specifically principal leadership, has been shown to be a critical
factor regarding school improvement, including improving the achievement gap in large
urban schools. School leadership is a key factor in improving student achievement.
According to Michael Fullan (2001), “Leadership is to the current decade what standards
were to the 1990s for those interested in large-scale reform. Standards, even when well
implemented, can take us only part way to successful large-scale reform. It is only
leadership that can take us all the way.” Leadership can provide the lever needed to
improve student achievement. Suggestions for strengthening that lever include staying in
touch with emerging research regarding how leadership relates to student achievement,
creating communities of learners to put the research into practice, considering research on
emotional intelligence, and employing systems thinking (Hefty, 2005). High achieving
schools, including those in high poverty urban areas, consistently have shown to be led
by exemplary principals (Parent Press, 2000). Leadership, and specifically principal
leadership, can be examined through the lens of programs, practices, and frameworks.
Programs
Stanford University Educational Leadership Institute and the Wallace Foundation
have identified key elements to effective principal preparation programs including
essential elements of good leadership, features of effective school-level and district-level
programs, multiple pathways to leadership development, and policy reform and finances
(Davis, Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, & Meyerson, 2005). Preparation programs vary
from program to program, but are not unlike teaching credential programs where some of

44

the best training is found in pre-service fieldwork and when the candidate is first on the
job. Skills needed for school leadership are changing constantly as the education system
changes. Some of the best training prepares new principals to “expect the unexpected”
and how to use their social capital and connections to overcome any challenges and
obstacles they face. Unfortunately, managing for results and leading schools in a high
accountability era is given 13% of the time in principal preparation programs according
to a national study (Hess & Kelly, 2007).
ACSA and West Ed’s Community of Practice offers five practical points for
principals to improve student learning including making goals and objectives public,
using the established evaluation system, focusing leadership development on student
achievement, basing your system on standards, and moving standards into the real day-to-
day work of the school leader (Kearney, 2005). When goals and objectives are made
public, it facilitates the work of students, parents, teachers, school leaders, and the
community at large in ensuring students are meeting the academic goals and objectives
and everyone in the system is supporting the effort. The evaluation system is the way
administrators and teachers hold everyone accountable for what is going on in the
classroom. Are students achieving at high levels? Why or why not? The evaluation
system is one measure of accountability to help ensure success and ties directly into
leadership development. Leaders must be trained in supporting, supervising, and
evaluating instruction and student learning. Basing the system on standards and moving
standards into the day-to-day work of the school leader is also argued by Haycock
(2001). Like Kearney (2005), the Community of Practice is one type of professional

45

learning community (PLC) for school leaders with many of the same attributes of
teacher-based PLCs (a team works together to identify strengths and goals and works
towards improving day-to-day practice). Programs such as Community of Practice and
the Stanford Leadership Institute train school leaders in the myriad of practices that have
been shown to improve schools and, specifically, to improve student achievement.
Practices
Principals can be an effective in helping at-risk students achieve academic success
in school. The tone for the school is often set and modeled by the principal and followed
by the assistant principals, teacher leaders, certificated and classified staff, and the school
community at large. For example, if the principal believes all students can learn and learn
at high levels given quality instruction and the supports they need, there is a much better
chance this philosophy will be shared or adopted by the rest of the staff resulting in
improved student learning for all students. Leadership tends to be an important attribute
in many of the successful schools and programs in the literature from Marzano (2003) to
the Ed Trust studies (2005), to Johnson (2005). O’Donnell & White (2005) found that
principals’ instructional leadership has also been shown to improve student learning and
includes promoting the school learning climate and defining the school mission.
Principals participate in the instructional process at their schools in a myriad of ways
including discussions with teachers about instruction, classroom observations, and
working with teachers when examining student data (Southwest Educational
Development Library, 1991). This, however, is just the start of the principals’
involvement with instruction at their school site. A principal involved with instruction

46

will not delegate this responsibility away and will do all they can to stay involved with
the teaching and learning process at their school.
Professional development and other teacher training, whether it be on-site or at
conferences or trainings off-site, are critical and require hands-on principal leadership.
School principals can build the relationships with their teachers by participating in
professional development workshops and trainings alongside their teachers and leading
the trainings whenever possible. Principals also can ensure that professional development
or any professional learning activities are funded and supported. The principal can make
sure there is a comprehensive, collaboratively created (preferably), and articulated
professional development plan each year. The principal can make sure there is time in the
day for professional development and teacher planning, and that teachers have the
training they need to look at student achievement data and design instruction based on
that data.
Standards-based instruction, as a key element of improving education for all
students, requires skillful school leadership. Because many principals and other leaders
were trained prior to the standards movement, additional professional development is
often required (Thomas, 2003). In most successful schools, standards are fully
implemented at all levels. School principals must “lead the charge” in regards to
standards-based education by being an expert and strong advocate/proponent of content
standards in the instructional program. As leaders develop and implement best practices,
a thorough understanding of school leadership found in one of the many leadership
frameworks is important to be effective.

47

Frameworks
There has been extensive research done on the qualities of effective leaders, in
general, and specifically on effective principals. According to Haycock & Jerald (2002),
principals have made progress in closing the achievement gap by taking responsibility,
using standards to reshape curriculum and instruction, finding ways to provide extra
instruction for students who need it, and assigning the strongest teachers to the students
who need them the most. In the political climate that many schools face, especially in an
urban environment, this requires courageous leadership. It’s not always easy taking
responsibility for student learning and progress at your site if you are a school principal.
Many politicians and others not providing direct leadership at the school-site level are
quick to criticize the work of school leaders and teachers.
Adopting academic content standards have been found to drive school
improvement and help ensure all students are successful. Standards may be looked at as
the “roadmap” for student success. If there is no map, it becomes nearly impossible to
proceed down the path to high levels of achievement. Standards ensure that teachers,
students, school leaders, parents, and the community are all headed in the same direction
and can measure their progress in getting there. Providing extra instruction to those who
need it, along with standards-based instruction, has been shown to be successful in much
of the research from meta-research studies (Marzano, 2003 & Blankenstein, 2004) to case
studies (Dufour, 2004 & Chenoweth, 2007). Assigning the strongest teachers to the
students who need them most is a concept also found in other research (Haycock, 2001).

48

Reeves (2006) found that “messy” leadership-the practice of reviewing data,
making mid-course corrections, and focusing decision-making on the greatest points of
leverage-is superior to “neat” leadership in which planning, processes, and procedures
take precedence over achievement. Reeves also concluded that leadership, teaching, and
adult actions matter; that there are particular leadership actions that show demonstrable
links to improved student achievement and educational inquiry (such as inquiry,
implementation, and monitoring); and, leadership is neither a unitary skill set nor a
solitary activity. Reeves focuses on what the “learning leader” can do to improve student
achievement. It is sometimes difficult for the principal to maintain a focus on instruction
when there are so many constraints on his time. Add to this the additional challenges that
are often found in large urban schools, safety and school climate, neighborhood issues,
complex political concerns, and keeping the focus on instruction becomes even more of a
challenge.
Reeves recognizes that leadership is multi-dimensional, one size does not fit all,
as does Northouse (2004) in his theoretical framework. In the framework, several
leadership traits are described, with a solid research base supporting them, including the
trait approach (leaders have specific traits that can be defined), skills approach (there is a
set of leadership skills that are teachable), situational approach (decisions are made based
on the situation), transformational leadership (transforming the organization or the people
involved), team leadership (leading in a team) and others (Northouse, 2004). Leadership
styles vary from person to person. Every leader is different. According to Northouse, the
most effective leaders are able to change styles as the situation requires. With the

49

complexity of leadership in schools, it becomes essential for leaders to 1) know the style
that is most effective for them and, 2) be proficient to some degree in the other styles
(because they may be the best approach for a situation that may arise). Closing the
achievement gap with students in a given school or district may require school principals
and leaders to be comfortable with several different leadership styles.
Like Northouse, leadership styles have also been explored by Bolman & Deal.
Bolman & Deal (2003) outline a thorough theoretical framework for leadership that
breaks down leadership skills into four different areas or frames including the structural
frame, the human resource frame, the political frame, and the symbolic frame. The
authors explain leadership methods to use specific frames to be most effective and to
combine the frames when and as needed. Understanding the four frames and having some
facility in each one of them is critical for success as a school leader and ultimately can
extend or shorten one’s tenure. A principal who wants to enact effective change at a
school must always keep the frames in mind when making decisions and taking action for
the changes to be sustainable.
Courageous leadership, often required when developing skills in the Bolman &
Deal’s political frame (2003), is also found to be a necessary attribute for successful
leaders by Heifitz & Linsky (2002). Taking on the challenge of school transformation,
building school communities where all students succeed, is dangerous work. Heifetz &
Linsky offer tips for success to “stay alive through the dangers of leading”: get on the
balcony, think politically, orchestrate the conflict, give the work back, and hold steady
(Heifetz & Linsky, 2002). The authors look at several different leaders from various

50

fields and reflect on good or not-so-good decision-making and best practices. Heifitz &
Linsky describe the danger of leadership, how a leader’s success, career, future, and
sometimes even his life rely on understanding the forces that are at work in his
organization and how to interact and work with those forces. Heifitz discusses “getting on
the balcony”, how it’s important to step back and take a look at the entire situation, the
players, what is taking place, from the outside to have a clear understanding about how to
proceed and make decisions. The author shares his definitions of “confidant” versus
“ally”. He says that an ally is someone who may have a shared interest in your goals, who
will work with you as needed to be sure your goals and his goals are met, but who you
can’t trust implicitly. Allies will take advantage of information you may give them in
confidence, often to their gain and your detriment. A confidant is someone that the leader
can rely on, discuss concerns and issues freely with, and get advice from without fear of
what the ally might do with the information. Several examples are given of allies that
have turned on leaders who thought they were confidants for their own professional gain.
As it relates to student success and closing the achievement gap, the consistency of
leadership at a school-site or an organization has been found to be an important attribute
for the organization. Schools and organizations that are successful often have leadership
staff in place over several years, whether it is a school principal or a leadership team that
works together over several years to be sure goals and objectives are met and there is a
consistent vision.
Like Heifitz, Collins also argues that consistent leadership is an attribute of great
organizations. Collins (2001) looks at companies that make the leap from good to great,

51

and companies that sustained their results for at least fifteen years. The good-to-great
companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an
average of seven times in fifteen years. Much of Collins’ work discusses leadership and
what leaders have done to make their companies great and these findings may be utilized
in schools. Collins looks at all leaders, from inside and outside business, from Nelson
Mandela to David Maxwell of Fannie Mae. The findings of the study include the
development of level 5 leaders, the hedgehog concept, simplicity within the three circles,
a culture of discipline, technology accelerators, the flywheel and the doom loop. Collins
writes about getting the right people on the bus and the people in the right seats (staffing)
and how Level 5 leaders are not always the charismatic “saviors” that many people
believe they are but regular “company” staff that are consistent and fiercely dedicated to
results. The Collins study is a general study about leadership, not specifically geared
towards education, though the concepts carry into educational leadership well.
While the work of Collins may be applied to leaders of all types, there are other
works that are specifically designed for school-site or principal leadership. Whitaker
(2003) identifies and describes fifteen things that great principals do differently including
focusing on people over programs, holding high expectations for all students and
teachers, teaching the teachers and hiring great teachers, treating everyone with respect,
and filtering out what needs filtering. Whitaker also describes getting a hold of
standardized testing, focusing on behavior and then focusing on beliefs, and giving
loyalty to students, school, and alumni (Whitaker, 2003). This list of “musts” for
principals is not unlike what is found elsewhere in the literature (Marzano, 2003). They

52

make sense. Focusing on people and mentoring is found in Collins (2001). Holding high
expectations for everyone is seen in most of the case studies, vision documents, and
frameworks (Chenoweth, 2005, NASSP, 1996, and Marzano, 2003). A focus on
standardized testing is nearly a mandate for schools in the high accountability era that
faces education today.
Like Whitaker, McEwan (2003) also identifies specific traits found in highly
effective principals. McEwan’s ten traits of highly effective principals that set them apart
are the roles as the communicator, the educator, the envisioner, the facilitator, the change
master, the culture builder, the activator, the producer, the character builder, and the
contributor. Benchmarks are also identified for each of the ten traits. All of the ten traits
are essential to some degree in order to be a highly effective principal and the ten traits
interact with each other in synergistic and often inexplicable ways. It is impossible to
rank the ten traits to identify one that is more critical than any other. Highly effective
principals are masters of timing, make a difference wherever they go, and are
emotionally, physically, and spiritually effective individuals (McEwan, 2003). With
Whitaker and McEwan, school principals have a list of skills they can develop and a
roadmap to follow to improve their leadership potential. But school leadership is complex
and often requires extending the vision of the school leader beyond what is expected.
Managing change and continuing to develop and grow in a culture of change, is
critical for today’s school leaders. A natural extension of Whitaker and McEwan’s work
is the framework proposed by Fullan (2001). Fullan outlines how leaders from all
different types of organizations can navigate the change process with hope, energy, and

53

enthusiasm. Fullan’s leadership framework begins with leaders developing a sense of
moral purpose, understanding change and relationship building, knowledge and creation
building, and coherence making. This leads to developing a sense of external and
external commitment that results in more good things happening and fewer bad things
happening. According to Fullan, leaders must act with a moral purpose, understand the
change process, and understand that it is critical that relationships improve, work on
knowledge-creation and sharing, and work on knowledge-making. Reminders regarding
the change process include 1) the goal is not to innovate the most; 2) it is not enough to
have the best ideas; 3) appreciate early difficulties of trying something new-the
implementation dip; 4) redefine resistance as a potential positive force; 5) reculturing is
the name of the game; and 6) never a checklist, always complexity (Fullan, 2001).
Fullan’s work is especially pertinent in today’s high-accountability, high-stakes
educational environment. If a school leader cannot manage, and really direct, the change
process at school, it is possible students will not meet their potential and achieving
academic success becomes a challenge. Fullan’s reminders help leaders stay on track
regarding the change process and help to make positive change be implemented at a
reasonable and consistent pace and be long-lasting. Professional Learning Communities
is one type of reform that has helped school communities come together and work
collaboratively towards positive change, improving the achievement gap, and improving
student achievement for all students.

