March 2001 | Volume 58 | Number 6

Helping All Students Achieve

Seeking Common Ground

Marge Scherer

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Closing the Achievement Gap

Kati Haycock

Although we made great gains during the 1970s and 1980s to increase the achievement levels of minority and low-income students, the achievement gap is widening again, writes Kati Haycock, Director of the Education Trust. But what can schools do to decrease those gaps?

Implement high standards for all students.

Align those standards with a challenging curriculum.

Give struggling students extra help.

Focus on good teaching.

Instead of making excuses for students from low-income or minority homes, we must value a strong academic core that gives all students—regardless of their background—the best opportunities to achieve.

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Grading for Success

Carol Ann Tomlinson

Teachers who want to help all students succeed in their academically diverse classrooms often wonder how they can both teach to the needs of each student and grade each student. There is no quick fix, because grading grows from a philosophy of teaching and learning. Teachers should first consider the needs of each student and how they teach to meet the different learning needs of the students. Then, teachers need to grade for success in the same way that they teach and assess for success.

Some strategies for grading are to give differentiated tasks and grade students on how well they perform those tasks; to offer consistent, meaningful feedback that clarifies present successes and next learning steps; to look for growth patterns over time when assigning report-card grades; and to find ways to document individual growth and relative standing and explain them to parents and students.

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Teaching to the Test?

W. James Popham

What is teaching to the test and why should teachers be discouraged from doing it? Given the enormous pressures teachers feel to improve their students' scores on high-stakes tests, some teachers are teaching items taken directly from the test or items much like them—a practice called item-teaching. In contrast to curriculum-teaching, in which teachers direct their instruction toward a body of content knowledge or skills represented by a test, item-teaching eviscerates the validity of score-based inferences.

How do we dissuade teachers from item-teaching? Teachers need assessment literacy, in which they learn and understand the difference between item- and curriculum-teaching. In addition, policymakers must ensure that high-stakes tests are accompanied by a clear description of the knowledge and skills represented by the test items. If we have tests that have clarified instructional targets, teachers can focus on curriculum-teaching and ensure that their students master what they need to learn.

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Small Schools, Real Gains

Patricia A. Wasley and Richard J. Lear

Size alone does not make a school good, but small size is often a defining characteristic of schools that engage students' intellectual and emotional lives and improve their academic performance. The authors review research that shows these positive gains and suggest reasons that small size makes possible the development of practices conducive to student learning, including stronger relationships between students and teachers, better communication with parents and the community, a clear focus on goals, an inclusive school culture, and a more flexible organizational structure. The authors then review how the development of small schools is impeded by significant barriers, including cultural expectations about high school, timid and incremental approaches to reform, mandates favoring large schools, and demands for instant evidence of success. The authors hope that recent signs of federal and private financial support for small schools will continue to gain momentum.

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Making a Huge High School Feel Smaller

James Schoenlein

In Kettering, Ohio, Fairmont High School has undertaken a number of inexpensive and manageable initiatives designed to make a large school feel smaller. After committing themselves to developing a warmer and more personalized environment for the school's 2,500 students, the faculty and staff set up advisories, pictureboard of the Fairmont Family, a focus on career exploration, initiatives to celebrate diversity, and a practice of showing videoclips of student activities on the TV distribution system to encourage participation of all students. The author emphasizes the principal's important role in nurturing a sense of community. To those who are concerned about the massive restructuring needed to develop smaller schools, the author answers that these manageable initiatives have been effective and that any or all of them can be launched in any school on Monday morning.

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Class Size Reduction: From Promise to Practice

Anke Halbach, Karen Ehrle, John Zahorik and Alex Molnar

Educators, policymakers, and parents are embracing the idea of class size reduction, but how does it affect student learning? The Wisconsin class size reduction program, Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE), has evaluated the project and gathered data on what teachers can expect when teaching fewer students per class. Teachers reported that they had

Fewer discipline problems;

More time for instruction;

More time for individualization;

More flexibility to vary instructional strategies; and

An ability to cover more content with greater depth.

Class size reduction offers much promise for teachers; however, we still need more research to help teachers maximize the benefits of smaller-sized classrooms.

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When Older Students Can't Read

Louisa C. Moats

Given strong evidence that research-based instruction beginning in kindergarten significantly reduces the number of children who later experience reading difficulty, the focus on early intervention is well-conceived. But how can educators help the many students beyond 3rd grade who struggle with reading? Reading intervention grounded in research imparts to older readers the skills they missed in primary grades and can bring them to grade level in one to two years. Such instruction is designed to match the students' level of reading development, because each stage of growth requires a special focus. Other skills areas that effective reading programs should address are phonological awareness and decoding, reading fluency and word recognition, vocabulary and phrase meanings, comprehension, and written response to reading.

