Pillar 4: Powerful Teaching and Rigorous Curriculum
The relationship between teacher and student is the most significant factor influencing student success, and thus reform efforts must focus on creating the instructional and organizational conditions which will enable teachers and students to consistently perform at high levels.
Every student deserves a rigorous and relevant curriculum aligned with California state standards. Unfortunately, too many of our middle and high school students in LAUSD are not taking a rigorous curriculum today. This must change! We also must expand middle and high school education to a broad-based, “A-G” curriculum that teaches strong reading, writing, and math skills but that also includes social studies, science, languages, physical education, music, and the arts. Our students live in an increasingly global society, and to compete and thrive, they must become literate in multiple languages and technologically savvy. Our goal is to develop critical thinkers and lifelong learners.
Public schools in LAUSD should offer multiple pathways for student success. While every student should have the option to attend college, some students will prefer to enter a career. Our schools should provide rigorous, sequential Career and Technical Education opportunities (which would still be aligned with A-G requirements) enabling students who acquire these skills to enter well-paying jobs. Our school system should partner with business and labor entities to create career academies so students can benefit from internships, mentorships, and career immersion.
To help students succeed in mastering a rigorous curriculum, many students need additional time and support throughout the school day, week and year. Extended class time for interventions and supplemental programs must be made available. We must also dramatically improve our programs targeting specific populations including young children, students with special needs, English Language Learners, drop-outs, and gifted and talented students.
It is teachers who are entrusted each day with making their classrooms fun, exciting and alive so that students will want to learn. Far too often in LAUSD today, however, teachers do not have a voice in their classrooms. To keep teachers motivated and effective, it is essential that teachers have a knowledgeable and growing understanding of their practice and have the space, technology and materials, and supports they need to do their jobs. They also need smaller class sizes. We need to support the development of professional learning communities where teachers make instructional decisions based on student achievement data.
1. Rigorous, Relevant Standards-Based, “A-G” Curriculum for All Students
Every student in LAUSD should have the option to attend college. Our schools must offer a rigorous, relevant curriculum aligned with the California state standards for each grade level. This has not traditionally been the case as large segments of underserved students have not been given a college preparatory curriculum and instead have been tracked into remedial classes. We should provide all high school students with an A-G curriculum that is required for admission to a four-year state university. Rigorous curriculum challenges the learner, while a relevant curriculum is one that is recognized both by teacher and student as being pertinent. Given the wide diversity of students in LAUSD, the curriculum must be both aligned with standards and customized to meet the unique needs of specific communities and students.
2. Provide more Opportunities for Students to Learn a Foreign Language in Elementary School
The human brain is much more adept at learning languages at young ages, yet in most American schools, we wait until middle school to begin foreign language instruction. We need to push our elementary schools to offer foreign languages which will be most valuable in the 21st century, including Spanish, Arabic and the languages of the Pacific Rim, beginning in the first grade.
3. Bring Back the Arts and Physical Education
In the nation’s creative capital, art, drama, music, theatre and physical education have been seriously neglected in our schools. We need to incorporate these disciplines into our schools and value the role of the humanities in the development of human beings. We can also utilize part-time teachers and create stronger links and relationships with the region’s fine museums, libraries, non-profits art organizations and volunteers to supplement school staff. Arts and physical education can also be integrated into our after-school programs and we should collaborate with municipal recreation and parks departments, Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, YMCAs and youth sports leagues to ensure that all students receive the necessary physical education opportunities.
4. Extend Opportunities for High School Students to Receive Career-Oriented Technical Training and Take College Courses in the 11th and 12th Grades
We should strengthen the link between rigorous academic experiences to opportunities for high school students to pursue career and college options. This important link will help students envision themselves in meaningful careers and important roles in society. We need high schools offering electives complementing the A-G curriculum, which lead students to receive entry-level industry certification, community college certification, and university credits. High school students should be able to earn credits towards college and also sample career pathways such as healthcare, construction and engineering, and media and entertainment while in high school. These efforts require close coordination between our high schools, community colleges and universities as well as a coordinated effort with public transportation and law enforcement leaders to help ensure students can move efficiently and safely between their high school campuses and colleges or internships.