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The Power of Professional Learning Communities
Professional Learning Communities have been shown to improve student
achievement for all groups of students in helping to eliminate the achievement gap. A
professional learning community is a process and type of program at schools where
teachers and staff work together to improve student learning results by looking at
outcomes and improving/changing practices as needed to maximize performance. The
professional learning community approach to professional development is ongoing,
embedded within context-specific needs of a particular setting, aligned with reform
initiatives, and grounded in a collaborative, inquiry-based approach to learning. PLCs
promote positive cultural change, leadership enhances and is enhanced by PLCs, adult
learning theory strengthens PLCs, interconnectedness enhances PLCs, and key structural
conditions must be in place for PLC plans to be most effective (Annenberg Institute,
2007). Some of the most well known work in PLCs was pioneered by Richard Dufour.
Richard DuFour and his colleagues (2004) at Adlai Stevenson High School in the
northwest suburbs of Chicago, developed several practices that led to dramatic
improvements in teaching and learning that define the professional learning community
model. Professional Learning Communities at Work identifies characteristics of PLCs
including shared mission, vision, and values, collective inquiry, action orientation and
experimentation, continuous improvement, and results orientation (DuFour & Eaker,
1998). DuFour and his colleagues continued their work in PLCs for many years. After
reflecting on the severe needs of students with the most challenges, they found effective
strategies to help struggling students, and collected their findings from several different

55

schools including Stevenson, Freeport Intermediate School, Boones Mill Elementary
School, and Los Penasquitos Elementary School. The common threads in these schools
that made a difference with struggling students include having a clarity of purpose, a
collaborative culture, collective inquiry into best practice and current reality, action
orientation, a commitment to continuous improvement, a focus on results, strong
principals who empower teachers, a commitment to face adversity, conflict, and anxiety,
and the same guiding phrase, “We do whatever it takes” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, &
Karhanek, 2004).
Building on the work of DuFour, Schmoker (2006) reviews steps school
communities may make as they develop professional learning communities to improve
student learning for all students. The professional learning community is centered on
student learning and everything the stakeholders do in that community supports and helps
improve student learning. Collaboration, distributed leadership, common planning and
assessments, looking at student work, are all hallmarks of PLCs. Schmoker’s work is
often studied by schools and districts and is considered required reading for anyone
involved in school reform. Schmoker and DuFour’s work is complemented by Hughes
and Kritsonis (2006), who make a case for school staffs to implement professional
learning communities to increase student achievement. Professional learning
communities empower the teachers and staff to work together to ensure student success
and do whatever they need to do to address the needs of all students. The five attributes
of professional learning communities are supportive and shared leadership, collective
creativity, shared values and vision, supportive conditions, and shared personal practice.

56

From Whatever it Takes (DuFour, 2004) to Failure is Not an Option
(Blankenstein, 2004), strategies are presented to ensure academic success for all students.
Blankenstein (2004) examines several principles to guide the building of professional
learning communities including the development of a common mission, vision, values,
and goals; ensuring achievement for all students: systems for prevention and intervention;
collaborative teaming focused on teaching and learning, using data to guide decision
making and continuous improvement; gaining active engagement from family and
community, and; building sustainable leadership capacity (Blankenstein, 2004). The
professional learning community model is used throughout the nation. PLCs are one
program that is geared towards the adults in the building working together to arrive at
solutions of challenges, creating lessons, units, and assessments together, and sharing
best practices, all with a focus on student learning. PLCs treat teachers as professionals
by not only soliciting their input, but counting on their expertise to improve teaching and
learning by collaboratively tackling even the most difficult learning problems.
Professional Learning Communities focus attention where it needs to be focused, on
improving student learning.
Emergent Themes From the Literature
As the literature was reviewed, several themes emerged. First of all, there is a
history of the achievement gap in the United States that must be understood for schools
not only to make progress but to see where the achievement of their students stands
within the current, former, and future public expectations and political climate. Secondly,
there are myriad types of gaps that must be understood if schools are to eliminate those

57

gaps. Thirdly, there are programs and schools that are making progress. With each school
that is successful in closing the achievement gap, there is hope and recommendations for
other school leaders and their staffs and that are striving to do the same at their schools. It
is critical for school leaders and their staffs to know about the schools and programs that
have been successful so they can build on that success. Fourthly, the importance of
leadership and specifically principal leadership to school improvement, is found
throughout the literature. School communities must realize this importance and work
towards developing supporting leadership as part of their improvement efforts. And,
lastly, professional learning communities are one way to improve student achievement
that has been successful in many schools and has a growing body of research that support
them.
Summary
The achievement gap is a growing problem, early identified by research and
policy conducted and enacted at the federal level, notably the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 and A Nation At Risk in 1983, and acerbated by the high
stakes accountability found in recent legislation such as No Child Left Behind
(reauthorization of ESEA). Some schools have been successful in reducing or eliminating
the achievement gap and helping all students succeed academically. Many of these
schools are described and cited in the literature from Jack Britt High School in North
Carolina to Granger High School in Washington State. Successful programs have been
developed, such as professional learning communities and the strategies outlined in
Breaking Ranks and other documents, that show promise in helping schools eliminate the

58

achievement gap. There are also many other schools that have developed their own site-
specific programs that have not fallen under the umbrella of one or more of the other
established programs. Some schools are making progress. This study examined one
school that has made progress in closing the achievement gap and helping all students
academically perform beyond expectations.

59

CHAPTER 3
Research Methodology

Introduction

The achievement gap is considered by some as the greatest social inequity of our
time. As our system of education continues to evolve and teaching methodology
continues to improve with each new educational research study, the achievement gap
continues to be an issue in many communities and a national concern. The purpose of the
study is to examine a school that has successfully closed the achievement gap to identify
factors which have contributed to its success. In order to fully grasp the external and
internal pressures, the qualitative case study focused on the implementation of practices
schools utilized to successfully close the achievement gap.
Research Questions
The main research questions were:
• What school wide programs promote student achievement and contribute
to the closing of the achievement gap?
• Which school wide practices promote student achievement and contribute
to the closing of the achievement gap?
• What instructional strategies were implemented to target the closing of the
achievement gap?
These questions support the overall goal of the study. If it is determined that a school has
successfully closed the achievement gap or had made great progress and is in the way to
closing the gap, how did they do it? Was it done on a school-wide level? What programs

60

and practices were integral in this process? What specific strategies did they implement
to target the closing of this gap?
Criteria for Selection
The school that was studied has at least a thirty-percent free and reduced lunch rate
and one or more of the following criteria:
• the school scored 20 points higher than the statewide API for at least two of the
following traditionally underperforming subgroups (minority, low SES, students
with disabilities and ELL) for at least two or more years or
• the school showed significant growth in API for 2 or more years in one or more of
its traditionally underperforming subgroups, or
• the school received a similar school ranking as defined by the state of at least a 7
over two years.
Academic Performance Index (API)
The Academic Performance Index (API) measures the performance and growth of
schools and districts based on the test scores of students in grades 2 through 12. The API
is a single number on a scale of 200 to 1000 that indicates how well the students in a
school or district performed on the previous spring’s tests. An API is calculated for the
whole school plus its “numerically significant subgroups”, including ethnic groups,
socioeconomically disadvantaged students, English learners, and special education
students. The system is on a two-year cycle that gives a “base” score for the first year
and a “growth” score in the second year. API scores of schools of the same type
(elementary, middle, high) are ranked into “deciles”, with 1 as the lowest and 10 as the

61

highest. Schools have two rankings: 1) a statewide ranking that compares each school to
all other schools in the state of the same type, and 2) a similar schools ranking that
compares each school with 100 others that have similar student populations and other
characteristics (California Department of Education, 2007).
The statewide tests that are used in calculating API include the California
Standards Tests (English-language arts, mathematics, history-social science, and science),
the California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA) in mathematics and English-
language arts, and the CAHSEE (English-language arts and math) in grade ten (also
grades eleven and twelve if the students passed the test). Test weights are indicated in the
table below (CDE, 2007).
Table 2
API Test Weights

The API is calculated by combining each student’s scores from each indicator to
represent the performance of the school. For the CSTs and the CAPA, the standards-
based performance level is used (Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, and
Far Below Basic). For the CAHSEE a level of pass or not-pass is used (350 for English-
Language arts and 350 for mathematics). Note that while CAHSEE pass-rate is used to
Content Area 2006-07
API Test Weights
CST in English-Language Arts (Grades 9-11) 0.30
CST in Mathematics (Grades 9-11) 0.20
CST in Science (Grades 9-11) 0.22
CST in History-Social Science (Grades 10-11) 0.23
CAHSEE English-Language Arts (Grades 10-12) 0.30
CAHSEE Mathematics (Grades 10-12) 0.30
CST in Life Science (Grade 10) 0.10
Assignment of 200, CST in Mathematics, (Grades 9-11) 0.10
Assignment of 200, CST in Science, (Grades 9-11) 0.05

62

compute a school’s API, under NCLB and Program Improvement, to meet the Annual
Measurable Objectives (the second criteria measured to exit Program Improvement
status), proficiency rate of first time, tenth grade test-takers is used, not pass rate.
In 1997, the expectation of NCLB to exit Program Improvement status was an
improvement of 5% from the previous year’s base API for the whole school as well as for
each sub-group. Sub-groups include African American or Black (not of Hispanic origin),
American Indian or Alaska Native, Hispanic or Latino, Asian, Filipino, Pacific Islander,
White (not of Hispanic origin), Socioeconomically Disadvantaged, English Learners, and
Students with Disabilities. The sub-groups with 0-99 students are not considered
significant when calculating API or CAHSEE proficiency or pass rates. Note that it is
possible a sub-group can become significant or stop being significant based on
enrollment at the time of testing. This becomes more likely with decreasing enrollments
due to new school openings in the same attendance area.
Academic Performance at North East High School
North East High School has shown progress in their API each year since 1999,
starting with an API of 561, improving 79 points over the next several years to reach 640
in 2007. The first year that English Learners and Student with Disabilities were
considered significant sub-groups was 2005. Each year NEHS has had significant sub-
groups for Latino, Socio-Economic Status, English Learners, and Students with
Disabilities. In 2004, NEHS had a school-wide API 0f 618, 64 points higher than the
similar schools median API of 554. In 2005, NEHS had a school-wide API of 638, 27
points higher than the similar schools median API of 611. And, in 2006, NEHS had a

63

school-wide API of 653, 42 points higher than the similar schools median API of 611. In
2007, NEHS had a school-wide API of 640, 30 points higher than the similar schools
median API of 610. Table 3 summarizes the API for NEHS with comparisons to the state
from 2003 to 2007.
Table 3
North East High School (NEHS) Sub-Group Comparison with State

API numbers are the Base API from the year listed, from DataQuest, www.cde.ca.gov

