A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Mission

To work in its capacity as a research, development, and service agency, with education and other communities, to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults.

Key Initiatives

Whole School Reform. The following four programs (the latter two of which specifically target high schools) are exemplary of WestEd's efforts to develop and disseminate better ways for schools to transform themselves into coherent, continuously improving organizations focused on student achievement:

• The Western Assessment Collaborative, a signature program, is an R&D effort to help educators use assessment as a catalyst and guide for whole school reform.
• The Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program helps schools choose and implement research-based comprehensive reform models. Its first regional conference brought together representatives from newly funded schools to help them prepare for the change process. Case studies will document successful strategies.
• The Career Preparation Assessment program, now being piloted for some 3,000 students by 130 teachers at 12 schools, is a scaleable portfolio-based system that measures a set of interdisciplinary standards aligned with most high schools' student outcomes and with important standards frameworks (e.g., those in the SCANS report).
• The Talent Development Model, conceived at Johns Hopkins University, focuses on making schoolwork relevant to urban youth, holding all students to high standards, and providing multiple pathways to success. WestEd continues the model's co-development, supporting and studying implementation at three schools.

Language and Cultural Diversity (LCD). LCD aims to enhance educators' capacity to provide high quality learning opportunities to students from traditionally under-served linguistic, cultural, and racial groups. WestEd develops and disseminates strategies for culturally responsive teaching, assessment, and communication. The Laboratory's research-based framework for improved cross-cultural communication currently is being disseminated and has, for example, been incorporated into Los Angeles Unified School District's intern program. WestEd's model for supporting paraprofessionals from ethno-linguistic minority communities to become teachers also is in the dissemination stage. The Indigenous Education Collaborative applies concepts of culturally responsive education specifically to Native American, Native Alaskan and Pacific Island student populations, such as the Laboratory's work helping teachers in one Arizona district modify a state assessment task to more accurately elicit their Navajo students' capabilities.

With the recent passage of California's Proposition 227, which seeks to limit primary language instruction, LCD is coordinating a cross-program effort to meet the growing regional demand for information on how best to serve English Language Learners (ELLs). WestEd's efforts include, for example, field-based research in collaboration with school districts to improve ELL assessment, as well as redesignation criteria, measures, and processes.

State Alliance Projects. These projects develop and support consortia (including schools, districts, and institutions of higher education) to undertake high priority statewide improvement initiatives. In Arizona, the focus is on professional development around standards and assessment; in Nevada, on distance education and technology programs for rural schools; and in Utah, on results-based regional leadership development. In California, WestEd continues work with the Class-size Reduction Evaluation Research Consortium, but also is developing and supporting two networks for California's largest urban districts: one for district superintendents, focusing on peer leadership support, and one for deputy superintendents for curriculum and instruction that concentrates on standards-based practices.

Signature Programs

Math Case Methods Project. This professional development program enhances teachers' knowledge of specific mathematics topics while increasing their capacity to review and improve their own instructional practices. Group discussion of teacher-written cases — personal descriptions of classroom experiences — catalyzes examination of a range of approaches to math teaching and learning. Research and evaluation activities show that such discussions produce a significant growth in teachers' knowledge of mathematics and breadth of instruction.

The Center for Child and Family Studies is committed to improving the lives of young children by increasing the availability and quality of child care and developing effective early intervention strategies that support young children and families living in high poverty communities. Its acclaimed Program for Infant/Toddler Caregivers provides intensive research-based training in how to create nurturing, emotionally supportive childcare environments. Using knowledge derived from that experience, the Center also played a key role in the conception and development of quality programs for Early Head Start and now provides training to 143 Early Head Start grantees throughout the country. The Center's Early Intervention, Care and Education Project has developed a two-pronged approach to improving the lives of young children and their families in high risk communities: direct assistance to the families through intensive case management and direct assistance to community agencies serving those families. Lessons learned are now informing home visitation models for a number of Head Start and Early Head Start agencies.

Western Assessment Collaborative (WAC). This long-term R&D effort has been carried out primarily through Kyosei, a partnership of 10 schools and 4 districts to whom WAC provides assistance in setting shared standards for student performance, developing systems for measuring progress, and developing the organizational capacity and culture to sustain standards-based reform. Key to this effort is the WAC's use of Accountability Dialogues, which engage the entire school community in rigorous inquiry and action focused on shared standards. Lessons emerging from Kyosei work inform the WAC's assistance to state departments of education, professional development providers such as California's county offices of education, and school reform networks such as the Bay Area's Annenberg Challenge grant recipient.

Specialty Area

Assessment and Accountability. WestEd's program of development, applied research, and dissemination in this area helps constituents at all levels — teachers, business and community representatives, university faculty, and policy-makers — place assessment in a pivotal role in school reform. Among the critical issues the Laboratory addresses, always with an eye toward ensuring equity, are: implementing defensible high stakes, state-level assessment and accountability systems; developing effective standards- and performance-based assessment tools and systems, including multiple measures; improving classroom assessment for both instructional and evaluation purposes; improving teacher quality through assessment and certification; and helping students make a successful transition from school to work. Our recent work in these areas includes: technical and policy assistance in Nevada's development of a high school exit exam; development of a K-12 student assessment system to support Kentucky's statewide education reform; co-development of a professional developers toolkit for improved classroom assessment; development of a certification system for teachers of English Language Learners for the California Teachers Association; and development of end of program exams for California's career-technical students.

Selected Recent Products

Groupwork in Diverse Classrooms: A Casebook for Educators (and Facilitators' Guide) includes 16 teacher-written cases that serve as a discussion catalyst and promote more thoughtful and effective teaching strategies.

Improving Classroom Assessment: A Toolkit for Professional Developers (Toolkit 98), a joint product of the Regional Laboratory Network, is a compendium of sample assessments, training activities, and student work in response to requests for assistance in this area.

Can State Intervention Spur Academic Turn-around? is a knowledge brief on frameworks and effects of state intervention with low-performing schools.Standards: From Document to Dialogue is a guidebook with exercises to advance the mental model of standards as a dialogue to define and work toward quality education.

Improving Student Achievement by Extending School? Is it Just a Matter of Time? is a synthesis of the research on the relationship between time spent in school and student learning.

-###-

[ Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) ]

[ Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) ]

This page last modified 12 November 1999. (lvb)