5. Extend School Day and Week for Support and Enrichment Programs
School days should be extended and Saturday school utilized to ensure students receive enrichment and support! Programs for students struggling with math and literacy, additional support for English Language Learners and opportunities to retake core classes would all be possible with an extended school day and week. This extra time could also be used to offer customized programs to gifted students and to allow for additional programs in the arts, drama, music and physical education. Students’ performance on fair diagnostics should determine which students require additional time for intervention in core subjects and student choice should be the determinant for the additional time for enrichment. Schools sites should have flexibility in building their master schedules and choosing the most effective means for extending the school week and year based on their own unique populations and needs. Teachers and recognized excellent after-school programs such as LA’s BEST should run extended day and/or week programs. Currently, 25,000 children aged 5-12 take part in LA’s BEST at no cost to their parents. UCLA researchers found that second and fourth grade students who participated in the program showed a significant increase in the amount of reading overall and better attendance rates in middle and high school.
6. Offer “Summer Bridge Programs” to All Students to Help with Transition to Middle and High School
The transitions between 5th and 6th grades and between 8th and 9th grade are the two most difficult for students in a pre-K-12 school system. Summer bridge programs ranging from 1 – 4 weeks could thoughtfully support transitioning students. Teachers of these programs should diagnose students’ skill levels and help prepare them for the cultural shift of moving from elementary to middle school and from middle school to high school.
7. Create 9th Grade Academies to Help Transition to A-G Curriculum and Small Schools
9th grade academies, in which 9th graders are housed away from the rest of the student population, should be utilized to provide 9th graders with the support they will need to master the A-G curriculum. For the near term, it is the case that many students have not taken pre-college prep curriculum in middle school, and they will be asked to take an A-G curriculum in high school. Intensive supports in reading and mathematics will be required to help many students with this transition. Organizing students in 9th grade academies can also create a more personalized environment and an increased likelihood that students will successfully complete the 9th grade – the year in which most students drop out. Additionally, 9th grade academies are conducive to building new cultures of hope and student achievement, particularly so during the first year of transforming a large school into groups of small schools.
8. Additional time for English Language Learners with Multiple Approaches to Early Language Learning
40% of the students in LAUSD are English Learners; and the vast majority of these are Spanish speakers. For these students, an intensive focus on instruction specifically designed for second language acquisition is imperative. Multiple approaches to early language learning must include the arts and sensory-motor learning in addition to regular classroom instruction. At all age levels, English Learners should be receiving additional time in school and in creative and recreational activities that support second language acquisition.
9. Expand Programs for Gifted and Talented Students
We must sustain a coordinated program of innovative instructional strategies, proven to work, to meet the education needs of gifted and talented students. At all levels, GATE funding can be used to assist teachers in broadening their instruction, creating enrichment opportunities, and designing individual programs to meet students’ needs. We must do a better job of identifying underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students earlier to place into gifted programs.
10. Comply with the Terms of the Special Education Modified Consent Decree
Nearly 11% of the LAUSD student population is identified as eligible for special education services. Instruction and procedures to meet the unique needs of each child with a disability is defined for LAUSD by the Chanda Smith case and the Modified Consent Decree. Of the 18 outcomes identified by the court monitor, 13 outcomes are currently out of compliance. We must put in place the resources and the expertise to comply with all 18 outcomes of the MCD and serve all special education students. Early intervention practices, student support teams, response to intervention and site level programs such as Safe and Civil Schools have shown to reduce special education referrals and to provide strong support for special needs students.
11. Create Advisory/Mentor Programs
One way to ensure every student has a strong relationship with a responsible adult is to assign all students an on-campus advisor. These advisors would complement the work of counselors by utilizing a guiding curriculum to address the social and developmental needs of young people and to help them prepare for the future. Ratios of advisors to students need to be small to be effective, ideally around 25:1 or less. Both school employees and volunteers from throughout the city should be used to maintain a small ratio.