Methodology Overview
The study is a qualitative case study. The data collection tools included surveys,
interviews, documents, and an observation protocol. The tools were developed by the
Closing the Achievement Gap Thematic Dissertation Team, University of Southern
California (USC), in March, 2008. The nine members of the Closing the Achievement
Gap Team developed the tools, including selection criteria and definitions, discussed
their nine different respective case studies, and shared findings with each other.
Sub-Groups 2003 2004 2005 2005 2006 2006 2007 2007
NEHS NEHS NEHS CA NEHS CA NEHS CA
Black 549 639 649 578 644 589 625 596
Latino 536 582 605 597 621 612 617 621
Asian X X X 796 X 807 X 814
Filipino X 582 X 755 X 763 X 768
White X X X 745 X 759 745 765
Socioeconomically
Disadvantaged
529 592 603 593 638 607 617 616
English Learners 576 586 588 586 585 590
Students
with Disabilities
X 441 X 456 524 463
Median
Schoolwide/Statewide
561 618 638 671 653 683 640 689
MedianSchoolwide/
Similar Schools
569 554 638 611 653 611 640 610
API 2/7 3/9 3/8 NA 3/9 NA 3/8 NA

64

The subjects included administrators and teachers. Staff interviewed included the
principal, one assistant principal and three teacher-leaders (department chairs). The
entire certificated faculty was surveyed including teachers, administrators, and other
certificated personnel.
Sample and Population
The sampling strategy was typical case purposeful sampling within a case study.
While the entire certificated staff was surveyed, the interviewees were selected as typical
teacher-leaders or administrators selected by a key informant. The purpose of a
qualitative profile of one or more typical cases is to describe and illustrate what is typical
to those unfamiliar with the setting (Patton, 2002). Qualitative data was collected
including observations, interviews, and document analysis, and surveys.
Naturalistic inquiry was used with a deductive approach. The framework was
created by the Closing the Achievement Gap Thematic Dissertation Team in February,
2008, and was based on several studies including Robert Marzano’s What Works In
Schools, and Bolman and Deal’s Reframing Organizations (2003). Validity and
confidence in the findings was addressed by collecting and analyzing data from multiple
sources from two different stakeholder groups (administrators and teachers) and included
surveys, interviews, documents, and observations. The administrators and teachers were
each given similar but non-identical surveys (to triangulate the data).
North East High School was chosen because the researcher was interested in
doing a case study on a school that, while meeting the minimum requirements (for two
years: seven+ API, similar schools, 40% free and reduced lunch, and proficiency for at

65

least one sub-group), is also a large urban high school (over 1000 students and located in
or near a large urban city) with the challenges that are often associated with these schools
(safety and gang issues, space- impacted campuses, big teacher and administrator turn-
over). Access was obtained from a direct request to the principal. A request was made for
7 full-day visits and a request to survey teachers, administrators, and students and
interview four teachers and two administrators. The focus was specifically on the
practices and programs North East HS used to eliminate the achievement gap. While
there are several factors that may affect the achievement gap in a school from economic
gap to the social capital gap, this study focused on the achievement gap and what North
East did to eliminate it. In particular, principal leadership was examined.
Instrumentation
There were four different data collection tools used including a survey of teachers
and administrators, interviews of teachers and administrators, a document analysis
protocol, and an observation protocol. The intent of using four different data sources was
to triangulate the data to validate findings. The data collection tools were developed by a
team of researchers at USC in the Closing the Achievement Gap Dissertation Team, a
group of nine researchers conducting individual case studies at nine different public
schools. All of the tools are found in the appendices.
There were two surveys administered, one for teachers and one for administrators.
The surveys were similar and each survey had 37 questions that were organized by
research question. The surveys had four choices for each question, 1) Strongly Disagree,

66

2) Disagree, 3) Agree, and 4) Strongly Agree. The Administrator Survey tool is found in
Appendix A and the Teacher Interview tool is found in Appendix B.
There were five staff members interviewed, the principal, an assistant principal,
and three teachers. The teachers interviewed were all chairpersons for different content-
area departments. There were 10 questions on the teacher interview and 11 questions on
the administrator interview. The questions were organized by research question. The
interviews lasted from 30 to 75 minutes each. The Administrator Interview tool is found
in appendix C and the Teacher Interview Tool is found in Appendix D.
Observations were documented using an observation tool that indicated trigger
words such as “welcoming” and “engagement”. Also included on the observation tool
were Bolman and Deal’s Four Frames (Structural, Human Resources, Political, and
Symbolic). The tool had two columns for data input labeled “What is Happening?” and
“What do I Think is Happening?”. The Observation Tool is found in Appendix H.
Documents were analyzed using a document analysis tool. The tool indicated
several possible documents, the specific data found in the document, and the research
questions the document might address. For example, the Single School Plan was
indicated as a possible document to collect with data possibly including class size,
number of suspensions/expulsions, population breakdown, supplemental programs,
California Healthy Kids Survey results, vision and mission statements, and teacher
groups. Research questions 1, 2, and 3 were indicated as questions that would be
addressed by this document. The Data Collection Tool is found in Appendix G.

67

The Conceptual Model is a graphic representation of what was found in the
literature regarding school factors that have an effect on student achievement, outside
factors that have an effect of student achievement that schools have little or no control
over, and what this case study may show to have a direct impact on the student
achievement at this particular school. School factors affecting student achievement in the
model include school personnel practice, school programs, school culture, school-wide
professional development, school teachers, instruction, and practice, and school
leadership. Factors that affect student achievement that schools have little or no control
over include federal law (NCLB), school population, the global community, community
expectations, and state testing. Factors that may affect the achievement gap, according to
the model, are parent communication, improving teacher quality, early intervention, and
collaboration/use of data. The Conceptual Model is found on page 7.
Data Collection Procedures
The intellectual framework that was used as the lens from which to analyze the
data was Bolman and Deal’s Four Frames. It was with these frames in mind: Human
Resource, Symbolic, Political, and Structural that the data was collected and analyzed.
The unit of analysis was the successful school. The units of observation included specific
administrators and teachers who were interviewed, and the entire certificated staff that
was surveyed (Appendices A-F). Additional units of observation were the programs,
policies, curriculum, and practice as observed and analyzed through document analysis
(Appendix G). There were four different types of data collection providing some
triangulation, including interviews, observations, documents, and surveys.

68

There were 5 interviews, two surveys, and several observations over a span of 5
visits in 7 weeks (Appendix A-F). The schedule of school visits is outlined on Table 10
in Appendix J. The interviews were scheduled at the convenience of the interviewees,
held during the day during teacher conference periods. The surveys were administered
during a school-wide faculty meeting on October 6, 2008. The observations were held at
various times during the school visits, before school, during school, and after school. The
study occurred from September to October, and a schedule of site visits, document
collection, and interviews was arranged with the school principal. Data from the
document analysis, surveys, interviews, and observations was triangulated and used to
help answer the research questions and discover what the school did to eliminate the
achievement gap at their site and become an out-performing school.
Data Analysis Procedures
The data was analyzed with Cresswell’s 6-step method. The steps are 1) organize
and prepare the data for analysis, 2) read through all the data, 3) begin detailed analysis
with a coding process, 4) use the coding process to generate a description of the setting or
people as well as categories or themes for analysis, 5) advance how the description and
themes will be represented in the narrative, and 6) make an interpretation or make
meaning of the data (Cresswell, 2002).
Steps were taken to validate the data collected. The data was collected from four
different sources providing triangulation of the data (surveys, interviews, observations,
document analysis). Member-checking was used to determine the accuracy of the
qualitative findings by taking back descriptions and themes to the participants as a final

69

check. Negative information running counter to the themes was also presented in the
study adding more credibility. Peer debriefing was used to enhance the accuracy of
described accounts (Cresswell, 2002).
Themes were identified and each theme was addressed in the analysis. The data
was triangulated by collecting and analyzing the same results from four different sources:
interviews, documents, surveys, and observations. The people involved in the interviews
and research consented to the study. Resources were provided by the researchers.
Ethical Considerations
Staff, students, and parents were notified about observations and interviews and
surveys were optional. At no time did any of the participants feel they were obligated in
any way to participate, though the participation rate was very good. The identity of the
respondents was kept confidential. There were no names on the reply instruments and the
survey was administered by someone who is neither on staff at the school nor knows
anyone at the school. The data will be filed in confidence for 3 years as required by the
Institutional Review Board process. The respondents were assured in the interviews, as
well as the surveys, that the intent of the study was to help other schools with information
collected and lessons learned so they may improve their practices and policies to
eliminate the achievement gap at their schools.

70

CHAPTER 4
Presentation and Analysis of Data

Introduction

The purpose of this case study is to understand how one particular school has
begun to eliminate the achievement gap between African-American and Latino students
with white or Asian students, and recommend the techniques and strategies they used to
other schools that have the same challenges. The gap is being eliminated by some
schools, but the achievement gap is blatantly apparent in many other schools. How did
this particular school do it? Can what they did and are doing be replicated by other
similar schools? Specifically, what programs, policies, and instructional strategies at the
school are leading to the elimination of the achievement gap at the school? A complete
description of the school and a typical day at the school is included to provide a frame of
reference from which to interpret the data. Data will then be presented by research
question followed by a summary of the data.
Description of the School
North East High School is located in the north east of Los Angeles, close to the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Rose Bowl, and Pasadena, at the base of the San Gabriel
Mountains. NEHS is part of a school district with 24 elementary schools, three middle
schools, and four other high schools. NEHS has been in existence for 40 years. Starting
out as a middle school, NEHS added 9
th
through 12
th
grade becoming a “SPAN” school,
will be adding 6
th
grade next fall and are planning to expand to a Pre-K through 12
th

Grade Learning Complex. During the 2005-2006 school year, the school was being

71

considered for closure because of low enrollment. However, a strong recruiting effort by
the principal, staff, and community resulted in an additional 400 students enrolling from
outside of the district, bringing in additional revenue and securing the future of the
school. Also, at the same time, several parents and their students and children were vocal
at school board meetings and other public meetings about their determination to keep
NEHS open. In the same year, the school became an International Baccalaureate (IB)
school adopting the IB Middle Years Programme for 7
th
-10
th
grades and the Diploma
Programme for 11
th
and 12
th
grades. The IB Middle Years Programme is a general,
humanities-based course of study that prepares students for the “changing world” with a
world-wide, generalist approach. The Diploma Programme is a two-year curriculum
resulting in several exams at the 12
th
grade level, comparable to Advanced Placement, but
with an interdisciplinary focus. The IB Exams are graded by readers all over the world.
Information from the School Accountability Report Card (SARC) show there
were 1298 students in the 2006-2007 school year enrolled in Grades 7-12 and student
ethnicities at the school were 51.2% Hispanic, 32.9 % African-American, 10.4% White,
1.8 % Asian, 1.6% Filipino, .2% American Indian, .5% Pacific Islander, with 1.3%
Multiple ethnicities or no response. The 2006-07 student population included 53.2%
Socioeconomically Disadvantaged, 14.3% English Learners, and 9.3% Students with
Disabilities. The school-wide class size was 28 and the pupil to teacher ratio was 23:1
for the 2006-07 school year.
There are currently 52 certificated/teaching staff in addition to three certificated
administrators (principal and two assistant principals). In 2006-2007, the teaching staff

72

included 47 teachers who were fully credentialed, 9 with emergency credentials, 4
interns, and 4 teaching outside their subject area. The support staff includes 4 counselors,
a health aide, librarian, a half-time nurse, a half-time psychologist, 4 Resource Specialist
Program (RSP) Teachers, 4 RSP Aides, 2 Special Day Class (SDC) Teachers and a half-
time Speech and Language Specialist. There is also an International Baccalaureate (IB)
coordinator/coach, a literacy coach, an instructional coach, and a Bilingual
Program/English Learner coordinator/coach. The school is planning to add a part-time
math coach.
There are extensive classes, tutoring, and various options for students offered
through the highly respected afterschool program, NEHS Learns, funded from a 21
st

Century Community Learning Centers grant and the school district. The school has a
number of partnerships with local hospitals, businesses, universities, and arts
organizations. The principal of NEHS, formerly a middle school principal and an
elementary principal, was recognized by the Association of California School
Administrators as the statewide High School Principal of the Year in 2005-2006.
A Typical Day at North East High School
The following is an account of a typical day at North East High School based on
actual events on different days.
North East High School, at first glance, seems like many other schools. From the
green signs at the front of the school, to the North East logos, all around, to the brightly
painted green benches in front and the students and staff that are seen milling about
during breaks and before school, you would have no idea what was going on in the

73

classrooms, in the hallways, in the offices, and on the yard. If you look high enough you
can barely see past the three story main classroom building to a run-down highway and a
structure the principal describes as “alien”, the city power plant.
Students are in uniforms and there appears to be a friendly atmosphere at the
school. Everyone seems to get along. You notice there are some much younger kids
alongside the high school kids before you realize this is a SPAN school, with Grades 7-
12. You find out that a sixth grade is to be added next year and that the school might
someday become a Pre-K -12
th
grade complex. You’ve looked at the data. You know
the mostly African-American and Latino students at the school are scoring higher than
their counterparts at other schools in the state. But you don’t know why.
You notice a lack of graffiti around the school and no trash. The school is clean.
If you are there more than a few minutes, you are sure to see the principal. The principal
doesn’t carry a radio, and you realize he doesn’t need to at NEHS for one simple reason.
He is everywhere.
It’s 6 am and the principal of North East is holding his daily meeting with his
plant manager and doing a “walk-about” the campus to be certain there are no problems
and the campus is ready for the day. At 7 am, the administrative team meets for their
morning briefing to discuss the day’s events and communicate with each other any urgent
problems and concerns.
The door to the office is open and often you will hear the principal ring out, in
mid-sentence, “Good morning, John. How are you doing today” or “Liz, great, you’re
wearing your uniform, good job! Remember our talk the other day, no shenanigans!”

