percent of schools in all of California, and was in need of something new. I met with Superintendent Carlos Garcia, his second- in-command Richard Carranza, and my new immediate supervisor Guadalupe Guer- rero. They all had the same message for me: raise the achievement levels of the students at Muir. Knowing that strong educators had pre-
viously attempted to solve this dilemma, and that the school district had dedicated re- sources to support the work in prior years, I tried to think about what it was I could offer to change that pattern. I set about trying to develop a strategy to improve achievement at John Muir. I reviewed some of the cur- rent literature around school reform and the achievement gap, but became somewhat overwhelmed by the breadth and variety of solutions suggested. Turning to my two decades of experience
as an educator, I thought about the ways in which I had been successful at my previ- ous schools, and also some of the obstacles to greater success. I realized that one factor inhibiting improvement at schools like John Muir is that we try to address too many chal- lenges at the same time, often ending up with mediocre results on a wide range of issues. Too often, we ignore the single most
critical element of what happens at a school: classroom teaching. Fundamentally, I be- lieve that great teaching can overcome the debilitating impact of poverty upon our stu- dents’ achievement scores. For that reason, I decided that teaching would be the center of my strategy at Muir. I would keep our focus on the classroom, and in particular around the literacy instructional practices.
The Superintendent’s Zone One of the unique aspects of the reforms
taking place at Muir is that we are part of a broader effort to systemically change the traditionally lower-performing schools in San Francisco. Two years ago our superin- tendent created a small cohort of schools and established the Superintendent’s Zone. The schools selected were all extremely low- performing, and had received considerable attention in the past with limited results. The officially stated purpose of the Zone is to “expand and coordinate our resources
to ensure each school in the Zone has the teaching and learning conditions neces- sary to accelerate academic growth for its students.” The superintendent set a high goal for “every school in the Zone to reach the district average Academic Performance ranking within the next 3 years.” (From SFUSD Superintendent’s Zone: 2011-2012 School Year, SFUSD website). Within this context the work at Muir is
forts at the central office level put those of us at the school sites in a position where we can be more confident that the teachers we assemble have the same dedication to the mission at hand, and many of the skills they need to reach our goals. Another factor that has been instrumen-
tal to our ability to make systemic change at Muir is the funding provided through the School Improvement Grant, a federal
part of a larger vision, and for the first time in my career as an educator the goals of the school are lined up perfectly with the support from the central office and all the depart- ments. The Superintendent’s Zone is clearly a priority in SFUSD, and as such many of the old systemic obstacles to improving student achievement are being slowly broken down. For example, in the past, low-performing
schools usually received the least experi- enced teachers, or those who had not expe- rienced success at other sites. In the Superin- tendent’s Zone, long hard work between the central office and the teachers’ union has led to the creation of a specific job description for teachers that outlines skills, attitudes, beliefs and expectations. In addition, HR staff help screen and recruit teachers based on in-depth conversations with principals from the Zone. Perhaps most significantly, the practice
of switching teachers with poor evaluations into schools like John Muir no longer occurs in the Superintendent’s Zone. All of these ef-
grant passed down to the states and then to individual districts. This massive grant pro- vides John Muir, as well as nine other San Francisco public schools, with a substantial amount of funding to help with the work at hand. While monies had been directed to- ward John Muir and other low-performing schools in the past, this time the amounts were greater, and there was clear advice from the Superintendent’s Zone regarding how the funding could be used to improve achievement.
Tools and materials for success During the 2010-2011 school year, fund-
ing arrived halfway into the school year, so the impact was somewhat diminished. Nonetheless, I was able to hire two literacy acceleration teachers for the second semes- ter, a part-time ELD coach, and a part-time parent liaison to engage families. In addi- tion, we purchased hundreds of sets of lev- eled books, enhanced classroom libraries, and upgraded some basic classroom technol-
January/February 2012 9
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