The Value of Advisories

"With so much work to be collected, how do you keep track of it all?" asked an associate superintendent from an urban district in Rhode Island. The young woman speaking to the group was surprised at the question because the answer seemed so obvious to her. She and another senior from Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, Massachusetts, had just completed a presentation on Parker's portfolio requirement at a small conference on performance assessments convened by a department within Brown University. Both students had been articulate in discussing the evidence of a rigorous education as they presented their graduation portfolios. The student looked at the questioner in amazement and said, "We have an advisor who works with us."

The young lady had just shared a research paper from her huge arts and humanities binder. She had explained how this paper was one of two dozen artifacts included in her portfolio. She also had explained how the topic of the research was of deep concern to her and how it connected to standards for performance. She had included in her presentation her proposal for the arts and humanities project, with several initial drafts, each building on the previous one and leading to the final paper that was deemed good enough to be included in her arts and humanities portfolio. She then had gone through a similar process to explain a piece of work included in the second huge binder, this one for math, science, and technology.

The small group of adults in the room included a few teachers but consisted mostly of high school principals, district-level administrators, and higher education representatives from the area. After each of the two presentations, the adults in the room peppered the students with questions. "Do you have options on what goes into your portfolio?" "How do you know when an artifact is good enough?" "Have you ever thrown out an artifact?" It was at that point that the assistant superintendent, obviously impressed, had asked how this student kept track of it all. The young woman had looked bemused. After all of the grilling, this was clearly a softball question. She had worked closely with her advisor to create a portfolio that would meet school expectations.

She explained that during her advisory period, her teacher/advisor made sure she was following her personal learning plan, doing all of the work required for her graduation portfolio as well as other school work and advisory group projects. In addition to this support, her advisor had helped her decide on projects to pursue, including identifying a community service project to complete. Her advisor helped when she needed it. What had surprised her was that the adults in the room didn't know the value of advisory, which was so basic and obvious to her. Her reaction to the question made it clear that she couldn't comprehend how adults at high levels in the educational system didn't know that advisories were a central and important part of her education.

Lessons from Exemplary Schools

Between 2000 and 2006, the Secondary School Redesign program at Brown University conducted an annual high school showcase that included presentations from 20 exemplary high schools from around the United States. The schools presenting had been identified as outstanding by an outside third party. They included Blue Ribbon Schools, New American High Schools, New Urban High Schools, and Breakthrough High Schools, as identified by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. The purpose of the showcase was to support practitioners from good schools in their goal to become great schools by gathering and illustrating successful personalization strategies.

A team of teachers and administrators from a high school in Providence, Rhode Island, had listened to the presentations of all 20 of the schools at one showcase and had become energized by what they saw and learned. As each team member recounted the program at the schools that he or she had observed, it became apparent that some trends existed across all the sites. The showcase schools demonstrated some common themes, including the following:

• Offering an advisory program with a clear purpose.
• Looping students so they saw the same teachers over more than one year (for many of the schools, the looping took place in advisory).
• Planning weekly professional development opportunities for the entire school staff.
• Strongly expressing the understanding that they hadn't reached their goals yet and still had much to improve.

These themes drove the approach to high school redesign adopted by the Brown University Secondary School Redesign initiative. Two of the themes—advisories and looping—can be addressed through the implementation of an appropriate advisory program. The other two themes reflect a school that relies on dialogue for professional development and understands that resting on one's laurels is bound to result in moving backward. Both looping and community dialogue can be strengthened through an effective advisory program.

The Purpose of Advisories

Across the country, many outstanding high schools have been implementing programs to support personalization for students and adults in the school. These programs are labeled in several ways: advisory, mentor-mentee relationships, families, advisor-advisee, or teacher advocacy programs. For the sake of simplicity, we use the term "advisories" to describe all of these initiatives, which feature small groups of students (usually fewer than 20) that meet regularly with a single adult who acts as a guide or advocate for each student.

Successful advisories share a few more traits. They (1) have a stated purpose that everyone in the building knows and accepts as the clear goal for the program, (2) are organized to meet that purpose, (3) have written content guidance for the routines and activities that take place within an advisory period, (4) have a defined method of assessing the advisory program for improving the advisory system, and (5) have school leaders who embrace the concept of advisory so it is a continuously improving system that supports positive outcomes for students.