74

“Right, no shenanigans!” The door to his administrative assistant’s office is off the hinges
and at some point he asks her who is absent today and if all of the subs have arrived.
The team is discussing problems they are having with one of the staff members.
And you hear language that you will learn will be a recurring theme from the principal.
“Now, what does that tell you? What is the next step? What are you going to do? What
else are you going to do? Let me know how that goes and if I can do anything.” You
realize this is a teacher/mentor leading the school and he mentors most everyone he
comes into contact with.
At 7:45 am, the meeting quickly ends and the principal rushes out to meet
students in front of the school and greet staff and parents. He is constantly talking with
everyone. “How are you doing today? Are you ready for the test tomorrow? Are you a
national merit scholar? (PSAT) How are you doing in football?” After a few minutes of
directing traffic, the principal seems to disappear as you see the students hurriedly
rushing to class. You notice the village of bungalows next to the school that look empty.
As school starts, you enter the campus and see something that is too often unfamiliar in
large schools: every teacher is at their classroom door greeting their students. And you
realize you are seeing a replay of what you were seeing before school. As you walk into
a classroom, you see something else in every classroom. Students completing an initial
assignment, called a “Do Now”, with the same kind of agenda. You see “Homework, Do
Now, Aim and Lesson Steps” and find out this is called the Model Blackboard
Configuration. You also see the same kinds of bulletin boards in each class with
standards posted, student work, and rubrics. You see students who are paying attention

75

and engaged. You see teachers who are focused. And you start to wonder. Is this it? Can
this be why their kids are doing well?
You head back to the main office and see the “leader board”. The large white
tablet is on an easel and states what is going on that day. “Eight Systems, Leadership
Team, Culture of Excellence Assembly, Assessments, PR 101: School Tours, IEP
Meetings”. At the end it says, “Get plenty of exercise and water. Take care of yourself”,
and you realize that you are in a special place where people do care.
You catch a section of the school tour, hear the principal explain his vision for a
Pre-K to 12
th
Grade Complex and his hope that the new bond will pass bringing millions
of dollars to the school for much needed plant repairs and upgrades. You hear about
Saturday School, the four-hour class that starts at 6 am, and the new “Do the Math”
program the school started. And you are certain to hear the principal chant with groups of
students or staff members throughout the day, “Who are we? [Together] We are the
proud, we are the few, we are the Vikings! What is Number 1? [Crowd answers, in
chorus] Respect! Number 2? [Crowd answers, in chorus] Work smart!”
You run back into the main office area to see the principal with 10 people
crammed into his small office. It’s an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meeting in
session. You hear the principal talking with the student. “And, how is it going in English
now? Are you catching up? You realize you need to take and pass the CAHSEE this
year. Are you ready? Is there any other help you think you might need?”
Next-up, you go the assembly and wonder how a school gets along with no
auditorium. The outdoor amphitheatre needs work. The chairs look weathered and it

76

looks like the sound system is a hundred years old. The warm temperature seems to rise
several degrees as the hundreds of students pour into the theater. After the students are all
seated, you see the principal down on the stage. “Johnny, how are you doing in math?
Are you ready for the CAHSEE? Joni, sit down, we’re getting started!” You find out
later that the principal does, in fact, know all of the students in the school by name. “OK,
people, get settled. How are we doing today? We just got our test results. We’re looking
good, but we still need some work in some areas. It all starts with you. Stay on top of
things. Get ready, our benchmarks are coming next week.” You hear the chant, again.
“Who are we? [Together] We are the proud, we are the few, we are the Vikings! What is
Number 1? [Crowd answers, in chorus] Respect! Number 2? [Crowd answers, in chorus]
Work smart!”
At lunch, the principal is greeting students at the door to the cafeteria, talking to
students non-stop. After lunch, you notice a handful of students who seem to be
wandering but no sooner did you notice them did one of the aides and one of the assistant
principals descend upon them and rush them to their classes. You see a quick, impromptu
meeting in the hallway between the principal, two assistant principals, and out of
classroom teachers, discussing tardy sweeps and when they should be scheduled. And
you hear, again, “What do you think? What should be the next step? So, what are you
going to do?”
Before you know it, the final bell has rung and it is after school. You look out on
the street and see the principal in the intersection directing traffic, greeting parents and
students as they leave for the day. You’re exhausted and ready to go home. But you head

77

back in and find a whole other school, after school. You see the Afterschool Program,
NEHS Learns including tutorial classes, all shapes and sizes, and find students helping
each other and a number of classes taught by regular teachers and some tutoring sessions
led by college students. Before you go, you look out of the building and see the tennis
team in a match against the school’s cross-town rival (and you see the principal greeting
the coach and encouraging the team), and a group of teachers in a meeting discussing the
new advisory program and next steps to take in developing the curriculum for the
program. The principal is at that meeting, also, and you wonder, how one person can fit
so much into a day? You drive away from the campus thinking about all you saw going
on at this little school with big dreams tucked away next to the old freeway and the huge
city power plant. And you can’t help but wonder, do they realize that this work they are
doing every day will positively impact their students for the rest of their lives?
Data by Research Question
The main research questions were:
• What school wide programs promote student achievement and contribute
to the closing of the achievement gap?
• Which school wide practices promote student achievement and contribute
to the closing of the achievement gap?
• What instructional strategies were implemented to target the closing of the
achievement gap?

78

School-wide Programs and Student Achievement (Research Question #1)
School-wide programs were explored in several ways through interviews with
administrators and teachers, a survey of administrators and a survey of teachers,
observations, and document analysis. A list of programs at North East that have been
found to impact student achievement are shown in Table 4 on Pg. 81.
Through the surveys, most administrators and teachers agreed that there is a
professional development program to train teachers in methods to help students master
content standards, programs to improve parental involvement, programs providing
teachers with training in effective instructional methods and strategies, a program or
programs to provide academic assistance for students who need it, and a program or
programs to assist teachers in the use of academic assessments. However, while 2 out of
three administrators believe there is a program or programs to provide teachers with
training in classroom management, 72% of the teachers did not agree. Several of the
programs were observed and found in documents at the school-site.
In the interviews, several school-wide and department-specific programs that
promote student achievement were described by both teachers and administrators. The
principal described the IB program as being the umbrella that covers all of the other
programs.
I would probably say the big umbrella is the International Baccalaureate
Program. When we first adopted IB back in the middle school when I was the
principal there some 12 years ago, the purpose of the IB program was an agent
for change. It needs to be something big and audacious and kids can realize,
wow this is exciting stuff that you can market. What's good about public
education because IB is a world class program. This is a world-class city. So IB

79

would be, I believe, the bigger piece of the umbrella, building a belief system
that all kids can and will be successful.

The International Baccalaureate program includes a Primary Years Programme, a
Middle Years Programme (7
th
-10
th
Grade), and a Diploma Programme (11
th
-12
th
Grade).
NEHS offers both the Middle Years Programme and the Diploma Programme. The
school also offers a 7
th
and 8
th
Grade “loop” where students remain with the same
teaching staff for two years. As the teachers get to know their students, they are able to
identify students that need help to meet standards and refer them to one of the many
intervention programs at the school. NE offers an extensive afterschool program
including tutoring, credit recovery classes, and enrichment classes.
There is a cross-age tutoring program where seniors “adopt” freshmen who need
academic assistance and work with them throughout the year. Seniors who participate in
the program are awarded the “Viking Package”, a senior package including a yearbook,
grad night, and other items with a total value of over $500. On the last day of school
NEHS sends all of the students, tutors and their tutees, on a trip to Magic Mountain.
There is a “Newcomer Center” for students who are new to the country and need
assistance in language development with a new Saturday academy planned for the same
group of students. The principal stated it succinctly when he said “targeted students get
targeted assistance”.
Other programs offered by NEHS include a Health Academy, the Puente
Program, as well as Advanced Placement and ROTC. The school started a new program
this year entitled “Do the Math”. The Health Academy is a California Partnership

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Academy, with two local hospitals as partners, designed for students who desire a career-
technical focus. They have a dedicated counselor, participate in an internship program,
and many of the students receive college scholarships. The Puente program targets the
Hispanic population and pairs up the same students with two English teachers and a
counselor who all work closely together in both 9
th
and 10
th
grade (students “loop” in
Puente keeping the same teacher in 9
th
and 10
th
grade). Students participate in several
different college trips. The main objective of the program is to help improve the college-
going rate for the Hispanic students and it’s working. Many teachers and administrators
cited the Puente Program as one of the outstanding programs of the school and one
reason families choose to send their children to NEHS.
The principal described the Newcomer Center for students new to the country and
a program for students newly re-designated as proficient in English.
In the Newcomer Center we’re looking at what am I doing with my students that
are new to the country that really need basic skills in language. They don’t have
the language skills, whatsoever. And we’re expecting most of those students,
unless they pick up the pace real quick, to spend an extra year in high school.
They certainly aren’t going to meet standard in those four years. We’re expecting
to start something with our Title III money on Saturday, November 1, a language
immersion program for the students that are my RFEPS. My students that have re-
designated to make sure they stay there, some basic literacy classes, some math,
some writing, some English, and some computer lit stuff.

Another program NEHS offers school-wide is Accelerated Reader (AR). Students
borrow or purchase AR books at their reading level and take quizzes online to earn
points. The school offers incentives for students that earn so many points in a given
period of time. The school has offered a successful book club, featuring AR books, as
described by one of the assistant principals in her interview.

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Accelerated Reader has really sparked reading here. And something else I didn’t
mention. We had a Book Club. And the Book Club just means there were so
many books that came out, and to say these are the books we’re reading this
month. And our literacy coach worked with one of the book stores so we can
purchase those books for 5 dollars a book. And the kids were running to get those
books. They would read the book and they would have a book talk at lunch. And
you could just see the enthusiasm! I mean kids were reading books at lunch. It’s
anecdotal, but you could see people reading more than they ever read before. They
were running out of AR books in certain reading levels because the kids were
reading so much. Parents were calling all the time, “do we have any more books?”
We were selling out of the books. So, those types of things, you can see people
reading more.

A complete table listing the school-wide programs that promote student achievement

and help to close the achievement gap follows.

