Archived Information

Using the Reform Process to Build Capacity

• Articulating a Reform Vision. Articulating and establishing a reform vision can provide a frame for creating and evaluating all aspects of the reform. As noted earlier, vision is a central component of organizational capacity. In addition, the very process of establishing a common vision can itself be a capacity-building endeavor for the public and for educators.

• Providing Instructional Guidance. Providing state-level instructional guidance--such as curriculum frameworks, instructional materials, professional development activities, or assessments linked to state standards--can promote capacity in two central ways. It can help teachers, schools, and districts construct curriculum, design instructional strategies, promote professional development, and evaluate progress. And it may provide additional opportunities for professional learning, either through direct professional development activities or through such indirect activities as scoring state performance assessments.

• Restructuring Governance and Organizational Structures. Giving teachers and schools discretion over decisions relevant to instruction can enable them to organize in ways that increase their ability to serve student needs, achieve standards, and provide personnel with opportunities for collaboration and learning.

• Establishing Evaluation and Accountability Mechanisms. To the extent that accountability structures are consistent with reform goals, they can focus attention on attainment of goals and provide useful information on weaknesses that need to be addressed. In addition, the very processes and mechanisms used for accountability can be designed to promote reflection and facilitate learning on the part of educational personnel.

Of course, however any of these strategies is put into practice, it must always remain targeted at the goal of reform improved student learning. Further, the strategies should foster learning not only for students, but also for individuals and organizations within and around the system. Examination of two forms of instructional guidance--state assessments and professional development--illustrates these points.

Using State Assessment to Enhance Capacity

Second, the school used CLAS to help develop pedagogical skills of its teachers. Because CLAS incorporated open-ended mathematics problems, eighth-grade teachers received assistance in developing and using open-ended tasks for their students. Finally, the school used CLAS to help generate a results-orientation focused on student work. Teachers developed a school-based assessment process, modeled on CLAS, that allowed teachers to monitor student progress, familiarized students with the format and content of CLAS, promoted discussion of standards, and provided concrete professional development for performance-based assessment.

Our study of assessment policies in three states shows how test design and test use decisions can increase or limit their effectiveness in building this kind capacity.¹

Vermont. In Vermont, portfolio assessment was being used as an expression of the statewide vision of reform, putting results at the forefront of the reform effort, while leaving teachers and schools to decide how to get there. For the fourth- and eighth-grade teachers whose students were compiling portfolios, it was an opportunity to learn about expected outcomes in math and writing. Portfolios and related professional development activities seem to have served as a means of increasing teacher knowledge and engendering teacher support for the direction of reforms. In addition, use of portfolio assessment in teacher certification and program approval was expected to help new teachers gain knowledge and experience developing portfolios during their preservice training.

On the other hand, some policies and practices surrounding the assessment have mitigated its effectiveness as a means for building individual or organizational capacity. Some of the teachers involved, for example, said they received little assistance in making links between assessment and instruction, partly because portfolio assessment is new and reliability of scoring has been elusive. Probably for the same reasons, teachers who scored portfolios apparently made little or no use of resulting information about their students' performance. Teachers also complained that time required for scoring portfolios took away from work on instruction. The usefulness of portfolios in building organizational capacity of schools was also hindered by the fact that they were required in only two grades.

Michigan. State assessment in Michigan also expressed the state vision for reform. Indeed, with neither curriculum frameworks nor an articulated vision statement at the time of our study, the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP) was the main vehicle for communicating goals in reading and mathematics, the two curricular areas we investigated in this state. While the objectives on which MEAP is based have long reflected a meaning-centered approach to reading and have also been revised to more closely reflect NCTM standards in math, respondents in our study did not view these objectives either as a broad-based vision statement or as a curriculum framework.

Michigan has also instituted a number of policies with the potential to strengthen the impact of the assessment on organizational capacity. In curriculum development, the Essential Goals and Objectives are the basis for the state's Model Core Curriculum Outcomes, which in turn are to serve as the basis for district core curriculum.

In the area of school improvement, state law requires each school to develop school improvement plans and write improvement goals focused on student outcomes. Because MEAP scores cover several core curriculum areas and must be publicly reported, schools have tended to use them to set some of their improvement goals. Thus the state assessment provides useful information to schools, assisting them in targeting areas for improvement. One can view the assessment as contributing to school capacity by serving as a resource for school personnel. It has also been the focus of some staff development to familiarize teachers with the content of the revised goals and objectives.

Yet the very nature of MEAP--which consists almost entirely of multiple choice questions--limits its usefulness as a tool for capacity building. Thus, while the content assessed by MEAP is consistent with NCTM standards, the assessment format is inadequate to fully reflect the standards or the approach to mathematics that underlies them.