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A Second Chance for Struggling Readers

Bruce Joyce, Marilyn Hrycauk and Emily Calhoun

One of the greatest challenges facing educators is the low literacy rates of older readers. In an effort to attack this problem, a school district in Canada created a program called Second Chance to address literacy for students grades 4–9. A pull-out program, Second Chance implements a curriculum that is research-based and gives students several complementary avenues for acquiring literacy. Teachers also receive ongoing training and form inquiry teams to support their work. What are the results? The data support that students are making great gains in reading and writing, both in class and on standardized tests. By building communities of learners and by relying on solid research, educators and students alike have moved from frustration to empowerment and have learned a valuable lesson: Students are never too old to improve their literacy skills.

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Improving Reading Instruction: The Triarchic Model

Robert J. Sternberg, Elena L. Grigorenko and Linda Jarvin

Applying a theory of cognition to teaching reading helps all students achieve. The authors propose applying a triarchic theory of cognition—developing cognitive skills that are analytical, creative, and practical—to help students learn in all subject areas. The authors describe studies applying the theory specifically to reading instruction and involving more than 1,200 students in middle and high schools. They provide examples of instructional strategies used to encourage analytical, creative, and practical skills in one of the studies and of assessment techniques that include multiple choice, open-ended questions, and homework assignments. The authors will be applying the triarchic model to teaching 4th grade reading, mathematics, and science in a large-scale national study.

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Excellence For All in Minneapolis

Carol R. Johnson and Ross Taylor

Like many school districts, Minneapolis public schools serve a diverse student population. With the mission to help all students learn, the district has found that several elements make a difference: early intervention; attendance; small class size; high quality instruction; expectations of excellence; good student health; consistency; time; community support; multiple measures for assessment; curriculum, instruction, and assessment alignment; accountability; good relations with the teachers' union; and goals, feedback, and teamwork. These elements guide the district's work as it educates students and provides professional support to teachers and administrators.

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Reaching Out to Immigrant Parents

Betsy Lindeman

U.S. schools are becoming more diverse, and such diversity often calls for new measures to connect parents with their schools. How can educators build relationships with immigrant parents who often do not speak English, have more than one job, and are not acclimated to the U.S. education system?

One example from Arlington, Virginia, shows the creative programs that schools can organize for its immigrant population. Educators must consider communication barriers, particularly for parents who speak languages that are spoken by only a fragment of the population. In many cases, the children themselves are the best link to communicating. In addition, educators must take into account the cultural differences that immigrant parents might face. Despite barriers, educators find that immigrant parents are enthusiastic, persistent, committed to their children, and value education.

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Using Intriguing Problems to Improve Math Skills

Brian A. Bottge

When the format of instruction is engaging, students in special education programs can solve increasingly complex math problems as well as regular students can. The author describes research conducted during several programs in middle school remedial math programs. Students began by solving problems presented in a video and then reinforced the new math skills by completing hands-on building projects. In a subsequent project, students participated enthusiastically in a car derby that required an understanding of the functions of distance, rate, and time. Their post-test scores were significantly higher than those of students in classrooms using traditional math instruction. Students were successful because the problems interested them, the teachers worked collaboratively and creatively, and the principal revised schedules to support their collaboration. Research on these promising findings will continue on a larger scale next year.

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A High School Diploma . . . and More

Ephraim Weisstein

The Diploma Plus program is aimed at students ages 16 to 22 in Massachusetts who are struggling in high school or who have already dropped out of school. The program helps students earn a high school diploma and is designed on the following principles: establish high expectations, make teaching and learning exciting, base progress toward graduation on performance, build ongoing assessment into all aspects of the program, and build-in challenging postsecondary experiences as part of earning a high school diploma.

In the presentation phase of the program, students acquire core skills in reading comprehension, math reasoning, writing, and critical thinking. During the plus phase, students enroll in one or more courses at local community colleges and participate in structured internships to explore possible careers.

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EL Extra

Carol Tell

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Your Turn—A Survey for Readers

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Inclusion and Students with Learning Disabilities

John H. Holloway

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Web Wonders / High Expectations for Every Student

Sally Lindfors

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ASCD in Action

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