Table 4
NEHS School-wide Programs that Promote Student Achievement
and Close the Achievement Gap

NEHS Programs that Promote Student Achievement
Program Name Target/Grade Summary Funding
Advanced Placement 11
th
-12
th
Grade Advanced study in a specific
course (depth) leading to college
credit
School and District
Accelerated Reader 9
th
-12
th
Grade Language Arts/Reading
Development
School and District
Army Junior Reserve
Officer Training Corps
9
th
-12
th
Grade Leadership Training and character
development
School and
District, US Army
Cross-age Tutoring
program
9
th
& 12
th
Grade Tutoring program for struggling 9
th

graders, tutors are 12
th
graders
School
Do the Math 9
th
-12
th
Grade Math Skills Development School and District
Health Academy 9
th
-12
th
Grade
Career-Tech
focus
Exploration and training in medical
careers
California
Department of
Education
International
Baccalaureate (IB)
Middle Years
Programme
7
th
-10
th
Grade Advanced study across disciplines
(breadth)
School and District
International
Baccalaureate (IB)
Diploma Programme
11
th
-12
th
Grade Advanced study across disciplines
(breadth) leading to a diploma and
college credit
School and District

Table 4, Continues

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Table 4, Continued

Newcomer Center 7
th
-12
th
Grade,
New to the
United States
Focus on literacy and language
development
School and District
Puente Program (9
th
-
10
th
)
9
th
-10
th
Grade Loop students, English and
personalization
School and District
Puente Program (11
th
-
12
th
)
11
th
-12
th
Grade College trips, prepare for college School and District

School-wide Practices That Promote Student Achievement and Close the
Achievement Gap (Research Question #2)

At NEHS there are several school-wide practices that promote student
achievement based upon the survey data, interviews, observations, and document
analysis. Based upon the survey data from both the administrators and teachers, there
were noticeably clear expectations on the part of all parties, students, teachers,
administrators, and families, as to what was expected from each person. The
administrative team unilaterally felt teachers were encouraged to collaborate, they are
active in identifying and implementing professional development goals, there is an
intentional effort to improving home-school relations, academic content standards are
dictated by the district’s adopted curriculum, and that teachers, not students, select
academic content students are expected to learn. While the teachers did agree with the
administrators in some areas, there were some differences. Less than half of the teachers
(45%) surveyed felt that they did not discuss their teaching with administrators on a
regular basis, 73% of the teachers felt they received feedback from administrators to
improve teaching effectiveness, 72% of the teachers felt they received feedback from
other teachers to improve their effectiveness, 73% of the teachers felt the teachers had

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comparable expectations regarding student academic performance, 57% of the teachers
felt that professional development training over the last year has provided useful
information to improve teaching effectiveness, and half of the teachers (50%) felt
teachers selected academic content the students are expected to learn.
The interviews, document analysis, and observations all paint a clear picture of
the several instructional practices that promote student achievement evident throughout
the school. The school administers benchmark exams every ten weeks, created at the
central district level, and is working towards better alignment of those exams with the
California State Standards and and the California Standards Tests. The school uses
resources tied to specific textbook adoptions such as Holt. As the principal explained in
his interview, they are simply using the available materials from the publisher to start.
This allows the teachers more time to focus on their specific students’ needs and
implementation of the instructional program.
You look at the cores, at what you’re purchasing these days for teachers. They’re full
of teacher guides that are scripted with lesson plans, 5 week instructional maps aligned
with the content standards, aligned with the blueprints, so we use those as our lesson
plan maps at this point in time. I’m not looking for a great deal of creativity. So it’s
important for us to stay scripted with those materials. Look at our instructional maps,
backward map from CST testing in the spring, backward map every five weeks to
teach towards mastery, and those are the conversations they’re having right now.
What does mastery look like? You know, what does a grade look like compared to that
mastery? What assessments besides the chapter test are we using to find if the kids
learn that concept at that point and what are you doing to back-fill the gap? In math
that program is Do the Math piece. Hopefully, that individualized learning program
(ILP), that ILP on Accelerated Math[the ILP that identifies exactly which math skills
the student is working towards mastering], is helping us backfill skills for our kids.
Professional development is aligned with that. Sending folks out to the workshops
and the conferences aligned with the new adoptions is Number 1.

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Culture of Excellence

There are specific aspects of the school that support student achievement as noted
in staff interviews and observations. An academic culture is pervasive at NEHS. It’s
promoted everywhere from assemblies, to bulletin boards in hallways and offices, to the
classroom. The expectation is student achievement. It comes up at every gathering. Last
year the school started calling students in for Culture of Excellence Assemblies. One of
the assistant principals described the assemblies in her interview.
We did it by grade-level, all day, the first Monday of every month. And that was
just to set the tone that we need to have academic achievement, that this is our
focus here. This is the data for your grade-level, now how can you, as students,
help us get there. What support do you need? We did that every Monday (for the
57 minute period). Every grade-level went one period. This year because they’re
doing advisory and they’re by grade-level, we have a couple of times pulled a
whole grade-level in the cafeteria or in the cafeteria on the other side to talk about
specific issues and they’re all related to student achievement.

Some of the teachers interviewed stated they believed a school-wide focus on
student achievement and consistency from classroom to classroom was critical. In
addition to the Culture of Excellence Assemblies, tardy sweeps, the use of instructional
strategies across every classroom such as the Blackboard Configuration and Do Now
activities, were also cited as contributing to an academic culture. As one of the teachers
stated, “Our students are aware, we make them aware of where they are and what we
want to see happen with them, perhaps more than I’ve seen at other schools I’ve taught
at.”

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Mentoring, Building Capacity, and Relationships

To help ensure the instructional program is implemented and teachers are
supported, NEHS has many support systems in place. All new teachers (and some veteran
teachers, at times) are assigned a mentor. The mentor is often, but not always, the
department chair. The principal and two assistant principals assist teachers in the
classroom as needed along with a number of full-time out-of-classroom certificated
staff/teachers. There is an academic coach, an International Bachelaureate (IC) coach, a
technology support provider, a language development resource teacher (who works with
the English language learners and coaches teachers), and the school is adding a part-time
math coach this year. The principal explains some of the activities the coaches do and
states that the effectiveness of this support is measured.
They’ll go to the workshops and they’ll come back and be the hands-on coach for
the people in the building. Whether it’s modeling lessons, whether it’s a critical
reflection of a lesson, whether it’s monitoring a reflection, whether it’s an
informal reflection, or whether it’s the formal evaluation by the administrative
team here at the school-site, effectiveness of those instructional practices will be
based on those benchmark exams every 10-weeks.

The principal felt like “getting the right people on the bus” (Collins, 2001) and
developing those people was critical to students’ success at North East.
But I think the most important thing we can do is build capacity within an
organization so that everybody has ownership in the program, they understand the
big picture and where we’re going. You can have the best and brightest teachers in
the world. You can have all of these wonderful, beautiful little, scripted, pretty
little programs, but if you don’t have the right, bright people in the right seats,
going good to great, you’re not going to get there.

Time and time again, relationships came into the conversation. One teacher stated
what he believed the difference was at NEHS. “I actually think it’s probably

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relationships. I think most of the students here do have a relationship with at least one or
two of their teachers and I think it just makes a big difference. They feel secure and they
feel that somebody cares about them. You know, they’re there and that they can talk to
them. You know, that kind of thing. I mean that’s what I’ve seen.”
You can’t get away from seeing how important the relationships are at North East.
The principal and his administrative team and leadership team were observed working
closely together, getting the work done that needed to be done, from administering the
PSAT to “Do the Math” lessons to an athletic event and student body assembly. And their
relationships with each other appeared to be close and an important part of making sure
each objective was met and each goal achieved.
The principal explained this in his interview.
You're trying to build relationships. You look at those seven milestones as outlined
in Breaking Ranks II: relationships, rigor, and relevance for students. I think the
relationships is the big piece ‘cause this is a human organization. It’s about people.
It’s about kids coming to school. It’s about staff coming to school. Getting up in the
morning and saying, you know, ‘I can’t wait to go to school”. I think the culture
continues to grow, you know, based on our ability to have hard conversations with
one another. When I put that leader board up, the attendance, the other day (it was
last week), one teacher said “you’re scolding us again”. That’s why I said what I said
(I apologized for being too harsh) because then we’re engaged in the conversation,
you know, paying attention to each other. And I challenged (my AP and instructional
coach) in a private conversation. I pushed them a little too hard and stretched them
beyond where they were stretchable at that point in time. I didn’t do a good job
coaching, I wanted too much too quick; sometimes it’s better to go slow than to go
fast (and I publicly apologized to them in front of the team for stretching them to
fast, too soon). I think having those relationships with staff. Us, as a leadership team
modeling, facilitating the conversation of what we expect to see in the house; I think
builds capacity, it builds relationships between students and staff. [We should be]
expecting everybody to know kids by name. Know every kid by name. In a small
learning environment, you can do that. There’s a lot to be said for that. You’re not
lost in the crowd at this point in time. I think building that sense of trust [is critical].
Good coaches will build a sense of trust by affirming. They’ll come alongside of

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you. They’ll affirm what you’re doing well and will engage in a reflective
conversation. Nobody knows any better than you do, about the things that you are
not doing well. Nobody needs to tell you that. You know in your head loud and
clear. Those are the things that keep you up at night. You don’t have to come and tell
me what I’m not doing, I know it. Don’t hit me over the head with it. And I think if
we can build that sense of collaboration and philosophy in the house with students
and staff and bring the parents into that mix, too, at the same time [we’re headed in
the right direction].

The Eight Systems

One of the most evident of the instructional practices, and what might be the key
to success at NEHS is what the principal calls the “eight systems”, strategies that you will
find every where you look. You can’t get away from them. They are on the “leader
board”, the informational board everyone sees as they enter the main office. They are
announced at faculty meetings, teachers are reminded of them at each meeting, on the
agenda, on the PowerPoint. They are even on the teachers’ evaluation forms. Teachers
are expected to use and are and held accountable to use the eight systems in their
classrooms. The systems were developed by the principal with the staff as a means to
improve student academic performance. They are each aligned with one of the standards
of the California Standards for the Teaching Profession and are founded on research or
based on other models (see Appendix I). The Eight Systems are 1) Meet & Greet, 2)
Blackboard Configuration (BBC), 3) Data-driven Seating Charts, 4) Standards-based
Bulletin Boards, 5) Five-Week Instructional Maps, 6) 85/85 Model (Student
Engagement), 7) Student Organizer, and 8) Assessment to Guide Instruction
(see Table 5).

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To get a better understanding of the eight systems, look at them in the context of a
typical classroom at North East. At first, students approach their classroom and see their
teacher in the door.
Meet and Greet (CSTP 2.5, Planning and implementing classroom procedures and
routines that support student learning) is the expectation that all teachers meet and greet
student at the door of their classroom as they enter class. After being greeted by their
teacher, students enter the classroom with an expectation that there is work for them to do
immediately. There is no question in their minds as to what will happen as they sit down.
After they sit down, the students look up to the board, review the Blackboard
Configuration and begin their Do Now activity. The Blackboard Configuration (CSTP
4.2, Establishing and articulating goals for student learning) was developed by Lorraine
Monroe in New York City and was one of the strategies she used when transforming a
troubled school in Harlem into the Frederick Douglass Academy in 1991. The
Blackboard Configuration, or BBC, is a consistent, clear way of presenting a map for
classroom instruction that is used in every classroom and includes 4 parts, Homework,
Do Now, Aim, and Lesson Steps. Homework is the homework assigned for the same
afternoon/evening, based on that same day’s lesson. Do Now is a pencil and paper
activity students are expected to do immediately upon sitting down in their seats at the
start of class. The activity is designed to be able to be completed by the student without
assistance from the teacher. Typically, when the student is completing the Do Now, the
teacher passes back homework, takes attendance, or attends to any other administrative
matter. The Aim is the lesson objective or the objectives, written in student-friendly

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language. The Aim may be a standard or a strand from one of the standards, written in
student-friendly language. The Lesson Steps, commonly called lesson activities, includes
exactly what the students and the teacher are doing, such as reviewing homework,
introducing a new concept, enrichment activities, that type of thing.
Students are sitting according to the seating chart developed by their teacher. One
of the students needs help with one of the problems in the first lesson activity and he is
able to ask his neighbor for assistance. Data-Driven Seating Charts (CSTP 2.3, Promoting
social development and group responsibility) are developed by the teacher for each class
in order to facilitate heterogeneous groupings/teams of students so students at different
levels of proficiency and skills can work with each other, reinforcing the skills of higher
level students while helping students who need more assistance. The seating charts are
based on grades, benchmark assessments, or any other achievement data available to the
teacher. Data-driven seating charts are discussed further with the data collected from the
third research question regarding instructional strategies implemented to close the
achievement gap.
A student takes a quick glance around the room and sees the bulletin board that is
built around a writing assignment they had completed a few days before. Standards-based
Bulletin Boards (CSTP 5.1, Establishing and communicating learning goals for all
students) include the standard students have been working to master in the assignment, a
rubric that clearly communicates if the student work did or not meet the standard, and
examples both of excellent work and of work that does not meet the standard.