The purpose of advisories can run the gamut from simply being a place where students can have a conversation with an adult in the room to the place where personal learning plans and portfolios of student work are developed and assessed. The goal could even be to build school community and break down problematic cliques that exist in the school. Whatever the goal or purpose is, it has to be the result of a planned and concerted effort to engage the school community in meaningful conversation on what's missing in their school and how an advisory program could address the school's needs.

For any high school faculty, clarifying the purpose of advisories is an important first step. Beginning to design a program structure without a shared sense of what the advisory is meant to accomplish is a step toward confusion and hard feelings. The following list (Clarke, 2003a) is a collection of some possible purposes that a high school might use to focus its advisory program.

• To increase student motivation
• To guide course selection
• To help students imagine their future
• To connect families to student learning
• To celebrate student achievement
• To connect each student with a caring adult
• To relate student work to standards
• To explore noncurricular options
• To support identity formation
• To initiate lifelong learning
• To increase self-awareness
• To emphasize applications of knowledge
• To gather a best work portfolio
• To banish anonymity from school life
• To clarify graduation requirements
• To plan a path after high school
• To prepare for college application
• To define a personal pathway
• To promote reflection and reevaluation
• To improve basic skills
• To explore career choices
• To develop personal talents
• To extend community involvement
• To evaluate content acquisition
• To legitimize nonschool achievements
• To prepare for college applications

Clearly a list this long would frustrate most advisors. If a faculty can select four to six purposes that they can develop together across the grade levels, they can define a manageable task that produces a coherent program.

Successful advisories are organized to meet the school's explicit advisory goals. For example, if the advisory has a clear academic purpose, the decision about who should be an advisor is decidedly different from who would be able to advise a group that's focused on community building within the school. When the purpose is academic, advisors might be limited to teachers and administrators. However, when the purpose is building community through advisories, virtually every adult in the building is capable of being a good advisor. Likewise, when and where and for how long and how often the sessions occur is dependent on the school's stated purpose. The school's purpose or mission should drive the organization and content of the advisory period and should be consistent with an overall personalization plan for the school.

Aligned with school goals, a successful advisory program develops a curriculum for advisors to use in creating daily activities, units, or student performances. This curriculum must include sample routines and lesson plans for advisors to draw from. In many schools, faculty members are free to create their own activities that are consistent with a broad theme. In yet other schools, students are encouraged to take an active role in creating content for the advisory program. Teacher- and student-designed activities can enlarge the school's repertoire of advisory options. Again, it is important that the school create content that is consistent with the stated purpose and that can be accomplished through the organizational plan designed to meet that purpose.

Both formal and informal assessment processes are an integral part of successful advisory programs. Assessment can be informal, such as scheduling reflection time for advisors to collectively review how things are going and help one another improve on what happens within their advisories. Advisors can schedule reflection time in their advisories for the same purpose. Assessment can be more formal, including a survey of advisors, advisees, and parents to gain feedback and ensure continuous improvement of the program. Regardless of how formal or informal the feedback loop is, the critical aspect of assessment is that the school use suggestions gained from this feedback to make meaningful improvements to the system.

As with any endeavor to change the culture of the school, strong leadership is required to implement and maintain an advisory program in the school. Eliminating the anonymity that currently pervades the culture of our schools is challenging to students and faculty alike. Ensuring that each student is known well by at least one adult and knows well one adult in the building is not what most teachers expected when they chose high school teaching as a career. Leaders are faced with guiding an effort that will require staff members (and students) to rethink their roles in a way that may challenge their core beliefs. Without effective leadership, any advisory program is doomed from the start.

Illustrations of Successful Advisories

Illustrating successful advisories in several U.S. high schools can show how different schools have approached the core tasks of developing new advisory programs.

Setting Advisory Goals

The staff members at Granger High School in Granger, Washington, have embraced the following five advisory goals:

• Every student will be well known, both personally and academically, by at least one adult staff member.
• Every student will be pushed to increase his or her reading level and math level.
• Every student will be challenged to meet rigorous academic standards in an appropriate educational program.
• Every student will be provided with opportunities to experience the benefits of community membership and to develop and practice leadership.
• Every student will be prepared for whatever he or she chooses to do after graduation, with a strong transcript, a career pathway, a plan, and a portfolio.

Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, established the following goals for its Family Advocacy Program (its advisory program):

• For students to have someone in their corner, day after day, no matter what challenges present themselves.
• For teachers to build a strong and lasting relationship that will cheer on successful students and put struggling students back on track.
• For parents to have an assurance that their child is known and watched over by someone in the school who genuinely cares.

At Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, Massachusetts, the purposes of the advisory program include the following:

• Academic advising: The advisory is a place to develop personal learning plans (PLPs), to monitor student progress in general and toward specific goals, to discuss teachers' assessments with students and parents, and to build on the habits of learning.
• Community service: The advisory is a place to practice being an active member of the broader community by designing and implementing community service projects.
• Community conversations: The advisory is a vehicle for schoolwide conversations about community issues and about being a community member.
• Recreation: The advisory is a place to have fun and to learn about group process and dynamics.

All three of these advisory programs have similar purposes, but each also has a special focus: academic skills, student advocacy, or community participation. The differences reflect different community expectations. The career pathway, plan, and portfolio are requirements in Washington State, so it is appropriate to the advisory program at Granger High, but not in Kansas City. The PLP is a central aspect of the curriculum at Parker, so advisory has become the most appropriate place to monitor that progress. Parker staff members see advisory as a place to promote community service, but the other schools do not have that focus.

Early in the process of developing the Family Advocacy Program in Kansas City schools, Wyandotte High School, which was in the first cohort, sent a team of 20 teachers and administrators to a summer institute on the power of advisories in Providence, Rhode Island. During that time, team members agreed on the purpose and plan, including a process for gaining feedback from the entire adult community to strengthen their purpose (National Education Association, n.d.). Agreement on the purpose for advisory requires lengthy conversations with all involved. Ideally, students are included in the conversation so that an advisory's ultimate purpose is informed by all groups within the school community.

Organizing an Advisory Program

The three high schools just described defined very different purposes for their advisories, based on three very different school communities. Consequently, each school organized an advisory program specifically to support its unique and fitting purpose.

Granger High School organized its advisory program by heterogeneously grouping students within grade levels—with a teacher designated to guide those students for their entire stay at the school. That basic structure supports the primary purpose of Granger's program—making every student known well by at least one adult. The advisories at Granger meet four times a week for 30 minutes at the end of the school day. That schedule provides ample time for developing relationships that facilitate accomplishing the advisory program's remaining four goals.

The Kansas City high schools, including Wyandotte, have an 18-to-1 ratio of students to advocates. All teachers must serve as advocates, and other classified staff may also serve as advocates. As at Granger, advisory groups stay together for the entire four years of high school. In the Family Advocacy Program, advocates work to improve learning for each student. They meet with their group of students at least once a week, and contact each student's family at least once a month. Two family conferences are held with students and their families each school year—one each semester. To monitor academic and behavioral problems for each advisee, advocates have an opportunity to meet and consult regularly with core teachers.

At Parker, with a strong academic purpose that is connected to classroom instruction, the advisory is organized so that each student has an advisor who is also his or her classroom teacher. Students are placed in advisories each year using the following set of criteria:

• A student is placed in an advisory based on age, with secondary consideration given to the academic division of the student.
• A student is placed in an advisory in which the advisor is also one of the student's teachers.
• A student may request to be placed in a particular advisory.
• A teacher may request placement of a student in his or her advisory.
• Advisory groups should be gender-balanced and should be representative of Parker's diversity.

All full-time teachers serve as advisors. Part-time teachers are asked to coadvise or to serve as substitutes.

At Parker, advisories meet approximately three hours each week, with morning connection (8:30–8:45), afternoon reflections (3:20–3:30), and extended time on Wednesdays (12:30–1:30). Advisory serves as one of the primary avenues through which students' voices are heard and through which students have ownership of the school. Most advisories have to share a room, so it is expected that those sharing space will establish shared norms. Each advisory elects one member to the Community Congress and to the school's Justice Committee. Juniors and seniors serve as peer mentors to 7th and 8th graders in advisory. Each advisory has a parent volunteer who serves as the advisory parent representative. The role of this parent is to support the advisor in achieving the four purposes of the school's advisory. The advisory program throughout the school is supported by an advisory coordinator.

