Improving the Academic Improvement Plan

On January 5, 2015 the RPS School Board approved the Academic Improvement Plan for 2014-2015. In its most simple form, the school administration is tasked with managing (A) people and programs, and (B) facilities and infrastructure. The Academic Improvement Plan just approved covers (A), and later this spring, school administration will present their plan for facilities and infrastructure (B). Thus, between these two documents we will have a complete plan for reform in RPS.

The Academic Improvement Plan

The plan is based upon the National Center for Education Achievement (NCEA) Core Framework. The NCEA was a research wing of ACT, Inc. - the ACT test people - but has been reabsorbed back into the company.   

As seen in the image below, the framework is based on common characteristics found at urban, high-achieving  high-poverty schools. From their research, they developed 5 common themes with 15 core practices to instruct actions at the district, school, and classroom level.

An example of how this model is applied can be found in this 2011 NCEA core practice audit of Winnisquam Regional School District in New Hampshire.

In Richmond, school administration identified key metrics for school accreditation and SOLs to track and determine impact. Action teams, mainly comprised of central administration and school principals, created year-long action plans with district, school, and classroom-level practices, followed by more specific deliverables for each one of the 5 themes. In all, 129 deliverable practices are to be accomplished within the next year.  

Action Team	Deliverables
	Total	District	School	Classroom
Theme 1	21	6	8	7
Theme 2	38	25	9	4
Theme 3	25	13	6	6
Theme 4	19	12	5	2
Theme 5	26	15	5	6

My Analysis

Improvements in the Academic Improvement Plan are needed for RPS to realize their extensive goals (129 deliverables in the next year alone). By simplifying this plan to actions at the district-level for year 1, we can start to lay the all important infrastructure to foster and sustain an environment of successful classrooms. If constructed properly, one could easily draw a line between student activities in the classroom to the role of district administration - a constant illusion when I was teaching.

The Solution

Start with Dr. Bedden’s top 3 priorities (pp.6), which are:

Dr. Bedden’s Top Priorities

1. Improve Teaching and Learning

2. Positive Stakeholder Engagement

3. Establish and Maintain Positive Climate

To me, #3 is a product of #1 and #2. The NCEA 5 Core Framework targets - in an extensive way - #1, teaching and learning. Therefore, I’d add a 6th theme to the Academic Improvement Plan, stakeholder engagement, to address #2.

Action teams should be led by central administration, but would be comprised of a smaller number (6-8 people), from a wider range (e.g. students, teachers, private sector). These teams would be assigned to 6 core theme areas, and would plan and manage the implementation of 2-3 key solutions by the end of next year. Thus reducing 129 deliverables, to a maximum of 18.

NCEA’s Core Themes	Garet’s 6 Themes
1. Curriculum and Academic Goals	Curriculum Alignment
2. Staff Selection, Leadership and Capacity Development	Staff Selection and Development
3. Instructional Tools: Programs and Strategies	Teaching Resources
4. Monitoring Performance and Progress	Assessment
5. Intervention and Adjustment	Remediation or Advancement
[Bedden Priority #2]	Stakeholder Engagement

For example, the assessment team would set a district-level goal to have all test scores processed and returned to teachers within a 48-hour period. This would focus the team’s efforts on the needed procedural and technological efficiencies to accomplish by the end of a year at the district, school, and classroom levels.  

For this upcoming year, practices  - as identified in the Academic Improvement Plan - for schools and classrooms would remain, but would be recommendations instead of deliverables. This would allow for deliverables at these levels to be developed from the pursuit of key district-level goals in year 1.

The emphasis on paring down the number of deliverables is not to dilute the impact of change, but to direct it to where it is most needed - programmatic infrastructure.  

In talking with Jean Rutherford, a researcher at ACT, Inc. who worked to develop the NCEA Core Framework, she said the key to high functioning schools  - with populations similar to Richmond - was “establishing a powerhouse infrastructure that supports teachers, principals, and classrooms, regardless of who is in role.” Her top examples of this framework in action were Wilson High School in Long Beach, CA and the system of Plano, TX.