12. Track Drop-Outs in Real-Time and Provide Supports
We need to redesign real-time processes and systems for managing the drop-out problem in our district. Five recent independent studies indicate that only half of the students who start 9th grade finish in four years. We must do better! No longer can we allow students to walk away from schooling without understanding why they left or without having in place strong intervention and targeted instructional and support programs.
13. Free, Pre-Kindergarten Education for All Four-Year Olds
Participation in pre-school has a strong positive effect on subsequent school achievement. This is particularly true for second-language children who profit greatly from the additional exposure to English prior to kindergarten as well as students who are often wrongly designated to special education. The State of Connecticut has shown leadership by investing in early education. They experienced a two-thirds decrease in preschool students requiring special services when they started kindergarten and children were three times less likely to require special education during their kindergarten year. Connecticut estimated a cost savings of $4,128,000 in the area of special education programs over a four-year period.
We should work to make on-site pre-Kindergarten education available for every four-year old attending a public school in LAUSD. We can coordinate and expand state pre-school, Head Starts and other programs to develop the capacity to serve every four-year old. Free pre-Kindergarten is an initiative that will take a substantial amount of additional funding. It should be rolled out first in the highest need areas and then further expanded as funds are obtained for the program. The LAUP plan prepared by LA County’s First Five commission provides a roadmap for this initiative.
14. Create Professional Learning Communities on School Sites to Transform Teaching and Learning
Over the past few years, LAUSD has spent millions of dollars on various professional development efforts including “Thinking Maps”, “Learning Walks” and literacy strategies. Each of these efforts was based upon solid research and was instructionally sound, but they were often not fully understood and supported by teachers and administrators. A “professional learning community” should be developed at each campus, where teacher-driven conversations centered on the teaching and learning of the school and its unique array of students and needs. Timely research and data coupled with classroom experience form the basis of the conversation. To support these communities, common planning time must be made available during the school week and year for teachers to interact around focused instructional goals by grade level, and by department, houses, and teams. Within these communities, teachers’ doors should be open as administrators, mentor teachers and colleagues are consistently observing lessons to learn and provide each other feedback. Release time would be provided to teachers, administrators and school site staff so that they can observe high performing colleagues at other school sites. Instructional leaders, including principals and mentor teachers, would regularly support new and experienced teachers by modeling classes, giving feedback and providing supports.
Animo Inglewood, a charter high school run by Green Dot Public Schools that serves the Inglewood community provides a strong example of school site based professional development. The school attributes a large part of its API growth from 622 to 739 in four years to its school site based professional development. School starts late every Wednesday to allow for an hour and a half of professional development for the entire staff, for grade levels or for departments. Eight days are built into the work year for site-driven professional development created by administrators and teachers; and teacher mentors, teacher buddies and administrators walk in and out of classrooms on a daily basis modeling and observing classes and providing support.
15. Use Student Achievement Data to Drive Instruction
Teachers and administrators need regular, reliable, disaggregated data to understand each student’s performance and the progress of the student body. With quality information about student learning and performance, teachers address unique learning needs and determine which students require intervention after school or on weekends. The main purpose for data in effective schools is not to punish, but rather to identify areas where students need support. Regional higher performing school districts in Southern California such as Long Beach and Garden Grove have been using data effectively for instructional planning, student monitoring, and program evaluation.22 User-friendly data should drive decision making at our schools with systems in place in the district to ensure that all teachers receive student achievement data about incoming students before school commences and then routinely throughout the school year.
16. Decrease Class Size by Transferring Resources from the Bureaucracy to School Sites
Teachers in LAUSD are consistently teaching in class sizes well above 30 students, particularly at the middle school and the high school levels. Class sizes should be decreased to create more manageable learning environments. Even without additional funding from the state, class sizes could be lowered by moving resources from the central and local district bureaucracies back to school sites and into classrooms.
