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Atlanta Symposium
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Raymond McNulty, Senior Vice President,
International Center for Leadership in Education
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Outline for the Talk

• Some opening thoughts about education today
• Key learnings from the field
• Items to leave behind
• A few closing thoughts

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What got us to where we are today,will not get
us to where we need to be!
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Key Learnings from the Field
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1. BIG BANG THEORY

• Fix whats not working by using dataand advise
  about change in advance
• Versions..
• Tweaking practice. Something doable..
  Ambidextrous Organization

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What is your Theory of Action?

• Your strategy for solving this problem, and the
  reason it will bring about the desired outcome.

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• What actions
• With what people
• In what setting
• Will produce what outcomes

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THE IMPLEMENTATION DIP. THE POSSIBILITY CURVE..
Fullan--1990
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2. INSTRUCTION NOT STRUCTURE

• Every close study of actual classroom practice
  reveals that instruction is typically mediocre.
  The gap to attack here is between effective
  practice and actual practice.

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If You Care About Learning, These Findings Are
Chilling Mike Schmoker

• Classrooms in which
• there was evidence of a clear learning objective
  4 percent
• high-yield strategies were being used 0.2
  percent
• there was evidence of higher-order thinking 3
  percent

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If You Care About Learning, These Findings Are
Chilling

• Classrooms in which
• students were either writing or using rubrics 0
• fewer than one-half of students were paying
  attention 85 percent
• students were using worksheets 52 percent
• Non-instructional activities were occurring 35
  percent

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2. THE THREE RS

• When students were asked to describe their best
  teachers, their answers all point to the
  relationships between student and teacher.
• When we ask teachers about best classrooms, their
  answers are essentially the same as the students
  RELATIONSHIPS.

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It is virtually impossible to make things
relevant for or expect personal excellence from a
student you dont know.

• Carol Ann Tomlinson

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• Relationships
• Relevance
• Rigor

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You cant teach kids you dont know.
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5. JUST PLAIN TIPS.
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• Teachers ask students, What am I doing wrong?
• Students ask teachers, How will I use what you
  are teaching today?
• Teachers ask students, How do you learn best?
• Test Ideas
• What did you learn?
• What did you get wrong?

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• Students have learned their tech skills from
  collaborating with others outside of school.
  WOMBAT..
• Because something is a best practice it doesnt
  mean it works for all students. One size does not
  fit all!
• Good judgment comes from experience and
  experience comes from bad judgment.
• All kids want to read, no one who cant read is
  happy about it.

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5. ASSESSMENT
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What is missing in assessment practice is the
recognition that, to be valuable for instruction
and planning, assessment must be a moving
picture, a video stream rather than a periodic
snapshot.
Margaret Heritage, National Center for Research
and Evaluation
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Middle Level Study
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Keeping Students on a Graduation Path in
Philadelphias Middle-Grades Schools

• Early Identification Effective Interventions
• Balfanz, Herzog, Mac Iver (2007)

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Powerful 6th Grade Predictors of Slipping Off
Path

• Attending school 80 or less of the time
• Receiving a poor final behavior mark or a
  suspension
• Failing math
• Failing English

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6th Grade Attendance as a Predictor of Not
Graduating

• Attending school less than 90 of the time
  increases the odds that a student will not
  graduate.
• When a sixth-graders attendance dips below 80
  (missing 36 days or more in the year), the
  student has only a 1 in 6 chance of graduating
  from the district on time or one year late.

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Poor Behavior in 6th-Grade as a Predictor of Not
Graduating

• Students who were suspended slipped off the
  graduation path in large numbers.
• 845 (6) of the sixth-graders received one or
  more out of school suspensions. Only 20 of
  these students graduated on time or one year
  late.
• 222 sixth-graders received in-school suspensions.
  Only 17 graduated on time or one year late.

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Implications

• Students fall off the graduation path in
  different but identifiable ways.
• In 6th grade, most future dropouts have just one
  of the big four risk factors especially poor
  behavior or poor attendance
• Some have two risk factors, especially poor
  behavior plus course failure (in English or
  mathematics)
• Less than 8 of the sixth-graders had more than
  two of the big four indicators.

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Why do you think so few sixth-graders recover
once they display one of the big four warning
signs?
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Bad news doesnt get better over time.
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Implications

• Academic and behavioral problems at the start of
  the middle grades do not self-correct. The most
  common and very harmful response to students who
  struggle in 6th grade is to wait and hope they
  grow out of it. But, they do not typically
  recover, they drop out.
• Early intervention is absolutely essential.

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A Promising Path to Higher Graduation Rates

• Identify those who need sustained intervention
• Provide both comprehensive schoolwide reforms and
  more targeted and individually-focused
  interventions to prevent and alleviate student
  disengagement.
• Create seamless transitions between schools.

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Atlanta Symposium
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Raymond McNulty, Senior Vice President,
International Center for Leadership in Education