In the end, we have to establish a top-down philosophy, reinforced with actions, where district-level administration supports the needs of students, teachers and principals - in that order. Dr. Bedden has started to lay this groundwork through his speeches to the community and choices in his administrative team. The recent #BetterwithBedden is representative of a distinct change in perception of RPS from past superintendents.

To build on this momentum - by developing district-wide infrastructure - we must be careful to craft solutions that lessen the burden on students, teachers, and principals. From my experience as a teacher, well meaning district solutions such as: creating a common template for lesson plans, additional SOL district-level tests, or adding professional development time (e.g. PLCs or curriculum alignment) became burden-adding because they were disconnected from actual needs or lacked necessary resources.

To create authentic solutions, we need to engage students, teachers, and community stakeholders in the process to develop a powerhouse programmatic infrastructure. By expanding membership of the 6 theme action teams and centering our efforts in year 1 on a few key district-level changes we can begin to establish and maintain a positive climate of progress.

Partnerships for RPS (Part 2: Business)

If you haven't checked out Partnership #1: Neighborhoods, then be sure to do so. If you have, then you're awesome and continue to read on.

Key Partnership #2

Business Connections and Sponsorship (9th through 12th grade)

I separate primary education (pre-K through 8), from secondary (9 through 12), due to the multiple chemical/biological, social/environmental and marketplace/ workforce transitions occurring at this time. As a former teacher, I saw this change firsthand where incoming 10th graders returned to high school radically different from the quasi-human state that is 9th grade. I’ll swallow my words as Open High School 9th grader Mysia Perry wrote this inspiring article in Style Weekly last month.

The major need for this group (and our society) is to foster individual expression and exploration. Opposing this is our current education system which over-emphasizes a 4-year post-high school education for all and standardized testing. Because our education is a mile wide and a foot deep, we are not developing specific skills to meet gaps in the marketplace. Furthermore, in our race to drill route memory to achieve standards, and focus solely on STEM fields, we are doing a severe disservice to students by not developing the self-reflection and coping (non-cognitive) based skills that directly correlate to future success.

Scott Elmquist, Style Weekly (2014)

To put it simply, the pieces of knowledge that have taken me the furthest in life are:

1. A love and hunger for learning
2. Knowing how I process (learn and retain) new information
3. Preparing for, and reacting too, setbacks
4. Understanding how to communicate and work with others

A Solution

There is a lot to tackle here.

The topic of curriculum change and de-emphasis on standardized testing is a mammoth I will attack another time. Should probably use another animal because I am pro-mammoth resurgence. A quick preview on this topic would be to read Paul Tough’s “How Children Succeed” as it provides an amazing account of research on non-cognitive based skills impact on future success.  

Where the private sector, specifically business/industry, could drastically impact the quality of public high school education is through sponsorship of high schools. Sponsorship would involve providing funding for infrastructure, teacher and student resources, classroom technology, and human resources to come teach/interact with students.

In this system, RPS would make each of one of its current comprehensive education high schools targeted towards a certain industry. Those schools would then search out business partners in that field. The list could look something like…

• Armstrong High School of Biotechnology, Science and the Environment sponsored by Bon Secours
• Huguenot High School of Engineering, Trades and Construction sponsored by Barton Mallow
• Jefferson High School of Arts, Culture and Writing sponsored by Altria
• Marshall High School of Computers and Information Technology sponsored by Dominion Resources
• Wythe High School of Entrepreneurship, Management and Real Estate sponsored by Capital One

Each of these high schools would offer a general education curriculum to fulfill state standards, but would have industry-oriented electives to further training and individual interest in that area. A school-wide topic of emphasis would translate into all courses. For example, history students would learn about the development of vaccines at the school of biotechnology, science and the environment.

Currently, RPS has a few terrific examples of successful targeted skill high schools in Open and Community. I remember at a citizen input meeting on hiring the superintendent this past December a parent raised the question; why can’t all Richmond High Schools be specialized? Good question. 

