Why Boston schools are improving, part 2

In my last post I wrote that stable leadership, outside pressure, and a relentless focus on instruction have all contributed to the Boston Public Schools' steady improvement over the past ten to fifteen years. Today I offer reasons four through six for that improvement.

4. Competition. Since 1994, when Massachusetts law first allowed for charter schools in the Commonwealth, independent groups have been eager to establish schools in Boston. Today there are fourteen Boston charters, among them some of the highest performing public schools in the city or even the state. Controversy continues about whether charter schools, which admit students through a lottery system, serve their fair share of English language learners and students with special needs. Still, one thing seems certain: the looming threat of the charter school movement motivated the Boston Teachers Union to embrace an innovation of their own, pilot schools.

Pilot schools represent a collaboration between the district and the union, where certain work rules and district mandates are suspended. Pilot schools, which are designed to be laboratories of innovation, have autonomy over budget, staffing, schedule, curriculum, and calendar. Twenty-three pilot schools now serve 9000 Boston students, with pilot schools for the arts, for science, for leadership, and for students who are over age. Like charters, pilot schools attract teachers and students who share a particular vision, and they often serve those students particularly well.

Thus Boston is no longer a monolithic system. Instead it offers a menu of schools that challenge one another toward constant improvement.

5. Careful attention to managing innovation. The pilot school program demonstrates that the leadership and often the teachers of Boston are willing to take risks and innovate to give kids a better chance at an education. Of course, eagerness to innovate can bring problems of its own. Like many cities surrounded by universities and philanthropic organizations, Boston sometimes fields more offers for partnership than it can handle. It's easy for a school system that's hungry for funding to fragment its attention among hundreds of small projects, each backed by enthusiastic advocates, each good in itself, but each a distraction from the district's core strategy. Boston, instead, has sought to convince its partners to throw their joint efforts behind the superintendent's priorities.

Moreover, the district has taken a measured approach to innovation. Usually it has allowed a new program, such as coaching for school change or a workshop model for building reading comprehension, to take root first in a few schools. Often these efforts have been piloted by the Boston Plan for Excellence using philanthropic money, only to be brought in house under the core school budget once the kinks have been ironed out. This careful, systematic approach has sometimes frustrated those who want to see change come faster, but it has guarded the district against the whipsaw effect of constantly embracing new enthusiasms.

6. Attention to data. Both the school district and the Boston Plan for Excellence have embraced the notion of delving into student data to drive reform. School teams examine student work for evidence of the quality of assignments. BPE developed a tool called FAST-R to diagnose students' successes and errors in reading comprehension. The team developed an early warning system for identifying potential future dropouts so prevention efforts can be spent where they're needed. The district signed up to be part of NAEP's Trial Urban District Assessment program. This willingness to gather and examine data with all its potential for embarrassing findings has been key to driving an honest, hard-headed approach to reform.

So there you have it - my list for the factors I think have been most important in helping a mid-sized urban district elicit steadily rising performance from its students. Steady leadership, outside pressure, and competition have helped to drive the process. A clear focus on instruction and a devotion to data have helped to characterize it. And a careful, managed approach to innovation has kept the course steady. Now it's the job of everyone involved to continue the course and work for even more substantial change.

Why Boston schools are improving

Yesterday's post presented evidence that Boston schools have steadily improved over the past ten years. Today I'll talk about six reasons for that steady improvement. These aren't the only reasons, and they may not even be the most important, but based on my own observations, I think these are key factors that could operate in any school system.

1. Stable leadership. Tom Payzant spent ten years as superintendent, and Carol Johnson, who succeeded him in 2007, has just signed onto another four-year contract. Such stability is almost unheard of in urban education, where mutual discontent between school committees and superintendents leads to an average tenure at the top of less than three years. Each time a new leader comes in, there's a period of adjustment. There are personnel changes. New priorities rise to the top. Some programs are dropped or starved of funds while others are launched. Time is lost and progress sputters.

One reason Boston superintendents can stay is that the school committee is appointed by the mayor, not elected. This makes it harder for one disgruntled or ambitious faction to undermine the superintendent's agenda. Some citizens view an appointed school committee as an insult to democracy, but voters have wisely approved it. They elect the mayor, let his choose his team, and hold him accountable for the results.

2. Steady outside pressure. To have an outside partner, sympathetic but demanding, examining your work can be infuriating but helpful. The Boston Plan for Excellence played this role in Boston. Ellen Guiney came to head the plan just as Tom Payzant arrived to lead the school district. They had worked together before, when Payzant was President Clinton's Assistant Secretary of Education and Guiney was Senator Kennedy's top education aide. They shared a dedication to kids and a deep interest in research.

Under Guiney, BPE kept a steady focus on the district's performance. The Plan pushed for changes in teacher hiring and how professional development money was spent. It pressed for closer attention to problems with special education. It advocated for new coaching programs.
Most of all, BPE pushed to increase the pace of reform. Bureaucracies tend to drag their feet, but BPE was a terrier nipping at the school district's heels.

3. Focus on instruction. BPE and the superintendent shared a belief that getting all kids to high levels meant big changes in how teachers taught in the classroom. Together, they carefully introduced new literacy programs, followed by new, more demanding math curriculum. BPE piloted and the district embraced a program of instructional coaching, where skilled coaches worked closely with teams of teachers inside the schools. Professional development became increasingly school-based, team, based, and focused on student work and the content teachers needed to address every day in the classroom.

Changing what and how teachers teach is slow, demanding work, but the Boston Public Schools now have some of the most coherent curriculum and most effective teachers in the state--teachers who can reach not only the eager, high-achieving kids but also the reluctant and confused.

Next time I'll talk about three more key factors behind Boston's steady improvement.