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As the teacher jumps into the introduction of the new concept, it’s not a surprise
to many of the students. They had seen the five-week plan for their course posted for
some time on the school website and they had talked with their parents about what was
coming up next in the class so they were in the loop. Five Week Instructional Maps
(CSTP 4.4, Designing short-term and long-term plans to foster student learning) are
posted by every teacher so parents and students are aware of upcoming assignments and
expectations. Posting the maps also assists in ensuring all of the teachers are planning
adequately for classroom instruction. Backwards planning and teaching for understanding
has been shown in several studies to improve student outcomes, most extensively by
Grant Wiggins and Jay McTigh in Understanding by Design (2005).
The student looks back to the front of the room as the teacher calls on him and he
remembers that in this classroom, he is always “on” so there is no time to daydream. The
85/85 Model (CSTP 1.4, Engaging students in problem solving, critical thinking, and
other activities that make subject matter meaningful) is a way to measure student
engagement. Teachers are expected to engage 85% of the students, 85% of the time.
The student starts to plan the rest of his time as he is getting ready to complete
and independent assignment. The Student Organizer (CSTP 1.5, Promoting self-directed,
reflective learning for all students) is a tool that all students are expected to use to
organize their classwork and homework and to help them meet the expectations of each
class.
As the homework is assigned, the student is certain to complete the correct
assignment. Some of the students are doing different homework based upon the results

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of the quiz that was just returned. Assessment to Guide Instruction (CSTP 5.4, Using the
results of assessments to guide instruction) is the expectation that teachers use frequent
assessments to adjust lessons and lesson objectives as needed, to maximize student
outcomes. Teachers are trained to focus on student learning, not simply teaching lessons
without checking for understanding on a regular basis. Table 5 lists the North East High
School Eight Systems.
Table 5
The NEHS 8 Systems
School-wide Instructional Practices that Promote Student Achievement
and Close the Achievement Gap

System Name Research Base Summary
Meet & Greet Various. First Days of
School, Harry Wong
Teachers meet and greet students at the door as they
enter class on a daily basis.
Blackboard
Configuration
(BBC) and Do
Now
The Monroe Doctrine,
Lorraine Monroe
Lesson agenda/lesson map, consistent across every
classroom including Homework, Do Now, Aim, and
Lesson Steps. Do Now is a paper/pencil “in to” or
warm-up activity to begin each instructional period.
Data-driven
Seating Charts
Principal with Leadership
Team based on best
practice.
Students are seated in classrooms according to skill
level to ensure heterogeneous groups of students in
order to better facilitate group work.
Standards-based
Bulletin Boards
Standards-based
Instruction. Institute for
Learning, Lauren Resnick,
Bulletin boards include standard (s) addressed, rubric
or means to assess student understanding and
exemplars of student work that both demonstrate
understanding of the standard (s) as well as
exemplars of student work that demonstrate a lack of
understanding.
Five-Week
Instructional
Maps
Understanding by Design,
Wiggins and McTigh
Every 5 weeks curriculum maps are posted by
teachers on the school website so parents and
students have a clear understanding of what is
expected of students on a regular basis.
85/85 Model Principal with Leadership
Team based on best
practice.
Teachers are expected to engage a minimum of 85%
of their students in classroom instruction a minimum
of 85% of the time.
Student
Organizer
Principal with Leadership
Team based on best
practice.
Students are expected to maintain organizers that
indicate expectations for completing homework and
other assignments.
Assessment to
Guide Instruction
Principal with Leadership
Team based on best
practice.
Teachers are expected to use a variety of assessments
to determine proficiency and use the results from
those assessments to adjust their instructional plans
as needed to maximize student understanding.

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Instructional Strategies Implemented to Close the Achievement Gap
(Research Question #3)

There was somewhat of a challenge to answer this question through this study.
NEHS is not unlike many other schools in Southern California with primarily Latino and
African-American students and an “insignificant” number of white or Asian students.
Per No Child Left Behind (NCLB), an insignificant sub-group is defined as a sub-group
of fewer than 100 students. Specific ethnicities are some of the sub-groups identified by
the state and the federal legislation in the Standardized Testing and Reporting system
(STAR testing) and NCLB. The achievement gap in this case was measured by a
comparison of the African-American and Latino students at NEHS with the average of
the white and Asian students, statewide. When “how the school has worked towards
closing the achievement gap?” was discussed in interviews and informal meetings
throughout the observation/visitation process at North East, it was always with an
intentional additional question of “how has the school worked towards improving the
achievement of all students, specifically your African-American and Latino students?”
Survey data for the third research question was more consistent than the first two
questions when comparing the administrator surveys and the teacher surveys. The
majority of both teachers and administrators surveyed believed the school had
instructional strategies in place to close achievement gap. Actually, only 2 teachers out of
a total of 55 staff (52 teachers and 3 administrators), responded “very strongly” that the
school did not have strategies on place on only two out of 14 of the questions in this
section. Nearly unilaterally, surveys showed that teachers and administrators felt that

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when teachers develop lessons they consciously select content that meets the district’s
student competencies and performance standards. The surveys also showed teachers and
administrators felt that teachers select instructional materials based upon their knowledge
of their students’ developmental needs and learning styles, select teaching methods and
strategies that accommodate individual student needs and interests, and consciously
prepare lessons with high expectations designed to challenge and stimulate all students.
The surveys showed teachers and administrators felt that teachers consciously consider
how to build upon their students’ existing knowledge and experiences, consciously
consider how to create active learning experiences for their student to facilitate
engagement, and consciously consider how to create cooperative learning experiences for
their students. The surveys also showed that teachers and administrators felt that teachers
consciously design lessons that require integration of content from more than one content
area. Both teachers and administrators also agreed that when teaching, teachers monitor
students’ understanding of the content and make adjustments accordingly, move among
the students, and engage individually and collectively with them during the learning
experience. The surveys showed that teachers and administrators felt that teachers
consciously implement a teaching strategy and instructional materials that stimulates
higher-order thinking skills, create social interaction among students by requiring
students to work as a team with both individual and group responsibilities, and vary the
size and composition of learning groups. Teachers and administrators also agreed in the
surveys that when a student is having difficulty with an activity or assignment, the

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teachers are usually able to adjust it to his/her level and at the school, peer tutoring is
often used to assist struggling students.
Observations, interviews, and an analysis of school documents also demonstrated
that the school had developed instructional strategies implemented to close the
achievement gap.
Using Data to Make Instructional Decisions
It all starts in the classroom with data-based seating charts and goes on to targeted
support, per the principal.
We have talked about data-based seating charts. We use something called a reverse
rank which is a strategy we use in class because I expect to see some peer tutorials,
collaborative team or peer groups in class, quads, clusters, and stuff like that. The kids
in 7
th
and 8
th
grade are looped and do the teaming as in the national middle school
model. Students who need extra support are processed through the school study team
that meets on Tuesdays. Number one is, are they appropriately placed? Number two is
the Do the Math piece. In the Do the Math program, students who need extra help
based on their diagnostic test, are placed in the class with actual math teachers.
Targeted students get targeted staff associations. Number three is going to be one of
the intervention programs we have on campus, whether it’s language or if it’s strategic
reading classes we offer for our students who need it which is a double block of time
and it’s going to be the intervention program, part of the afterschool tutorial support
program, because that’s fairly fluid [the tutorial program].

Both the teachers and administrators stated in interviews that looking at
achievement data to make decisions about planning for instruction and designing
programs to help improve student achievement was a regular occurrence at North East.
One teacher even said he felt that the staff looked at data “too much” and would prefer to
spend more time designing curriculum. Observations at the site showed that data was
important to the staff and students: achievement data was posted in most classrooms and
offices, mentioned in the hallways, at meetings, and at assemblies. The principal and

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school staff was concerned about low math scores on the CSTs, so they went through the
process to develop and implement the Do the Math program. When the data showed that
the English Learners sub-group needed more help, the school set out to design a new
Saturday academy and support for the students. In informal meetings around the campus
it was clear that the staff is thrilled there is a new data program being adopted by the
district, Data Director, that will help the school collect and analyze data more quickly and
efficiently.
Interventions
Interventions are offered to students in many different formats and all of these
interventions are designed to help all students meet grade-level standards. North East
Learns is the afterschool program that provides tutorial services for all students, credit-
recovery classes, and additional classes for credit. North East Learns is funded from the
United States Department of Education under the 21st Century Community Learning
Centers grant program. Ninth graders who need additional assistance to meet grade-level
standards as measured by the CSTs are helped by outstanding seniors who participate in
the cross-age tutoring program. Students with special needs are assisted by the special
education program and many students who are English learners are assisted in the Puente
Program, the Newcomer Center, or the new program for the Re-designated English
Proficient Students (RFEPs, students who recently tested out of English as a Second
Language classes into regular English classes).

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Emergent Themes from the Data Collection
Several themes emerged through collection process at North East including
Leadership and Data-Driven Decision-Making, Relationships, and Organization/Culture
of Excellence. Leadership and Data-Driven Decision-making were integral to improving
student achievement and continuous improvement at the school. This was reiterated
throughout the data from the interviews, to the surveys, observations, and analysis of
documents. Principal leadership was a major factor in addition to a network of mentoring,
support, and leadership development at all levels. Also, the time and effort spent on
examining data was exhaustive. The principal, school leadership, teachers, and to some
degree, students, all looked at data and used that data to inform decision-making.
The importance of relationships was another theme that resounded throughout the
study at North East from the relationships between principal and teachers, students, and
community, to the relationships between teachers, between students, and any other
relationship that you could find at the school. This was also supported by the data with
several staff members at every opportunity volunteering their view that relationships are
what drive the school.
And, lastly, Organization and a Culture of Excellence were found to be factors to
closing the achievement gap through the data collection reiterated through multiple
sources. The school was very organized, from classroom instruction to how stakeholders
are involved to several different operational systems. Also, a Culture of Excellence was
promoted and expected. Culture of Excellence Assemblies were just one outward sign of

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what was found throughout the classrooms, hallways, meetings, and interactions between
teachers, students, administrators, parents and other stakeholders.
Summary of Data
After visiting the campus, meeting with the staff, interviewing administrators and
teachers, shadowing the principal, sitting in on meetings, surveying the staff, reviewing
documents, and collecting different kinds of data, a picture started coming into focus
regarding what North East is doing to close the achievement gap at the school and ensure
that all students achieve. There were several consistencies that cut across all of the data;
models and programs that were enthusiastically implemented and supported, philosophy,
attitude, and a way of thinking that was clear to all of the stakeholders that were
encountered whether they were teachers, students, administrators, clerical support, or
other stakeholders.
Data collected from the surveys, interviews, observations, and document analysis
described a student-focused school that uses data to make decisions, values and promotes
positive relationships between all stakeholders, and develops leadership and capacity at
all levels. The school-wide programs at the school designed to promote student
achievement and close the achievement gap included the International Baccalaureate (IB)
Middle Years Programme, International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme, Puente
Program (9
th
-10
th
), Puente Program (11
th
-12
th
), Newcomer Center, Health Academy,
Advanced Placement, Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, Accelerated Reader,
and Do the Math (new). School-wide practices at NEHS designed to promote student
achievement and close the achievement gap included Culture of Excellence Assemblies, a

98

focused effort to consistently look at data to drive instructional and school-wide
decisions, and school-wide implementation of the eight systems to organize instruction in
every classroom (Meet & Greet, Blackboard Configuration (BBC) and Do Now, Data-
driven Seating Charts, Standards-based Bulletin Boards, Five-Week Instructional Maps,
85/85 Model of Student Engagement, Student Organizer, and Assessment to Guide
Instruction). Instructional strategies the school implemented to close the achievement gap
were a little more elusive because North East is so entrenched in helping every student
achieve, they don’t focus extensively on particular sub-groups as much as other schools
might. And, as mentioned earlier, the school staff and community, teachers,
administrators, and the rest of the stakeholders, led by their principal, regularly look at
data and make instructional decisions and design programs for students as needed based
on that data.

