PurposeSchool improvement planning has been a central part of school improvement initiatives for ... more PurposeSchool improvement planning has been a central part of school improvement initiatives for decades. Evidence suggests, however, that traditional planning processes are regularly superficial. In the USA, some principals have begun developing short-cycle planning designed to encourage school leadership teams and staff to develop, monitor and adjust plans throughout the academic year.Design/methodology/approachIn this study of eight schools in one urban district, the authors analyzed multiple rounds of short-cycle improvement plans and principal interview data to assess the progress schools made implementing plans over the course of a semester, the ways in which plans were monitored and adjusted and the extent to which principals embraced short-cycle planning.FindingsThe authors found that many tasks from first semester plans were completed, which informed the development of plans for the second semester. Observational data were primarily used to monitor plan completion, although...
Educational Management Administration & Leadership
Principals are responsible for planning school improvement efforts at the school level to leverag... more Principals are responsible for planning school improvement efforts at the school level to leverage increases in student achievement. Recent research underscores how principals engage in satisficing behaviors that result in low-quality school improvement plans (SIPs). To disrupt compliance-based planning practices and produce high-quality SIPs, some districts have shifted from yearlong planning to short-cycle planning. Districts need to establish a coherent understanding of improvement planning to motivate and sustain new principal planning practices. Through the coherence framework, this qualitative study explored one large urban district's shift from yearlong planning processes to short-cycle planning processes to understand principals’ perspectives on improvement planning and the potential shift to short-cycle planning. Researchers examined eight principals’ short-cycle plans. Principals who participated in a two-year partnership with a University System Leadership Program (US...
While there currently exists a vast body of research around school turnaround policies, few studi... more While there currently exists a vast body of research around school turnaround policies, few studies speak to why they have or have not worked. This paper undertakes a systematic review of research literature on school turnaround policies to explore why this lack of understanding prevails in the field. We find key disconnects between “policy” and “practice” research on the topic of school turnaround. We contend that this divide negates the potential to learn from school leadership policy and practice in turnaround settings. We offer implications of these findings within turnaround research and policy while pointing out that this apparent divide seems to extend beyond the example of turnaround.
This report describes and explains how to use the School Survey of Practices Associated with High... more This report describes and explains how to use the School Survey of Practices Associated with High Performance, which measures the degree to which schools are engaging in practices associated with high performance. State education departments and school districts can use the survey results to identify and describe school practices associated with high performance, compare practices across school subgroups, target schools for specific interventions, and design interventions. The survey, designed to be taken by teachers and school administrators, measures practices in the domains of effective leadership, strong curriculum, professional development, school culture, and ongoing data use for school improvement. The survey has undergone psychometric validation. The report also includes the survey and describes its development and validation.
Identifying schools that are beating the odds—schools that are exceeding academic performance exp... more Identifying schools that are beating the odds—schools that are exceeding academic performance expectations, given the composition of their student body—can lead to promising practices that other schools serving similar populations can implement. Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands used data on high-poverty high schools in Puerto Rico to show how two methods of identifying beating-the-odds high schools led to the identification of two sets of schools with relatively little overlap. These results suggest that it may be useful for state and local education agencies to consider both methods for identifying beating-the-odds schools.
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2020
Background School improvement planning is a common school leadership practice built on assumption... more Background School improvement planning is a common school leadership practice built on assumptions that schools increase organizational performance if rational yearly plans are developed and then enacted with fidelity. A quality school improvement plan (SIP) should position subsequent critical leadership and instructional moves in a more holistic change initiative. Although multiple studies suggest that positive relationships exist between SIP quality and student achievement outcomes, all studies of SIPs have focused on the traditional, yearlong approach to school improvement planning. An alternative approach operates on shorter cycles of approximately one semester, a model that could be beneficial for low-performing schools engaged in turnaround efforts in which altering goals and strategies might need to occur more frequently to be situationally responsive. Purpose In this study, we analyze short-cycle SIPs from three cohorts of low-performing schools participating in a university...