Activities in an Advisory

To address school goals in Kansas City high schools, each advisor is expected to do the following:

• Get to know students individually and as a group.
• Develop positive relationships with the students.
• Help students develop positive relationships and a sense of community among themselves.
• Provide students with the supports and skills they may need to be successful in school and adult life.
• Keep a confidential file that faculty members can check to see how best to support a student.

An advisory program guide supports advocates by providing relevant activities, exercises, discussion topics, and guidelines.

At Granger High School, advisors who help students enroll in classes each semester are also expected to know if a student is struggling in any particular class. Every semester, each student organizes a student-led conference for other students, teachers, and parents or guardians. Advisors help their students prepare for the conference. At the conference, students present what they are learning, how they are progressing on their personalized education plan, what their grades are, what their reading levels are, and what interventions, if any, are needed. Prior to the conferences, advisors touch base with other teachers to make sure that everyone—students, parents, and teachers—is on the same page with the same information.

At Parker Essential School, some curricular elements, such as PLPs, are common to all advisories. Otherwise, advisors are expected to create a curriculum that aligns with the four stated purposes of the advisory program. The advisory coordinator provides a common set of protocols from which advisors can draw their lessons.

Assessing an Advisory System

Parker provides a variety of vehicles for assessing all aspects of the advisory system, including assessing students, advisors, advisory groups, and the advisory system as a whole. Students are assessed by progress on their PLPs and on advisory checklists mailed to students' homes four times per year. Advisory groups are also assessed at the completion of their community service project by submitting a community service plan and evidence of completion. Advisors are assessed periodically by observation and by occasional feedback from students and parents through surveys designed for that purpose. The advisory system is assessed as part of a larger whole-school community survey that includes questions about the effectiveness of advisory. Figures 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 show examples of these feedback and survey forms.

Figure 2.1. Student Assessment of Advisories at Parker Essential School

Name: _____________________			Advisory Reflection
	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Mostly	Always
I connect in advisory.	1	2	3	4	5
I enjoy coming to advisory.	1	2	3	4	5
I feel left out in advisory.	1	2	3	4	5
I feel like I had input into our Wednesday activities.	1	2	3	4	5
I feel comfortable in advisory.	1	2	3	4	5
Name the people you feel closest to in advisory.
Who is someone you would like to know better?
How do you feel about advisory in general? How could we, as a group, make it better?
What was your favorite Wednesday activity?
How could we make our Wednesdays better (more organized, more varied)?
How can I, as your advisor, better support you through the year?
Final thoughts:
Source: Used by permission of Debbie Osofsky, Advisory Coordinator, Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School.

Figure 2.2. How Are We Doing as an Advisory?

Please rate the following statements on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being Strongly Disagree and 5 being Strongly Agree.
	Strongly Disagree			Strongly Agree
I look forward to advisory time every day and am eager to participate in advisory activities.	1	2	3	4	5
I feel other advisory members actively participate in advisory on a regular basis.	1	2	3	4	5
I feel comfortable speaking in advisory.	1	2	3	4	5
I think others listen respectfully when I speak in advisory.	1	2	3	4	5
I listen respectfully to others when they connect.	1	2	3	4	5
The members of our advisory support one another in reaching their PLP goals.	1	2	3	4	5
Our advisory is planning/performing valuable community service.	1	2	3	4	5
Our advisory has planned some fun activities and we are reflecting on our development as a group.	1	2	3	4	5
Overall, everyone contributes to our advisory goals.	1	2	3	4	5
I contribute to our advisory goals.	1	2	3	4	5
Comments …
Source: Used by permission of Debbie Osofsky, Advisory Coordinator, Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School.

