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Voices in Urban Education
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Sustaining Reform
VUE Number 9, Fall 2005
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
Continuous Improvement: Sustaining Education Reform Long Enough to Make a Difference
By Thomas W. Payzant
Thomas W. Payzant is superintendent of Boston Public Schools.
> Author's Biography
Thanks to political stability and a design for continuous engagement and improvement
for teachers and school leaders, Boston Public Schools has sustained a reform effort for
ten years.
For the past decade, reform work in Boston Public Schools (BPS) has focused on all schools in the district, with the goal of improving teaching and learning for every student in each classroom, and on creating a new structure and set of practices districtwide so that the reform work is sustainable over a long period of time. While a great deal of education research over the past two decades has focused on issues of educational performance and improvement in individual schools, there is comparatively little inquiry into the challenges of improving large urban districts as a whole.
It may seem a reasonable assumption that if every school improves individually, then the district as a whole will of course be better. Many districts, including Boston, have outstanding examples of urban schools that have "turned around" in recent years. However, the challenges of moving a whole district are more than hoping that the whole will one day equal the sum of all its parts. By focusing on individual schools alone, large districts run the risk of creating a system of winners and losers where reforms are not taken to scale, where managing and monitoring a change process becomes hit-or-miss, and where issues of equity can subsume the reform momentum.
The Boston district's challenge has been to create and implement a long-range plan that will result in improvement in every school that affects every teacher and student, so that all students graduate with a high school diploma, ready for postsecondary education. Over the past decade, the district has aggressively worked to create a structure and practices in each school that will enable continuous improvement to be sustainable, regardless of changes in leadership or the political context of the district.
The Importance of Political Stability
Boston's recent political circumstances relative to BPS have been uniquely favorable for educational reform. For the past ten years, unlike decades past in Boston and unlike many municipalities across the nation, Boston's educational goals have not changed. The focus on carrying out standards-based reform, accelerating improved student achievement, and closing the achievement gap has been consistent from one year to the next. The initiatives to support these goals have emerged over time, primarily in response to data and the plans of the school committee, superintendent, and school-based personnel, rather than to political pressures or pressures from special-interest groups.
Archives
Sustaining Reform
VUE Number 9, Fall 2005
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
Continuous Improvement: Sustaining Education Reform Long Enough to Make a Difference
By Thomas W. Payzant
Thomas W. Payzant is superintendent of Boston Public Schools.
> Author's Biography
Thanks to political stability and a design for continuous engagement and improvement
for teachers and school leaders, Boston Public Schools has sustained a reform effort for
ten years.
For the past decade, reform work in Boston Public Schools (BPS) has focused on all schools in the district, with the goal of improving teaching and learning for every student in each classroom, and on creating a new structure and set of practices districtwide so that the reform work is sustainable over a long period of time. While a great deal of education research over the past two decades has focused on issues of educational performance and improvement in individual schools, there is comparatively little inquiry into the challenges of improving large urban districts as a whole.
It may seem a reasonable assumption that if every school improves individually, then the district as a whole will of course be better. Many districts, including Boston, have outstanding examples of urban schools that have "turned around" in recent years. However, the challenges of moving a whole district are more than hoping that the whole will one day equal the sum of all its parts. By focusing on individual schools alone, large districts run the risk of creating a system of winners and losers where reforms are not taken to scale, where managing and monitoring a change process becomes hit-or-miss, and where issues of equity can subsume the reform momentum.
The Boston district's challenge has been to create and implement a long-range plan that will result in improvement in every school that affects every teacher and student, so that all students graduate with a high school diploma, ready for postsecondary education. Over the past decade, the district has aggressively worked to create a structure and practices in each school that will enable continuous improvement to be sustainable, regardless of changes in leadership or the political context of the district.
The Importance of Political Stability
Boston's recent political circumstances relative to BPS have been uniquely favorable for educational reform. For the past ten years, unlike decades past in Boston and unlike many municipalities across the nation, Boston's educational goals have not changed. The focus on carrying out standards-based reform, accelerating improved student achievement, and closing the achievement gap has been consistent from one year to the next. The initiatives to support these goals have emerged over time, primarily in response to data and the plans of the school committee, superintendent, and school-based personnel, rather than to political pressures or pressures from special-interest groups.
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