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CHAPTER 5
Findings and Discussion

Introduction
We are facing a steadily growing achievement gap in the United States between
white and Asian students and their Latino or African-American peers. While some school
communities have begun to eliminate the achievement gap at their schools, more research
needs to be done to explore best practices and replicate those practices at other schools
that are struggling. The case study was completed at North East High School because the
school has a high population of students in the free and reduced lunch program, have had
African-American and Latino students who have scored higher than the state averages for
African-American and Latino students for several years, and has had a similar schools
ranking of 8 or 9 every year since 2004.
Summary of Findings
After a review and analysis of the data collected from the study, several themes
emerged that give an insight into what the school community might be doing to close the
achievement gap at North East: Leadership and Data-driven Decision-making,
Relationships, and Organization/Culture of Excellence.
Leadership and Data-Driven Decision-making
As described in the findings, the principal was simply everywhere. He knew the
students by name and appeared to set the tone/provided a model for others to follow in all
areas from his relentless pursuit of excellence, always striving to improve in all areas, to
his moral imperative to ensure all students achieve at high levels. The principal talked

100

about the importance of relationships throughout the study but it wasn’t only talk. While
he would be discussing the way he embraced relationships, rigor, and relevance as
outlined in Breaking Ranks II, he would interrupt himself mid-sentence to greet a student
or briefly talk to a teacher or other staff member. On a daily basis, the principal was
observed teaching and mentoring staff and students alike, further developing the capacity
of his staff to make the organization stronger and the work more effective.
Data was no stranger to the staff and students at North East. The principal and
leadership team appeared to constantly look at all kinds of data to design instructional
plans and programs to improve student learning outcomes. The benchmark exams, CSTs,
California High School Exit Exams, CELDT and other assessments, as well as school-
generated data about attendance and behavior referrals were all means to collect data to
improve the school program and student achievement results. Data was reviewed and
discussed in staff meetings, professional development sessions, classrooms, offices,
assemblies, and in the hallways. Data was everywhere and the staff was very aware of the
implications of the data and what needed to be done after looking at the data.
Relationships
The importance of relationships was another theme that was found consistently
throughout the study. The importance of relationships was mentioned in several of the
case study interviews and in many of the informal conversations held during
observations. In fact, many of the staff members stated they felt that positive
relationships between students and teachers, teachers and administrators, administrators
and students, parents and staff, was the main reason the school has been able to start to

101

close the achievement gap. Relationships are considered by many researchers as critical
for student success (Breaking Ranks II, 2004).
Organization and Culture of Excellence
The school was organized for success from the classroom to the hallways and
offices. It was clear that there were not many fiscal resources at the school. The school
plant was clean but clearly needed sprucing up; a paint crew was seen each day of the
school visits painting in the hallways. But one thing was clear. Everywhere you looked,
student achievement was important. Classroom instruction was implemented (and
teachers were evaluated) around the Eight Systems (research-based systems of school-
wide instructional strategies and classroom organizational tools). Formal and informal
leaders constantly discussed student achievement data and what the school could do to
help improve student learning outcomes. A culture of excellence was embraced by staff
and students alike and student learning results were a regular topic of staff and students
during assemblies, meetings, at lunch, before and after school, in the offices, classrooms,
and hallways.
A Comparison of Emergent Themes from the Literature and the Case Study
The themes that arose from the literature and the themes that arose from the case
study were similar but not exactly the same. The history of the achievement gap,
including federal legislation and vision documents produced at both the federal and state
levels, were woven into the data collected from North East. No Child Left Behind,
Breaking Ranks, and Goals 2000 are examples of initiatives and programs that the data
showed influenced school decisions and programs. While different types of gaps were

102

found in the literature and they were also important at the school site, the data did not
show the gaps were emphasized at the school. The features of successful programs and
schools, found in the literature, were often found in the data from the case study.
Programs and policies designed to ensure all students succeed were found both in the
research and at the school. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) as described in
the literature were not found at the school-site. However, many of the attributes of PLCs
were in place at North East including looking at student learning outcomes by content
area and making instructional and school-wide decisions based on that data. Leadership
was one emergent theme from the literature that was a major finding in the case study.
In addition to leadership, data-driven decision-making was an emergent theme
from the case study that was found throughout the literature in leadership frameworks
and other research. Relationships were found to be important both in the literature and the
case study, though the data collected made a good argument that relationships might be
the most important factor that helped close the achievement gap and improve student
achievement at North East. School organization and developing a culture of excellence
were also found both in the literature and the case study. One thing that may set the
school apart, though, was how pervasive both of these attributes are. Classroom
instruction is organized based on best practices and research (the eight systems) and the
way instruction is delivered on a daily basis is reviewed in professional development for
new and veteran teachers consistently. Table 6, that follows, lists the Data Collection
Tools, Emergent themes, and Research Questions.

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Table 6
Summary of Data Collection tools, Emergent Themes, and Research Questions

Data Collection
Tools
Emergent Themes
Literature
Emergent Themes
Case Study
Research Questions
Observations History of the Achievement
Gap
Leadership and
Data-driven
Decision-making
What school wide
programs promote student
achievement?
Surveys and
Interviews
Types of Gaps Relationships Which school wide
practices promote student
achievement?
Document
Analysis
Successful Programs and
Schools, Leadership,
Professional Learning
Communities
Organization &
Culture of
Excellence

What instructional
strategies were
implemented to target the
closing of the achievement
gap?

Additional Findings
There are two other characteristics of this school that might be factors when
considering improved student achievement that were not specifically addressed by this
study. The school is relatively small, under 1300 students in Grades 7-12. Small schools
research has shown that students are more successful in small, more personalized
environments (Cotton, 2001). It is interesting to note that although the school is fairly
small, there are many programs that break down the size even further providing more
personalization (the Health Careers Academy and Puente Program are two such
examples).
Secondly, the school is a school of choice. While there is a small attendance zone,
most of the students attend North East from outside of the area. Some researchers believe
that parent involvement is stronger and students are more successful in schools that they
choose to attend rather than attend because they are in the attendance zone for the school.

104

Implications
The implications of the results of the study are far-reaching. There are mandates
for schools in No Child Left Behind, many states place sanctions on low-performing
schools including program monitoring, and some schools are even restructured. There is a
critical need for our students to be proficient in reading and math, for success in college
and the workplace. Quite simply, it is essential that schools improve. But how to make
significant gains in student achievement is, for some, a mystery. Even though there is
extensive research on school transformation, what people do to make improvements in a
school, there is no set formula or a silver bullet for schools. There is no easy way. This
study starts to answer the big questions and the results should be replicable to other low-
achieving schools so they can start on their road to eliminating the achievement gap in
their schools.
The study of North East High School sheds a light on what one school is doing to
close the achievement gap and actions other schools might wish to consider in their
efforts. This is a school with a strong principal and dedicated staff that all look at data to
make decisions. This is a school with every classroom organized around their own eight
systems of tools and strategies. And this is a school where relationships not only matter,
they are critical for success.
Fiscal support is always helpful for schools who are improving. However, this
school has shown it is sometimes less important how many fiscal resources you can
access than how you use those resources. This is a school that has very little funding yet
seems to use every dollar it has efficiently.

105

For schools that believe more money is the answer to improve student
achievement and close the achievement gap, the study shows that this is not necessarily
true. The study shows that a school with limited resources, but a strong principal and
dedicated staff that looks at data and works together, can be successful in closing the
achievement gap for their students.
Limitations
There is one limitation that might not be replicable at other schools. If principal
leadership is considered one of the major factors that led to the success at North East, the
principal cannot be replicated, exactly. However, the qualities and attributes of the
principal could certainly be studied and his/her skills could be developed in other leaders
at different schools through various pre-service and in-service leadership training
programs.
Areas for Further Research
A few areas for further research are indicated. The school has just started
providing targeted support for specific sub-groups. It would be helpful for schools to look
at what successful schools or school programs are doing to improve student achievement
for one particular sub-group or additional sub-groups. Research can be conducted at
schools that are having outstanding results specifically with students with disabilities or
specifically with African-American students or specifically with Latino students or with
English Learners. It also might be helpful for schools to gather research from schools that
have been successful, specifically through the lens of what the central office has done to
support and drive their efforts (possibly studying supports for principals, teachers, and

106

parents, along with students). And, lastly, because there are so many schools that are in
Program Improvement status as defined by No Child Left Behind, research into schools
that have been able to exit Program Improvement status would be helpful to schools in
trouble.
Conclusion
The findings give hope for all schools to be able to close the achievement gap.
NEHS is a school with very few resources but with a dedicated staff and community with
a fierce resolve to help all students be successful. While their monetary resources are
scarce, the staff and community appears to make the best use out of every dollar and
leverages community resources, including local business partnerships, whenever
possible. The school is not a perfect school. The faculty is aware of their challenges and
gaps and works diligently and consistently to meet those challenges and close those gaps
on a daily basis.
The study at North East was enlightening. It demonstrates that a school that has a
staff with a moral imperative to ensure all students are successful and a strong principal,
who understands data, builds capacity and relationships, can start to close the
achievement gap, even with limited funding and fluctuating central office leadership. It
shows that maybe schools and researchers should look first to the power of relationships
when designing school improvement plans and programs. And it shows not to
underestimate the power of organization and school pride. As is heard regularly at North
East, “We are the few, we are the proud, we are the Vikings!”

107

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APPENDIX A
Survey (Administrators)

Research Question 1: What school wide programs promote student achievement?

1. My school has a school-wide professional development program or programs for
teachers to enable all children in the school to meet the state academic content
standards.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

2. My school has a school-wide program or programs to increase parental involvement
through means such as family literacy services.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

3. My school has a school-wide program or programs providing training to teachers in
effective instructional methods and strategies.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

4. My school has a school-wide program or programs that provide effective, timely
assistance for students who experience difficulty in attaining the proficient or
advanced level of the state content standards.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

5. My school has a school-wide program or programs to assist teachers in the use of
academic assessments to provide information on, and to improve, the achievement of
individual students and the overall instructional program.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

6. My school has a school-wide program or programs that provide teachers training in
effective classroom management and discipline strategies.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

Research Question 2: What school wide practices promote student achievement?

7. Teachers are encouraged to collaborate with other teachers on instructional matters on
a regular basis.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

115

8. Teachers have an active role in identifying and implementing professional
development goals and objectives for the school.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

9. I have regular discussions with my teachers regarding their teaching.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

10. The evaluation feedback I give to teachers assists them to improve their teaching
effectiveness.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

11. The teachers are aware of specific areas of interest I look at when visiting their
classrooms.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

12. Assessment of student learning is directed to improving, rather than just monitoring,
student performance.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

13. The assessment of student learning is based on specific, clearly identified academic
standards for student performance.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

14. Teachers seek feedback from other teachers to improve their teaching.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

15. Decisions about school improvement are always based upon our school improvement
plan.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

16. Teachers at this school have comparable expectations regarding student academic
performance.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

17. Professional development training over the past year has provided useful information
helping teachers increase their teaching effectiveness.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

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18. Teachers at this school are encouraged to use the same or similar instructional
strategies.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

19. There is an intentional effort to improving home-school relations and parent
participation.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

20. Academic content students are expected to learn is dictated by district’s adopted
curriculum.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

21. Academic content students are expected to learn do teachers select.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

22 Academic content students are expected to learn is selected by the students.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

Research Question 3: What instructional strategies were implemented to target the
closing of the achievement gap?

23. When teachers develop lessons, they consciously select content that meets the
district’s student competencies and performance standards.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

24. When teachers develop lessons, they consciously select instructional materials based
upon their knowledge of their students’ developmental needs and learning styles.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

25. When teachers develop lessons, they consciously select teaching methods and
strategies that accommodate individual student needs and interests.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

26. When teachers develop lessons, they consciously prepare lessons with high
expectations designed to challenge and stimulate all students.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

117

27. When teachers develop lessons, they consciously consider how to build upon their
students’ existing knowledge and experiences.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

28. When teachers design lessons, they consciously consider how to create active
learning experiences for their student to facilitate engagement.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

29. When teachers develop lessons, they consciously consider how to create cooperative
learning experiences for their students.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

30. When teachers develop lessons, they consciously design lessons that require
integration of content from more than one content area.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

31. When teaching, teachers monitor students’ understanding of the content and make
adjustments accordingly.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

32. When teaching, teachers move among the students, engaging individually and
collectively with them during the learning experience.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

33. When teaching, teachers consciously implement a teaching strategy and instructional
materials that stimulates higher-order thinking skills.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

34. When teaching, teachers create social interaction among students by requiring
students to work as a team with both individual and group responsibilities.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

35. When teaching, teachers vary the size and composition of learning groups.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

36. When a student is having difficulty with an activity or assignment, the teachers are
usually able to adjust it to his/her level.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

118

37. At my school, peer tutoring is often used to assist struggling students.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

119

APPENDIX B
Survey (Teachers)

Research Question 1: What school wide programs promote student achievement?

1. My school has a school-wide professional development program or programs for
teachers to enable all children in the school to meet the state academic content
standards.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

2. My school has a school-wide program or programs to increase parental involvement
through means such as family literacy services.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

3. My school has a school-wide program or programs providing training to teachers in
effective instructional methods and strategies.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

4. My school has a school-wide program or programs that provide effective, timely
assistance for students who experience difficulty in attaining the proficient or
advanced level of the academic content standards.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

5. My school has a school-wide program or programs to assist teachers in the use of
academic assessments to provide information on, and to improve, the achievement of
individual students and the overall instructional program.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

6. My school has a school-wide program or programs that provide teachers training in
effective classroom management and discipline strategies.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

Research Question 2: What school wide practices promote student achievement?