The businesses in and around Richmond would benefit because we would be developing students with applicable market skills. A failure of some workforce development programs is the slow moving nature of publicly funded and developed programs which cannot react quickly to changing needs of the marketplace. 

Also, let’s allow business to market their product by branding classrooms, lockers, or hallways NASCAR-style. If you worry about the impact this may have on students, I would argue that it is far less than our current system of poorly funded schools with out-of-date infrastructure, low teacher pay and access to technology.   

From the students’ perspective, they get to explore the question that is most often thrown at them; what am I going to do with my life? Through a more targeted curriculum they can gain personal experience with different trades instead of moving slowing towards this general goal of college. This pursuit of applicable education will hopefully instill a renewed love of learning. Personally, my favorite years of school were those pursuing my graduate degree and undergraduate classes in my major.

Secondly, students get a great chance to fail, or find out what they really don’t like doing. All of this is highly important to learn before they are $80,000 into debt trying to figure it out in college, or even worse in the workplace afterwards. This is why we should look at our working vs. school age when compared to worldwide competitors. There are lessons to be learned from the apprenticeship system of Europe in that the ability for one to try out the marketplace as a 16 year-old can be an incredible learning tool.

Overall, this is a huge win-win for the student, business and society. So, how do we start this in Richmond?

The RPS webpage for partnerships already lists local industry leaders such as Capital One, Genworth Financial, and Altria that give money or services to the schools. What I would challenge these companies to do is to maximize their efficiency in giving. If you have a company full of experts on business loans and investment, are they better off installing landscaping at a local school, or teaching an economic class?

Capital One at Miles Jones Elementary (2013) 

My challenge to the superintendent of RPS, Dr. Bedden, would be to develop a model for private companies to further partner with high schools. An example of this agreement could be modeled off of the Minnesota Department of Education’s Adopt-A-School initiative. Then, go after these partnerships.  

As for individuals and neighborhood-level groups, your partnerships would best serve these students by furthering non-cognitive based development skills through mentorship and community engagement. Terrific examples of this type of partnership can be seen in with Church Hill Academies and Tutoring and my friend Jim Thompson’s own personal mission to mentor youth in the east end of Richmond. Faith based institutions can look to models such as Church Adopt-A-School partnerships.

Furthermore, organizations such as Communities in Schools already are setting up a network of coordinating counseling and other services to serve high school-aged students through PLC’s or specialized high school programs within schools.

Besides service, help could also be given financially through giving online to websites where individual teacher driven classroom requests are posted.  

In the end, the young adult age may be our most troubled population.  Any study of crime trends will back this up, but it can also be the age where change is quickly made. This American Life’s account of a Chicago teenager’s  fight out of poverty by rediscovering her purpose through non-cognitive based skills development can produce drastic results in a short period. Couple this will a targeted, market-based approach to education, and we will begin to develop a system that instills a love for learning, while also preparing students with the essential personal and market skills for a life of success. 

Continue reading for Partnership #3: Technology!

Partnerships for RPS (Part 1: Neighborhoods)

Burlington Yoga Conference, 2014 

The need is clear. Public education in the City of Richmond is failing. The most important gaps in this current system are…

• Development of key workforce skills to fill market gaps and non-cognitive or coping skills, necessary to develop resiliency.
• Engaging students with their local community to give them a sense of place and perspective.
• Instilling a life-long love for learning and seeking out diverse experiences and opinions.

My experience as a high school teacher, community planner at the local and state level, and work in Richmond’s faith and service community, has brought me to believe that a solution can be found through key targeted public-private 
partnerships. These partnerships break down into the following categories:

1. Neighborhood Connections and Sponsorship (pre-K through 8th grade)
2. Business Connections and Sponsorship (9th through 12th grade)
3. Technology
4. Marketing

Why an emphasis on public-private partnerships?

One of the major reasons is funding structure. Due to Virginia’s moratorium on annexation and other factors that affect revenue in urban areas, a solely public funded education system in Richmond will never be able to achieve REF’s vision.

