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However, using the new methods and materials that form the cornerstone of innovations in schools profiled here demands not only familiar substantive and procedural learning, but also changes in attitudes and beliefs that support the innovation. Besides preparing to teach new lessons, the Algebra Project, for example, requires reallocating time and resources from the regular curriculum. In every course, time and resources are scarce commodities, and teachers already allocate them according to priorities established by experience. Professional development activities must provide information and insights that address teachers' concerns with effectiveness, cultivating their willingness to replace the familiar with new methods and their competence to do so.
Faculty at City-as-School High School credit continuous professional dialogue about how to implement their vision for enabling them to survive so long as an institution. As one staff member reported: "Years ago, before site-based management' and teacher empowerment' became part of the vocabulary, CAS held constant meetings for teachers to discuss issues and brainstorm solutions to the problems that face an external learning school. . . . These discussions have been part of an on-going dialogue that has existed from the beginning of the school's history. . . . The school's internal and external staff development is one of the main reasons that CAS has evolved over the years, outliving many schools that were part of the [alternative education] movement of the late sixties-seventies."
Studies have been able to trace the positive influence of sound professional development first on school programs and then on student achievement. However, sound programs (and the sophisticated studies that document their effects unambiguously) are difficult to conduct. Barriers to effective professional development include:
If schools do not overcome these barriers, innovations can fail to take root.
Effective professional development often includes all school staff and focuses on specific circumstances or practices. Successful secondary schools find that choosing a target for training is important, and involving the staff in selecting it may also be important. For example, a faculty with a long-term commitment to implementing a science or mathematics program based on hands-on activities and portfolio assessment may determine that a subject-matter focus is the best place to begin, reserving until later their study of methods and assessment.
In the schools described here and in the companion volume to this idea book, teachers and principals alike testify to the importance of establishing a professional climate that accepts occasional floundering as the natural and probably unavoidable consequence of trying out promising new approaches. They discovered that, over time, thoughtful experimentation and reflection generate a culture that assumes continuous professional growth. Like doctors or lawyers, teachers come to be viewed as professionals who must keep up with current issues in their field.
Summer programs and institutes are popular and constructive options for faculties with full academic-year calendars. They afford teachers uninterrupted time to concentrate on new instructional approaches or curricular material; sometimes project budgets offer stipends for participants. These programs can be sponsored by state education agencies, regional educational laboratories, or local or regional universities. Some summer programs--AVID's is one--provide follow-up training during the school year, sometimes accompanied by classroom observation and critique.
Site-based shared decisionmaking is evident in our small sample of schools and programs. In most sites, teachers developed the reform plans and identified the resources needed to implement them. In some sites, a visionary leader or a state mandate gave an impetus to faculties' work, but to an impressive degree faculties themselves were the aggressive proponents of reforms. Using the flexibility offered by site-based management, faculties adopted multiple approaches, expanding learning opportunities for students to include extended class periods, out-of-school experiences, workplace orientation, peer tutoring, and summer courses. They often also expanded their own learning opportunities, both by arranging for existing professional development activities to address the innovation explicitly and by investing their own time after school, on weekends, and during the summer. Flexibility for internal operations enabled some schools to adopt bold new approaches step by step, department by department, grade by grade, or team cluster by team cluster. For example, two high schools launched academically ambitious, career-oriented programs as schools-within-schools. After a period of experimentation at this level, the whole school adopted new organizational structures based on the piloted models.
Many of the innovative schools and programs discussed here adopted formats that go beyond the conventional, using, for example, heterogenous instructional grouping, Saturday or after-school classes, interdisciplinary courses, and modular course scheduling. To ensure protection of negotiated agreements while securing flexibility to try new strategies, the schools make special arrangements with appropriate authorities. In one dropout recovery school in the companion volume to this idea book, an annually renewed contract between the school and the sponsoring districts coupled with state legislation made the programs a possibility. In one middle school, the faculty trades increases in course load for decreases in class size under special waivers from the terms of their union contract; each incoming teacher must review and accept these provisions before joining the faculty. In other schools, flexibility is supported by provisions under desegregation grants for magnet schools, waivers of prescribed district curriculum, and articulation agreements between the school and other educational institutions.
The site-based management team of Fairdale High School in Louisville wields considerable authority in school decisionmaking. Fairdale began planning the team in 1986, in response to an invitation from the Gheens Academy for local schools to form a city-wide cohort of school improvement bodies committed to reform. In 1987, the faculty at Fairdale appointed a steering committee to serve as the primary decisionmaking body for the school in matters of curriculum, assessment, staffing, finances, facilities, student and teacher recognition, and school restructuring. Led by the principal, the team also included ten parents and community members, eight teachers, four students, and one support staff member. Its size and composition qualified the team to assume authority under the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, which mandated that all schools adopt a site-based shared decisionmaking governance model.Under the team's leadership, Fairdale has adopted a number of innovative practices. As a member of both the Coalition of Essential Schools and the Southern Regional Education Board's vocational schools collaborative, the school boasts widespread use of innovations such as cooperative learning, team teaching, and interdisciplinary courses. All ninth and tenth graders are divided into "learning communities" with about 130 students and five to seven teachers. Each team of teachers meets daily to make long-and short-range plans for its community. The teams also have the authority to determine how long and how often their classes will meet. Teachers have designed interdisciplinary courses built around "essential questions" that promote investigations that span disciplines. Fairdale faculty take advantage of courses offered at Gheens and participate actively in professional development opportunities provided by the Coalition.
Change did not come overnight to Fairdale, but the slow work of building a shared vision and implementing it segment by segment is beginning to pay off in increased student success.
Title I schoolwide programs and magnet schools must identify a mission and make plans to achieve it as a part of their charters. In schoolwide programs, parents help the school and district develop a strategic plan. By law, all schoolwide plans must include professional development, and many choose to make professional development an integral part of the project.
Evidence suggests that "top down" mandates are not inevitably futile; many have provoked constructive and effective responses when local educators had the resources and the technical expertise to make the desired change. Reform agendas may be equally effectual regardless of whether they originate with formal leaders or practitioners themselves. However, successful projects typically engage teachers in decisionmaking and problem-solving early and often; this engagement contributes to the staff commitment that real change requires. In sailing uncharted waters, innovators are bound to run aground occasionally, despite their efforts to be provident. Active engagement in planning and time to reflect on their experiences as they unfold permit faculties to adjust course thoughtfully and make all due haste. Many schools profiled in these idea books invest wisely in time for comprehensive planning.
Most of the schools in these idea books receive supplementary funding from one source or another to support their programs; some receive very large sums. Project implementers reported that these additional funds were central to their success. One recent study of successful urban high schools put the price of making substantial, long-term changes at $50,000 to $100,000 annually 1 or 2 percent of the budget of most high schools--for a period of several years. In schools where money was used for coordination and assistance rather than for salary supplements, the innovations were likely to have a stronger and more durable effect. Many schools begin reform with a packaged component, such as a curriculum module or a new teaching strategy. The costs of implementing these relatively self-contained components are often predictable, making them appealing as the point of departure for the more extensive changes that real reform often involves.
The schools profiled in the companion volume to this idea book share the ability to obtain funding from several sources. In several cases, success led to higher funding. For instance, the Thurgood Marshall Middle School implemented what became an innovative schoolwide restructuring project in stages. The school established its first set of cluster teams at one grade level with desegregation funding; as initial reforms proved their merit, the principal and others became more confident in expanding the teams to other grade levels and implementing additional changes in curriculum and instruction with funds from Chapter 1. In the process, the school also won funding from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.
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