7. Teachers are encouraged to collaborate with other teachers on instructional matters on
a regular basis.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

120

8. Teachers have an active role in identifying and implementing professional
development goals and objectives for the school.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

9. I regularly discuss my teaching with my administrator(s).
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

10. The evaluation feedback I receive from my administrator(s) assists me to improve my
teaching effectiveness.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

11. I am aware of specific areas of interest that my administrator(s) looks at when visiting
my classroom.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

12. Assessment of student learning is accomplished to improving, rather than just
monitor, student performance.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

13. The assessment of student learning is based on specific, clearly identified academic
standards for student performance.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

14. Teachers seek feedback from other teachers to improve their teaching.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

15. Decisions about school improvement are always based upon our school improvement
plan.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

16. Teachers at this school have comparable expectations regarding student academic
performance.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

121

17. Professional development training over the past year has provided useful information
helping me increase my teaching effectiveness.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

18. Teachers at this school are encouraged to use the same or similar instructional
strategies.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

19. There is an intentional effort to improving home-school relations and parent
participation.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

20. Academic content you expect your students to learn is dictated by district’s adopted
curriculum.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

21. Academic content you expect your students to learn do you (or you and your
colleagues) select.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

22. Academic content you expect your students to learn is selected by your students.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

Research Question 3: What instructional strategies were implemented to target the
closing of the achievement gap?

23. When developing my lessons, I consciously select content that meets the district’s
student competencies and performance standards.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

24. When developing my lessons, I consciously select instructional materials based upon
my knowledge of my students’ developmental needs and learning styles.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

25. When developing my lessons, I consciously select teaching methods and strategies
that accommodate individual student needs and interests.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

122

26. When developing my lessons, I consciously prepare lessons with high expectations
designed to challenge and stimulate all students.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

27. When developing my lessons, I consciously build upon my students’ existing
knowledge and experiences.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

28. When developing my lessons, I consciously consider how to create active learning
experiences for my students to facilitate engagement.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

29. When developing my lessons, I consciously consider how to create cooperative
learning experiences for my students.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

30. When developing my lessons, I consciously create lessons that require integration of
content from more than one content area.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

31. When teaching, I monitor students’ understanding of the content and make
adjustments accordingly.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

32. When teaching, I move among the students, engaging individually and collectively
with them during the learning experience.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

33. When teaching, I consciously employ teaching strategies and instructional materials
that stimulate higher-order thinking skills.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

34. When teaching, I create social interaction among students by requiring students to
work as a team with both individual and group responsibilities.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

35. When teaching, I vary the size and composition of learning groups.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

123

36. When a student is having difficulty with an activity or assignment, I am usually able
to adjust it to his/her level.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

37. At your school, peer tutoring is often used to assist struggling students.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4

124

APPENDIX C
Staff Interviews/Administrators
(Principal and Assistant Principal)

1. What is your position and role in the school and how many years have you
been a faculty member of the school itself and in education overall?

2. What programs does your school have that promotes student achievement?
(R1)

3. How does the program work?
a. Does it target a specific population? (R3)
b. Does it require any additional funding? – source?
c. How do you measure its success?
d. Has it been successful in reducing the achievement gap? (R3)

4. Does your school have any specific instructional practices that promote
student achievement? (R2)
a. What kind of professional development do you offer your staff?
b. How do you measure the effectiveness of the instructional practices?
(R2)

5. Does your school have specific strategies that target the closing of the
achievement gap for all students and what are they? (R3)

6. How do you promote enrollment in your most rigorous courses?

7. How do you support your teachers’ efforts in these programs and practices?

8. What does collaboration look like at your school site?

9. How do you feel the teachers support these school wide practices and
implementation?

10. What specific aspects of your schools culture support student achievement?
(R1 & 2)

11. How much parent participation do you receive?

125

APPENDIX D
Staff Interviews/Teachers
(3 teacher-leaders)

1. What is your position and role in the school and how many years have you
been a faculty member of the school itself and in education overall?

2. What programs do you have in your department/grade level that promotes
student achievement? (R1)

3. How does the program work?

a. Does it target a specific population? (R3)
b. Does it require any additional funding? – source?
c. How do you measure its success?
d. Has it been successful in reducing the achievement gap? (R3)

4. Do you have any specific instructional practices that your department/grade
level uses to promote student achievement? (R2)
a. What kind of professional development have you received in those
practices?
b. How do you measure the effectiveness of the instructional practices?
c. Has it been successful in reducing the Achievement Gap? (R2)

5. Does your department/grade level have specific strategies that target the
closing of the achievement gap for all students and what are they? (R3)

6. How do you promote enrollment in your most rigorous courses?

7. How does the school’s leadership team support your efforts in these programs
and practices?
a. Who is on your leadership team and what role do they play?

8. What does collaboration look like at your school?

9. What specific aspects of your schools culture support student achievement?
(R1 & 2)

10. How much parent participation do you receive?

126

APPENDIX E
Sample Interview Script

What does collaboration look like at your school site?

It looks like teachers collaborating by Department, subject area. But it also
looks like teachers collaborating into teams. We don’t have a lot of structured
teams. But the people on the same conference period collaborate together, and
then (they collaborate) inter-department, it just depends on what the focus is.
Sometimes we do it by what department you’re in, sometimes we do it by
what grade-level you’re working with, but we change the collaboration model
each time. It could be collaboration around some idea, like advisory. Advisory
is the Monday thing we do. The teachers are meeting Monday. That’s
teacher-led. They’re planning those activities for the Mondays, the advisory
group activities. Do the Math was organized by the math teachers, and the
academic coaches, and me. Do the Math came out of Leadership. The math
Department said we can’t do this without help. The Leadership Team took it
back to their departments and then it came to the entire staff.

How do you support your teachers’ efforts in these programs and practices?

Each one of our new teachers is assigned a coach, one of those three people
that are out of the classroom, in addition to being assigned to an administrator.
We try to use the coaching model more because any time the administrator
goes in, it’s evaluative. But the coaches can go in without that stigma. We try
to be open to them either coming to us, letting us know, or if we see a need,
saying what can we do to help you or going to one of the coaches, but each
one is assigned a coach. One coach we had to actually back out because we
could see that she did several people’s bulletin boards. And the older teachers
that we know are struggling, we assign coaches also. A lot of them are BTSA
providers, also. They do “two in one”.

What specific aspects of your schools culture support student achievement? (R1 & 2)

It’s promoted in everything we do. We have a lot of parent involvement, high
expectations from our parents, high expectations of their kids. That’s a big
push, so it’s promoted in everything we do: every assembly that we have,
every program that we put on, the students know the expectation is student
achievement. Even when it comes to meeting with the athletes. It comes up at
every gathering. Last year we did something called Culture of Excellence
Assemblies monthly. We did it by grade-level, all day, the first Monday of
every month. And that was just to set the tone that we need to have academic
achievement, that is our focus here. This is the data for your grade-level, now

127

how can you, as students, help us get there. What support do you need? We
did that every Monday (for the 57 minute period). Every grade-level went one
period. This year because they’re doing advisory and they’re by grade-level,
we have a couple of times pulled a whole grade-level in the cafeteria or in the
cafeteria in the other side to talk about specific issues and they’re all related to
student achievement.

128

APPENDIX F
Sample Completed Survey

129

APPENDIX G
Data Collection-Document Analysis

Table 7
Document Analysis Tool

Document Questions the document answers Question
Addressed
School background and profile
SARC

Single School Plan
• Class Size
• Number of Suspensions/Expulsions
• California Healthy Kid Survey Results
• Population breakdown (ethnicity, SES,
EL’s)
• Supplemental Programs
• Vision and Mission Statements
• Teacher Groups (leadership, advisory, SSC,
etc.)
1, 2, 3
List of teachers and
Support Staff
• Experience
• Credentials
• Grade Levels
• Years at current site
1
Professional
Development Plan
• Collaboration Plan, Schedule 1, 2, 3
Daily and Instructional
Schedule
• Number of instructional Minutes 3
English Leaner’s
Master, Technology and
Safe Schools Plan

• Plan for ELL and safe campus

3
Achievement Results
CST and Local
Assessments Data for
over a 2 year period.

Local Benchmarks
SARC
Website: CDE
• CST data
• API, AYP, disaggregated data by
demographics, subgroups, etc.

2, 3

Table 7, Continues

130

Table 7, Continued

Parent/Community Involvement
SARC

School/Parent handbook

Parent surveys from
school or district

School Website

Single School Plan
• Parent community/outreach education
• Community Partnerships
• Parent Survey results
• Volunteer Hours
• Parent Club
• Parent/Community Communications
(newsletters, websites)

1, 2, 3
Fiscal Information
Single School Plan

CPM Report
• Categorical Documents & Resources /
Compliance Findings
3
Other Information
WASC Action
Plan/Self-Study/Visiting
Team Report
• Referral process for Special Ed.
• Distinguished School Information
• RtI Strategies
• Teacher Evaluation
• WASC

131

APPENDIX H
Data Collection-Observations

Table 8
Observation Tool

Trigger Words: Welcoming Environment
Engagement Rigor
Focus Standards
Programs Practices
Strategies Stakeholders

Four Frames: Structural: Goals and information are clear, cause and effect
understood
Human Resources: Employee morale, resources and creativity
Political: Power, conflict, competition, organizational polices
Symbolic: Culture, meaningful, ritual, ceremony, stories

What is Happening? What do I think is Happening?

132

APPENDIX I
California Teaching Standards

Table 9
California Standards for the Teaching Profession

STANDARD ONE:
ENGAGING & SUPPORTING ALL STUDENTS IN LEARNING
1•1 Connecting students' prior knowledge, life experience, and interests with learning
goals 1•2 Using a variety of instructional strategies and resources to respond to students'
diverse needs 1•3 Facilitating learning experiences that promote autonomy, interaction,
and choice 1•4 Engaging students in problem solving, critical thinking, and other
activities that make subject matter meaningful 1•5 Promoting self-directed, reflective
learning for all students
STANDARD TWO:
CREATING & MAINTAINING EFFECTIVE ENVIRONMENTS FOR STUDENT
LEARNING
2•1 Creating a physical environment that engages all students 2•2 Establishing a climate
that promotes fairness and respect 2•3 Promoting social development and group
responsibility 2•4 Establishing and maintaining standards for student behavior 2•5
Planning and implementing classroom procedures and routines that support student
learning 2•6 Using instructional time effectively
STANDARD THREE:
UNDERSTANDING & ORGANIZING SUBJECT MATTER FOR STUDENT
LEARNING
3•1 Demonstrating knowledge of subject matter content and student development. 3•2
Organizing curriculum to support student understanding of subject matter 3•3
Interrelating ideas and information within and across subject matter areas 3•4 Developing
student understanding through instructional strategies that are appropriate to the subject
matter 3•5 Using materials, resources, and technologies to make subject matter accessible
to students
STANDARD FOUR:
PLANNING INSTRUCTION & DESlGNING LEARNING EXPERIENCES FOR
ALL STUDENTS
4•1 Drawing on and valuing students' backgrounds, interests, and developmental learning
needs 4•2 Establishing and articulating goals for student learning 4•3 Developing and
sequencing instructional activities and materials for student learning 4•4 Designing short-
term and long-term plans to foster student learning 4•5 Modifying instructional plans to
adjust for student needs

Table 9, Continues

133

Table 9, Continued

STANDARD FIVE:
ASSESSING STUDENT LEARNING
5•1 Establishing and communicating learning goals for all students 5•2 Collecting and
using multiple sources of information to assess student learning 5•3 Involving and
guiding all students in assessing their own learning 5•4 Using the results of assessments
to guide instruction 5•5 Communicating with students, families, and other audiences
about student progress
STANDARD SIX:
DEVELOPING AS A PROFESSIONAL EDUCATOR
6•1 Reflecting on teaching practice and planning professional development 6•2
Establishing professional goals and pursuing opportunities to grow professionally 6•3
Working with communities to improve professional practice 6•4 Working with families
to improve professional practice 6•5 Working with colleagues to improve professional
practice 6•6 Balancing professional responsibility and maintaining motivation

134

APPENDIX J
School Visit Calendar

Table 10
Schedule of Site Visits

August, 2008
Preparing for visit.
25

Initial Meeting

26

27 28 29
September, 2008
Preparing for visit.
1 2 3 4 5
8 9 10 11 12
15 16 17 18 19
22 23 24 25 26
October, 2008
Visit (four days).
6

School Visit #1
Interviews
7

8

School Visit #2
Interviews
Observations
9 10

School Visit #3
Observations
Doc Collection
13

14

15
School Visit #4
Observations
16 17

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The achievement gap is arguably one of the greatest social injustices of our time. Unfortunately, in some people's minds urban schools have become synonymous with low achievement, poor safety, poor attendance, and high drop-out rates. However, some schools have been able to "break through" from what is expected and far surpass other schools that look like them. These schools regularly stand out with surprisingly high test scores that continue to improve even more over time. Eventually some of these schools don't even appear to be the same school they were years before. In addition to the schools' higher test scores, attendance has improved, the schools are safe, and students tend to stay in school and graduate on time. North East High School (NEHS) is one such school.

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