Keeping the Momentum

It's May. For my school, that has meant a push to "gear up," rather than "gear down" toward the end of the school year. Gearing up means that we have two month to make a difference and push our students in a targeted area. Each team selected an area that they wanted to put extra time and effort into leveraging - knowing that the work that we do now will pay off for next year as well. One example of an area that we knew needed focus was writing. Our students have made progress (as evidenced by writing benchmark scores), but only about 25% of our students are proficient on writing benchmarks, and even fewer reflect proficiency on extended response questions on interim assessments (we use Achievement Network). As teams thought about this progress vs. proficiency issue, they made decisions about how they could "gear up" their efforts in writing and use more extended response prompts for their students, explicitly teach student friendly rubrics, and coach students through examining their work and the work of their peers against those rubrics. Even though those practices would have benefit our students more if used consistently throughout the school year, incorporating them now provides teachers with an opportunity to practice and refine a skill that they will need for the next school year. It also helps to shift students now to the expectations that they will live with in the fall.

This model, based on the work and the book, Rapid Results, by Robert Schaffer and Ron Ashkenas, and is used in business, non-profit, and education to identify a targeted area for improvement, determine effective strategies to impact change, implement the strategies in a short timeline, and analyze the data collected to determine if changes are required.

For a turnaround school, this format is key to success because it allows teachers to take ownership of an improvement area and puts the solutions and accountability in their lap. Feeling energized, even about the idea of challenging work, is essential to keeping the momentum going. We want - actually, we need - to see results from our work. Spinning our wheels will not get us where we need to be. We are encouraged by progress, but we are aiming for achievement. Freddie Mercury, the incredible lead singer of the band Queen, sang, "Don't stop me now!" That's the message for our turnaround school - we are just getting started and we are not going to stop!