California. Though short-lived, CLAS helped build teacher capacity. Its content and format guided teachers toward new ways of looking at content and it provided a new basis for thinking about instruction. But while some teachers had an opportunity to become familiar with CLAS and use it as a learning tool, the vast majority of school personnel were not so fortunate. Instead, an emphasis on secrecy to protect reliability, coupled with management errors, meant that most teachers and districts remained unfamiliar with the actual content or format of the assessment even up to the time it was administered.

The public was even more in the dark. Opponents of the reform used this situation to rally vocal opposition, which the governor then used to kill the assessment. CLAS, even in its developmental stages, provided a potentially powerful tool for teaching the public and educators about concrete goals of reforms and the type of learning and performance students are being asked to do. Failure of the California Department of Education to focus on this use of CLAS left both the assessment and the reforms vulnerable.

One lesson from the experience of California and Vermont is that use of state assessment as an instrument of accountability may conflict with its use as an instrument for teacher and system learning. Accountability requires a high degree of reliability. In Vermont, with its limited time and resources, this meant limited attention to using the assessment to improve instruction. In California, it engendered a level of secrecy that ran counter to building either capacity or support among a broader spectrum of the public or school personnel. But these shortcomings were not foregone conclusions. As our example of the California school shows, a consistent and strategic emphasis on capacity building could lead to alternative scenarios.

Using Professional Development to Build Capacity

However, we also found evidence of more multi-faceted and strategic approaches to professional development. The most extensive of these were the state-sponsored Subject Matter Projects (SMPs) in California. Administered through the president's office of the University of California, these independent, teacher-led efforts have become a core element of that state's reforms. At the heart of the SMPs are multi-week summer workshops focused on deepening teachers' content knowledge, developing pedagogical strategies linked to that content, and fostering professional habits of reflection. They also provide follow-up support for teachers throughout the year.

Our sites also evidenced strategies to strengthen the connection between professional development of teachers and organizational development and school change. In California, for example, grade-level and other school networks encouraged teachers to participate in SMPs as part of school change efforts. In Michigan, Professional Development Schools (PDSs) brought university professors and school teachers together for on-going collaboration aimed at instructional improvement and forged links to preservice teacher preparation.

Professional development strategies such as these have the potential to address long-term capacity needs of the system with respect to standards-based reform. SMPs are examples of teacher professional development that build leadership and deep content knowledge, both through summer workshops and networks and through school-year staff development. School networks in California and the PDS strategy in Michigan are examples of school-based efforts to link such staff development to improvement efforts at the school site and to preservice education.

The question remains how the system can use knowledgeable teacher professionals or reform-minded schools to create an infrastructure that fosters long-term capacity building. One of the California districts we studied developed such a strategy, best seen in its elementary science program. The strategy was based on three types of professional development: awareness initiatives designed for broad dissemination as a catalyst for change; more intensive, on-going efforts focused on content and instructional strategies in curriculum, assessment, and special problem areas; and leadership development efforts to foster the capacity of individuals to play leading roles in the other two initiatives.

At the core of the strategy were two dozen teacher leaders, who for the past four to five years had attended multi-week summer institutes focusing on content. During the school year, the core group shifted its emphasis to content-based pedagogy and conducted site-based development activities in all of the district's elementary schools. In addition, the group met on a regular basis to discuss its work and to participate in other leadership development activities with science-rich institutions. The result is that these teacher leaders formed the core for science education in their district.

On a broader level, at least one teacher from every elementary school in the district took part in University of California-sponsored summer institutes and follow-up activities during the year. This group helped design and present three professional development days each year devoted to the new science framework and to instructional materials. These teachers also led efforts to develop science curriculum in their schools. On the broadest level, all elementary teachers were participating in in-service programs focusing on science and providing awareness-level professional development geared toward motivating broad-based change.

Considered as a whole, this strategy incorporates individual, site-based, and cross-site approaches to build individual and collective knowledge. It fosters collaboration not only among educators but between teachers and practicing scientists. It extends resources by building on-going partnerships with science-related institutions. Finally, it responds to needs for capacity building at all levels of the system: the district builds a core of knowledgeable practitioners in science who can assist in developing curriculum, materials, and staff; individual schools acquire at least one person with deep content knowledge to help implement science reforms; and individual teachers are offered a range of on-going professional development activities that recognize differing interests and levels of commitment.

This district's strategy is of course only one of many possible approaches to linking teacher professional development and systemic capacity building. But it provides insights into the possibilities when capacity building is the goal and there is leadership and ability to broker and facilitate learning opportunities.

[Dimensions of Capacity]

[Continuing Challenges]