Honestly, even if Richmond Public Schools (RPS) could, it should not strive to do so. By developing partnerships with private industry, non-profits, and community groups, public education system can better engage with local residents and businesses, thus improving not only the application of services, but changing one of the most damaging current factors, perception. 

The following key partnerships detail my thoughts on current needs, solutions to be provided through community partners, and where this might already be happening. Please let me know your thoughts and feel free to chime in. My hope is that we are starting a conversation, not ending one.

Key Partnership #1

Neighborhood Connections and Sponsorship (Pre-K through 8th grade)

Neighborhoods need to be connected with local schools. This is especially important for preK-8 education where the largest need to provide services to students is required. I learned this as a substitute teacher who would walk into an elementary classroom and be handed a three-foot stack of classroom activities for the day, as compared to the high school Latin class where I was given a single sheet of questions and a DVD. Also, parent involvement during childhood is key to meeting developmental goals, which some say are direct predictors for future success (e.g. 3^rd grade reading level predicting prison population).

As for the need to connect middle school students, take a look at the following presentation from Good Ideas for Cities. The results were based upon feedback gained from a group discussion on middle school disenrollment in the city, which was moderated by Dr. Harold Fitrer, President and CEO of Communities in Schools of Richmond. One of the findings went as far to say that middle school should be abolished and just combined into K-8 schools, a recommendation that should be given serious thought.  

GOOD Ideas for Cities at Virginia Historical Society, 2012 (Richmond.com)

Solution

Individually, this starts with local residents (with economic choice) getting involved and sending their children to local schools. A terrific example of this happening is Bryce Lyle’s efforts to get more local residents to send their children to Westover Hills Elementary. By actually interacting with the system, instead of letting perception guide one’s action, boundaries are being broken and the education within that school is improving.

The counter-argument to Lyle’s efforts is that it is going to be your (and my) children’s future at stake. But, what is life without risk? I don’t mean to be cavalier about this, but so much more is to be gained. Take a look at Fox Elementary, which is loved and embraced by its surrounding community. As the morning bell is about to sound you see families walking hand-in-hand readying for the day, children running around on the front school-yard lawn, and neighbors conversing with neighbors. Fighting for a future this great should be worth the “risk” for families of economic choice because what we have seen is that this future could be closer than you think.

Bryce Lyle at Westover Hills Elementary, 2013 (Scott Elmquist, Style Weekly)

To help Richmond families local faith based institutions, non-profits, and other neighborhood groups, should “adopt” their local schools by teaming with school administration, parents, and engaged citizens (e.g. Bryce Lyle) to form local action teams.

Organizations such Dr. Fitrer’s aforementioned Communities in Schools of Richmond and the Partnership for Families Northside (Pre-K and elementary) work directly within the schools to provide students and families with programming and facilitate services. The faith-based coalition of The Micah Initiative provides another great example of how one can give of their time to be a mentor and tutor. But, these should just be the start.

My church, Area 10 Faith Community (A10), has started down this path with John B. Cary and Fox Elementary. In each of these schools, representatives from A10 have sat down with school principals and parent-teacher association leaders to provide services and plan events for school improvement (e.g. backpack drives, landscaping, coffee for teacher conferences, ect.).  Where this could, and should, go next is to develop an action team of local stakeholders to provide solutions to the school’s Strategic Action Plan.

You may be thinking, how can these actions really improve the systemic failure that is RPS?

To that I would say that change has to start somewhere. By anchoring PreK-8 education in local neighborhoods, children would better understand and interact with their environment, thus instilling a desire to give back, or one day move back, to the place that shaped them. Also, by alleviating the school’s burden on providing and paying for certain services, which many times is passed on to the teacher, educators can spend more time focusing on student achievement of academic and non-cognitive learning goals. 

Continue reading for Partnership #2: Business! 

Education and Economic Development

What if education was Richmond's top economic development priority?

Current Economic Development Practice

The City of Richmond, through the Department of Economic and Community Development (ECD) and Economic Development Authority (EDA), gives money and city resources to businesses (e.g. Redskins Camp, Shockoe Stadium, Boulevard Site) to have them locate within the city. These are priority economic development projects.