PurposeSchool improvement planning has been a central part of school improvement initiatives for ... more PurposeSchool improvement planning has been a central part of school improvement initiatives for decades. Evidence suggests, however, that traditional planning processes are regularly superficial. In the USA, some principals have begun developing short-cycle planning designed to encourage school leadership teams and staff to develop, monitor and adjust plans throughout the academic year.Design/methodology/approachIn this study of eight schools in one urban district, the authors analyzed multiple rounds of short-cycle improvement plans and principal interview data to assess the progress schools made implementing plans over the course of a semester, the ways in which plans were monitored and adjusted and the extent to which principals embraced short-cycle planning.FindingsThe authors found that many tasks from first semester plans were completed, which informed the development of plans for the second semester. Observational data were primarily used to monitor plan completion, although...
Educational Management Administration & Leadership
Principals are responsible for planning school improvement efforts at the school level to leverag... more Principals are responsible for planning school improvement efforts at the school level to leverage increases in student achievement. Recent research underscores how principals engage in satisficing behaviors that result in low-quality school improvement plans (SIPs). To disrupt compliance-based planning practices and produce high-quality SIPs, some districts have shifted from yearlong planning to short-cycle planning. Districts need to establish a coherent understanding of improvement planning to motivate and sustain new principal planning practices. Through the coherence framework, this qualitative study explored one large urban district's shift from yearlong planning processes to short-cycle planning processes to understand principals’ perspectives on improvement planning and the potential shift to short-cycle planning. Researchers examined eight principals’ short-cycle plans. Principals who participated in a two-year partnership with a University System Leadership Program (US...
While there currently exists a vast body of research around school turnaround policies, few studi... more While there currently exists a vast body of research around school turnaround policies, few studies speak to why they have or have not worked. This paper undertakes a systematic review of research literature on school turnaround policies to explore why this lack of understanding prevails in the field. We find key disconnects between “policy” and “practice” research on the topic of school turnaround. We contend that this divide negates the potential to learn from school leadership policy and practice in turnaround settings. We offer implications of these findings within turnaround research and policy while pointing out that this apparent divide seems to extend beyond the example of turnaround.
This report describes and explains how to use the School Survey of Practices Associated with High... more This report describes and explains how to use the School Survey of Practices Associated with High Performance, which measures the degree to which schools are engaging in practices associated with high performance. State education departments and school districts can use the survey results to identify and describe school practices associated with high performance, compare practices across school subgroups, target schools for specific interventions, and design interventions. The survey, designed to be taken by teachers and school administrators, measures practices in the domains of effective leadership, strong curriculum, professional development, school culture, and ongoing data use for school improvement. The survey has undergone psychometric validation. The report also includes the survey and describes its development and validation.
Identifying schools that are beating the odds—schools that are exceeding academic performance exp... more Identifying schools that are beating the odds—schools that are exceeding academic performance expectations, given the composition of their student body—can lead to promising practices that other schools serving similar populations can implement. Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands used data on high-poverty high schools in Puerto Rico to show how two methods of identifying beating-the-odds high schools led to the identification of two sets of schools with relatively little overlap. These results suggest that it may be useful for state and local education agencies to consider both methods for identifying beating-the-odds schools.
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2020
Background School improvement planning is a common school leadership practice built on assumption... more Background School improvement planning is a common school leadership practice built on assumptions that schools increase organizational performance if rational yearly plans are developed and then enacted with fidelity. A quality school improvement plan (SIP) should position subsequent critical leadership and instructional moves in a more holistic change initiative. Although multiple studies suggest that positive relationships exist between SIP quality and student achievement outcomes, all studies of SIPs have focused on the traditional, yearlong approach to school improvement planning. An alternative approach operates on shorter cycles of approximately one semester, a model that could be beneficial for low-performing schools engaged in turnaround efforts in which altering goals and strategies might need to occur more frequently to be situationally responsive. Purpose In this study, we analyze short-cycle SIPs from three cohorts of low-performing schools participating in a university...
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