17. Embrace Technology to Help Drive Teaching and Learning
This is an international world and technology is one of the key currencies. Our schools must embrace technology as a critical asset. Students, teachers, and administrative staff will need the benefits of technology to reach the high standards set within our schools and the global economy. Technology has the power to expedite language acquisition, ease the writing process, and inspire music composition. It should be viewed as a complement to excellent teaching. Site-specific tech plans should aim at boosting instructional excellence. Often, students are more adept in using technology than teachers. Summer institutes and professional development programming will address this situation, so that teachers have the requisite background to prepare students to succeed.
Every student deserves a rigorous and relevant curriculum aligned with California state standards. Unfortunately, too many of our middle and high school students in LAUSD are not taking a rigorous curriculum today. This must change! We also must expand middle and high school education to a broad-based, “A-G” curriculum that teaches strong reading, writing, and math skills but that also includes social studies, science, languages, physical education, music, and the arts. Our students live in an increasingly global society, and to compete and thrive, they must become literate in multiple languages and technologically savvy. Our goal is to develop critical thinkers and lifelong learners.
Public schools in LAUSD should offer multiple pathways for student success. While every student should have the option to attend college, some students will prefer to enter a career. Our schools should provide rigorous, sequential Career and Technical Education opportunities (which would still be aligned with A-G requirements) enabling students who acquire these skills to enter well-paying jobs. Our school system should partner with business and labor entities to create career academies so students can benefit from internships, mentorships, and career immersion.
To help students succeed in mastering a rigorous curriculum, many students need additional time and support throughout the school day, week and year. Extended class time for interventions and supplemental programs must be made available. We must also dramatically improve our programs targeting specific populations including young children, students with special needs, English Language Learners, drop-outs, and gifted and talented students.
It is teachers who are entrusted each day with making their classrooms fun, exciting and alive so that students will want to learn. Far too often in LAUSD today, however, teachers do not have a voice in their classrooms. To keep teachers motivated and effective, it is essential that teachers have a knowledgeable and growing understanding of their practice and have the space, technology and materials, and supports they need to do their jobs. They also need smaller class sizes. We need to support the development of professional learning communities where teachers make instructional decisions based on student achievement data.
Powerful Teaching and Rigorous Curriculum Initiatives:
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Every student in LAUSD should have the option to attend college. Our schools must offer a rigorous, relevant curriculum aligned with the California state standards for each grade level. This has not traditionally been the case as large segments of underserved students have not been given a college preparatory curriculum and instead have been tracked into remedial classes. We should provide all high school students with an A-G curriculum that is required for admission to a four-year state university. Rigorous curriculum challenges the learner, while a relevant curriculum is one that is recognized both by teacher and student as being pertinent. Given the wide diversity of students in LAUSD, the curriculum must be both aligned with standards and customized to meet the unique needs of specific communities and students.
2. Provide more Opportunities for Students to Learn a Foreign Language in Elementary School
The human brain is much more adept at learning languages at young ages, yet in most American schools, we wait until middle school to begin foreign language instruction. We need to push our elementary schools to offer foreign languages which will be most valuable in the 21st century, including Spanish, Arabic and the languages of the Pacific Rim, beginning in the first grade.
3. Bring Back the Arts and Physical Education
In the nation’s creative capital, art, drama, music, theatre and physical education have been seriously neglected in our schools. We need to incorporate these disciplines into our schools and value the role of the humanities in the development of human beings. We can also utilize part-time teachers and create stronger links and relationships with the region’s fine museums, libraries, non-profits art organizations and volunteers to supplement school staff. Arts and physical education can also be integrated into our after-school programs and we should collaborate with municipal recreation and parks departments, Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, YMCAs and youth sports leagues to ensure that all students receive the necessary physical education opportunities.