Rationale

These businesses become the anchor, or attraction piece, to obtain more middle and upper income residents. These new residents spend dispensable income (sales and restaurant tax), and invest in property (personal property and assessment taxes), which in turn grows the city’s revenue base to better fund services and infrastructure to the poorest citizens and neighborhoods within the city.
Due to the city being unable to annex county land with jobs and middle/upper income households, the city must grow from within through redevelopment and revitalization. This is different from other examples in the south (i.e. Charlottesville, Durham, and Atlanta) that have been able to expand within the adjacent county to provide the revenue base to pay for services.

The Problem

To survive, these new businesses must continue to attract people from outside their local neighborhood, or even city, because the local economic base was not originally what attracted them to site (i.e. location made possible by government subsidy). The rationale that these businesses would be the linchpin for future development is not realized. The heavy up-front cost of public investment is not realized, and the city is left poorer with no other ancillary benefits from this initial investment in a select few.

One example where this concept was implemented and failed locally was with the 6th Street Marketplace. Further reading on this topic can be found in Roland Wilson’s 1989 master’s thesis assessing the failure of the 6th street marketplace.

The Solution = Education as a Top Priority

More middle and upper income residents need to be attracted, retained, or built-up from within (my favorite) the city to balance the income inequalities within our neighborhoods and grow revenues to fund city services. But, instead of government subsidies for one-time large projects, what if we made education the top priority?

Let’s say we made education our top priority within the budget and direct Richmond’s ECD and other city departments, along with the EDA, to make targeted investments and apply human resources to making Richmond Public Schools (RPS) a world class education system.

More money and emphasis on schools sends the message to middle and upper income families that they should stay within the city. Also, over time children of lower income families will become better trained and more educated, thus providing the opportunity to break family cycles of poverty. Check out this NY Times interactive map of economic mobility to see where these cycles are being broken today.

US Equality of Opportunity Project, Harvard University, 2014

Businesses see median household incomes rise and the development of a local economical base, thus making it fiscally viable for them to locate in the city. A sustainable system of consumer and businesses is created by the market, not artificially supplanted by government subsidies. An example of site selection factors can be seen in the City of Richmond’s VEDP profile.

But, let’s say this doesn't work as advertised and it takes longer for a business environment to be fostered. Are we just left with a vacant failed 6th Street Marketplace? No, because the ancillary benefits would be tremendous!

In the economic pursuit of investing in education, you now are FINALLY providing a world class education system to the numerous working poor and improvised families and children in the city. This would begin to account for past wrongs and degradation, while lowering future government costs to provide services. The fiscal benefits of education investment are detailed in countless academic studies, and are the main impetus behind why my former employer, the City of Hampton, funds “Healthy Family Partnership”. Programs like this are based upon real savings to city services (health care, incarceration, and other government services).



Could we really make this happen?

Yes, of course. Like most things in life, if you really want something to happen, you will find the time, money, or resources to make it happen. Think about that girl or guy who you pined for, and they finally said yes to a date. Did you worry about how much it could cost? I bet you would beg, borrow, or steal to pay for that date. What about scheduling conflicts? Are you really going to let your job or other priorities get in the way? Heck no.

Our City Council and Mayor should support the School Board and Superintendent in going after failing education in the way we would after a first date… minus the stealing part.

They are there to work out the details. We, the citizens, are here to advocate. So let your voice be heard and contact your city councilperson. Together we can advocate for more intelligent spending of public dollars and serve those in the most need, our current RPS students.

A Garet in Richmond (AGiRVA)

Welcome to my blog about the city that I live in and love, Richmond, Virginia.

I am passionate about eradicating concentrated pockets of poverty in our city. From working in the region and serving in Richmond these past 7 years as a teacher, planner, and advocate, I believe the tools of faith, neighborhood planning, and education reform will transform this city.

This page is a repository of my thoughts, but will also hopefully provide links to other great resources on the web or in print.

That's it for post #1. Hope you join in on the conversation.