Figure 2.3. Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School Parent/Guardian Advisory Feedback Form

Dear Parent/Guardian,  Please take a moment to answer the questions below about your child's advisor. Your input is valuable to us as we reflect on our practice as advisors. You do not need to note your child's name, but please indicate the name of the advisor about whom you are giving feedback. Thank you.  Advisor_____________________________ Date _____________________________
Question	Yes	No	Comment
1. Do you feel you can contact your child's advisor with any questions or concerns you have?
2. Do you feel your child's advisor understands your child and responds well to his/her needs?
3. Do you feel your child's advisor has kept you informed of your child's academic progress?
4. Do you feel your child's advisor has kept you informed of other issues related to your child's school experience?
5. Have you been invited to participate in the PLP process with your child by his/her advisor?
6. Do you feel comfortable sharing information about your child that may impact his/her school experience with his/her advisor?
7. Do you feel your child has developed a positive and caring relationship with his/her advisor?
8. Do you feel your child's advisor is serving as his/her advocate in the school?
9. Do you feel your child's advisor sufficiently monitors his/her academic progress and advises your child and you accordingly?
10. Do you feel your child's advisor satisfactorily guides the advisory group toward meeting the stated purposes of the advisory program?
11. Other comments?
Source: Used by permission of Debbie Osofsky, Advisory Coordinator, Francis W. Parker Essential School.

Figure 2.4. Student Assessment of Advisors

Source:

At Granger High School, the method of assessing the effectiveness of the advisory program is based on two indicators of student success. One is the percentage of students who have a parent attend the student-led conference. The other indicator reflects how students are performing academically, primarily based on achievement scores on the state assessment tests. Both indicators showed a clear pattern of improvement once the advisory program was put in place. In the first year of advisor-supported student-led conferences—in 2000—about 20 percent of students had parental participation in the conferences, which was twice the percentage of parents who attended parent–teacher conferences during the previous year. In the second year, the percentage of parent participation in student-led conferences grew to 100 percent and stayed at 100 percent for four years. This measure provided a clear indication that the school and the parents were committed to supporting student learning.

During that period, the achievement test scores also showed dramatic gains. The percentage of students meeting state standards reflected improvement in the basic skills portion of state achievement tests (WASL). Most students were still arriving at Granger High achieving at well below grade level. The cohort of middle school students tested in 2001 had passing rates of less than 15 percent in reading and less than 5 percent in math when they took the 7th grade WASL, and yet their 10th grade WASL scores at Granger in 2004 were substantially higher. Those 2004 scores, shown in Figure 2.5, represent dramatic increases when compared with the school's 10th grade WASL scores three years earlier. The graduation rate also rose substantially, as shown in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.5. Comparison of 10th Grade WASL Scores at Granger

Subject	2001	2004	2007
Reading	20%	47%	76%
Math	4%	31%	31%
Writing	8%	52%	66%
These percentages represent the number of students meeting standards on the WASL.

Figure 2.6. Granger High School Graduation Rates

Year	Percentage of Students Graduating
2000	58.3%
2001	69.0%
2002	85.2%
2007	95.0%

Perhaps the most remarkable evidence of success is the drop in the school's crime rate. Granger High's reported crime rate in 1999 topped all the high schools in Yakima Valley, but by 2003 it was the lowest of all the Valley's high schools.

Granger High faculty and staff are accustomed to looking through a variety of student data to focus improvement on priorities of the school and its advisory program. For example, concern for the number of students receiving failing grades soon resulted in the implementation of a no-failing rule. Now any student who falls below a C grade in course work is required to get extra help until the grade improves. The advisors are the key communication link to this program, keeping students, teachers, and especially parents informed about student progress.

Methods of assessing the performance of the students, advisors, and the complete advisory program are critical to the sustainability of the initiative. The Kansas City schools advocates are observed, assessed, and coached in their role by family advocacy staff and principals during walkthroughs. Students also provide feedback on the efficacy of the system during periodic roundtable discussions of the advocates.

Leadership

Richard Esparza, the principal of Granger High, has an approach to leadership for advisories that is based on his firm belief that high schools must do the right thing for their students. He realizes that to reach all students, high schools need to know all students.

Parker has designated an advisory coordinator who provides support and plans and conducts professional development so the advisors can be more effective. Two to three full faculty meetings per year and summer planning time are devoted to advisory. Much of this time is dedicated to tuning the PLP process to ensure that PLPs continue to improve student outcomes and guide the teaching and learning at the school.

