Themes - About the Framework - Best Practices - Louisiana

About the Themes

Recognition, Intervention, and Adjustment

Recognize, intervene, or adjust based on school performance

Recognize, intervene, or adjust based on teacher performance

Recognize, intervene, or adjust based on student performance

Monitoring: Compilation, Analysis, and Use of Data

Develop student assessment and data monitoring systems to monitor school performance

Monitor teacher performance and student learning

Monitor student learning

Instructional Programs, Practices, and Arrangements

Provide evidence-based instructional programs

Ensure the use of evidence-based programs, practices, and arrangements in every classroom

Use evidence-based programs, practices, and arrangements

Staff Selection, Leadership, and Capacity Building

Provide strong leaders, highly qualified teachers, and aligned professional development

Select, develop, and allocate staff based on student learning

Collaborate in grade level/subject teams focused on student learning

Student Learning: Expectations and Goals

Provide clear, prioritized academic objectives by grade and subject that all students are expected to master

Implement the district's written curriculum and ensure that all students achieve specific academic goals

Ensure the district's written curriculum is taught to and mastered by all students

Five Organizing Themes provide the primary structure for studying the practices of Consistently Higher Performing Schools. The themes represent the broad topics that connect the identified practices across different organizational levels. Together, these themes capture the primary instructional activities undertaken by school systems and represent the major content areas in which practices of higher performing school systems differ from their average-performing counterparts.

Curriculum and Academic Goals - "What is Taught and Learned"

This theme focuses on the learning target: what it is that we expect all students to know, and be able to do, by grade and subject? It is a great surprise to many that the explicit, agreed-upon academic goals of our school systems have ranged from fuzzy to non-existent. Yet Higher Performing School Systems have clear academic targets from Kindergarten through Grade 12. In successful schools, principals and teachers comprehend the learning goals, understand that these goals are meant for all students, and consider the goals non-negotiable.

In the Higher Performing Schools we have studied, activities under this theme were critical first steps toward improvement. Educators in these schools often felt that, while their state standards were strong, there remained a need to add greater substance and clarity to these standard in order to use them as working documents. This information included: specificity by grade and subject, curriculum maps or pacing guides, essential questions related to objectives, aligned or developed instructional resources, performance rubrics, model lessons, and student exemplars.

Staff Selection, Leadership, and Capacity Building - "Selecting and Developing Leaders and Teachers"

This theme focuses on the selection and development of a school system's most precious resource: people. Once the academic goals of the system are clear, the leaders and teachers must be selected and developed to ensure that every learner in the system achieves these goals.

In Consistently Higher Performing Schools, instructional leaders are as committed to developing "high-quality" teachers already in their buildings as they are to hiring new teachers who meet these high standards. Strong systems of support are grounded in collaborative teams focused on curriculum, instruction, and student learning. The collaborative approach to teaching in these schools fosters a sense of collective responsibility for student learning, and, in the process, teaching becomes a less isolated and more public act.

Instructional Programs, Practices, and Arrangements - "The Right Stuff -- Time and Tools"

This theme focuses on the "things" that higher performing school systems use-instructional resources and materials, technology, time, and so forth. Strong instructional leaders and highly qualified teachers need evidence-based tools and resources to enable them to reach high standards with every learner.

Consistently Higher Performing Schools, and the districts that support them, seek instructional materials that are tightly aligned to those district curriculum objectives that have proven successful with similar student populations. These schools are creative about the use of instructional time, constantly searching for ways to carve additional learning time out of the schedule.

Monitoring: Compilation, Analysis, and Use of Data - "Knowing the Learners and the Numbers"

After clearly identifying what is to be learned, by grade and subject, and after confirming that the schools are equipped with the staff and tools to deliver the curriculum successfully, the school system then addresses a pivotal question: "How do we know if students have learned what we set out for them to learn?"

The view at the Higher Performing Schools that we have studied is that assessment is a critical part of teaching and learning. Educators value the diagnostic information that assessment can provide. Districts usually have formative assessment programs to monitor progress regularly, equipping teachers to make timely instructional adjustments or interventions. Districts supporting these Higher Performing Schools often have student data monitoring systems that provide educators with easy access to student achievement records, including district assessments.

Recognition, Intervention, and Adjustment - "Ensuring ALL Children Learn"

The most pressing question concerns the monitoring of student performance. "What are we going to do if students do not learn the knowledge and skills we said they would learn?" Higher Performing School Systems have pyramids of intervention to provide immediate and intense intervention, at multiple levels, whenever learning is interrupted.

It's often the case in education that, when students struggle to meet high standards, the "target" is changed to allow students to be successful. In the Higher Performing Schools we have studied, all students are expected to reach the same standards. Successful schools redouble their efforts to provide additional scaffolding to struggling students, bringing to bear all available classroom, school, and district resources in support of student achievement.

National Center for Educational Achievement / Just for the Kids