Advising may not come easily to some high school teachers—or to schools where other traditions prevail. Advisories require teachers to get to know each student within a group of 12 to 20 students. Teachers realize that getting to know each student can be difficult, particularly if a student is not happy with the high school experience. Because content acquisition is not the paramount purpose for advisories, teachers often fear that they lack the skills they need to work closely with students. "That's for the guidance office," they may say. High school teachers may also be uncomfortable with the open format of the advising session, which can be governed as much by fluid student interest as by an established sequence of plans.

High school teachers often choose their profession because they have two major interests, their academic disciplines and their commitment to student learning. Elementary teachers often choose younger students because they love kids. College teachers tend to choose teaching because they love their disciplines—and were quite good at them. High school teachers have both interests but tend to feel most confident working with an established tradition of facts, concepts, procedures, and processes.

At the same time, high school teachers spend a good deal of time after school and elsewhere talking with students who get excited about the subject itself. Typically, they work with those students in the same role as that of an advisor. In the classroom, their commitment can be profoundly influential among many students. Most adults have little difficulty identifying the high school teachers who made a difference in their lives. Asked why those teachers were influential, high school graduates seldom refer to disciplinary knowledge—although they do see excitement about the subject as powerful. More often, they refer to a sense of humor as the main ingredient of success. They remember whether a teacher cared about how they did in school. They think of times a teacher may have stopped in the hall or cafeteria to talk with them. They remember interacting with a teacher informally, talking about the news, sports, entertainment—or life itself. In those settings, teachers show that they do have the skills (if not the self-assuredness) they need to be an effective advisor.

Students also contribute a great deal to the difficulty of working effectively in an advisory. Many students try to avoid adult contact because it undercuts their own sense of authority. Adolescents are famous for their ability to alienate themselves from the adult world. As 14- to 19-year-olds, they have escaped the confines that oppressed them earlier at home and in school. As adults themselves, most will slowly develop confidence in their contacts with older people. As high school students, however, they seem determined to tear down the structures that adults have created on their behalf.

What does it take to proclaim freedom? Edgy music? Rude or rebellious language? A hat? Baggy pants? Dark glasses? Dope? Pregnancy? A fast car? Whatever it takes, high school students are out to declare ownership of their lives. The remarkable thing is that most high school students do succeed in transforming the uproar of their high school years into the behaviors and responsible roles of adults in the community—people they tried so hard to avoid in their youth.

Schools beginning to develop advisory programs do not face a uniform group of teachers any more than they serve a uniform set of young people. Consequently, programs for faculty need to be multifaceted. Formal professional development workshops and courses may play an important role in creating a common language and setting up structures for a schoolwide program. Colleges and universities may be willing to create school-based courses or longer programs for a school aiming to establish an advisory program.

Although professional conferences are frequently available, most of the training needed to develop local capacity for change can be found within the school itself. Some teachers pride themselves on their relationships with students. They can help form a steering group to organize a long-term process of development. Other teachers are curious about life in other schools; they can be encouraged to travel to schools with strong reputations for advising. By far, the most important effect of any road trip will occur in the car or van as a team is driving to and from a distant event.

Simply engaging teachers in teams that take on the various challenges that accompany development can have an effect. Creating a program guide, writing optional lesson plans, interviewing parents, surfing the Internet, or researching scheduling options can activate teachers with different interests. Allocating time to mutual education within a faculty is essential. By engaging all the faculty, school leaders can remove the adoption barrier that goes up whenever one group of teachers is inside the development circle while another group remains outside.

To avoid resistance (and subterfuge or sabotage) among students, it is essential that they become part of the design process. They know what is possible and desirable. As much as teachers, students need the time to work and rework a new idea in their heads. Most important, students need to have the experience of working closely with adults to solve problems and make something happen. That process is the essence of advising.

If teachers begin to talk about advising in the lounge or halls while students are also talking in the cafeteria, heat begins to rise within the school community, building energy and focus. Working together creates momentum. Simultaneous momentum in several essential areas requires the support of a reliable structure and coordination. Advising is not the kind of activity that can be dropped on students and faculty from the top. It grows most energetically when teachers and students tend to its growth together.