4. Extend Opportunities for High School Students to Receive Career-Oriented Technical Training and Take College Courses in the 11th and 12th Grades
We should strengthen the link between rigorous academic experiences to opportunities for high school students to pursue career and college options. This important link will help students envision themselves in meaningful careers and important roles in society. We need high schools offering electives complementing the A-G curriculum, which lead students to receive entry-level industry certification, community college certification, and university credits. High school students should be able to earn credits towards college and also sample career pathways such as healthcare, construction and engineering, and media and entertainment while in high school. These efforts require close coordination between our high schools, community colleges and universities as well as a coordinated effort with public transportation and law enforcement leaders to help ensure students can move efficiently and safely between their high school campuses and colleges or internships.
5. Extend School Day and Week for Support and Enrichment Programs
School days should be extended and Saturday school utilized to ensure students receive enrichment and support! Programs for students struggling with math and literacy, additional support for English Language Learners and opportunities to retake core classes would all be possible with an extended school day and week. This extra time could also be used to offer customized programs to gifted students and to allow for additional programs in the arts, drama, music and physical education. Students’ performance on fair diagnostics should determine which students require additional time for intervention in core subjects and student choice should be the determinant for the additional time for enrichment. Schools sites should have flexibility in building their master schedules and choosing the most effective means for extending the school week and year based on their own unique populations and needs. Teachers and recognized excellent after-school programs such as LA’s BEST should run extended day and/or week programs. Currently, 25,000 children aged 5-12 take part in LA’s BEST at no cost to their parents. UCLA researchers found that second and fourth grade students who participated in the program showed a significant increase in the amount of reading overall and better attendance rates in middle and high school.
6. Offer “Summer Bridge Programs” to All Students to Help with Transition to Middle and High School
The transitions between 5th and 6th grades and between 8th and 9th grade are the two most difficult for students in a pre-K-12 school system. Summer bridge programs ranging from 1 – 4 weeks could thoughtfully support transitioning students. Teachers of these programs should diagnose students’ skill levels and help prepare them for the cultural shift of moving from elementary to middle school and from middle school to high school.
7. Create 9th Grade Academies to Help Transition to A-G Curriculum and Small Schools
9th grade academies, in which 9th graders are housed away from the rest of the student population, should be utilized to provide 9th graders with the support they will need to master the A-G curriculum. For the near term, it is the case that many students have not taken pre-college prep curriculum in middle school, and they will be asked to take an A-G curriculum in high school. Intensive supports in reading and mathematics will be required to help many students with this transition. Organizing students in 9th grade academies can also create a more personalized environment and an increased likelihood that students will successfully complete the 9th grade – the year in which most students drop out. Additionally, 9th grade academies are conducive to building new cultures of hope and student achievement, particularly so during the first year of transforming a large school into groups of small schools.
8. Additional time for English Language Learners with Multiple Approaches to Early Language Learning
40% of the students in LAUSD are English Learners; and the vast majority of these are Spanish speakers. For these students, an intensive focus on instruction specifically designed for second language acquisition is imperative. Multiple approaches to early language learning must include the arts and sensory-motor learning in addition to regular classroom instruction. At all age levels, English Learners should be receiving additional time in school and in creative and recreational activities that support second language acquisition.
9. Expand Programs for Gifted and Talented Students
We must sustain a coordinated program of innovative instructional strategies, proven to work, to meet the education needs of gifted and talented students. At all levels, GATE funding can be used to assist teachers in broadening their instruction, creating enrichment opportunities, and designing individual programs to meet students’ needs. We must do a better job of identifying underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students earlier to place into gifted programs.
10. Comply with the Terms of the Special Education Modified Consent Decree
Nearly 11% of the LAUSD student population is identified as eligible for special education services. Instruction and procedures to meet the unique needs of each child with a disability is defined for LAUSD by the Chanda Smith case and the Modified Consent Decree. Of the 18 outcomes identified by the court monitor, 13 outcomes are currently out of compliance. We must put in place the resources and the expertise to comply with all 18 outcomes of the MCD and serve all special education students. Early intervention practices, student support teams, response to intervention and site level programs such as Safe and Civil Schools have shown to reduce special education referrals and to provide strong support for special needs students.
11. Create Advisory/Mentor Programs
One way to ensure every student has a strong relationship with a responsible adult is to assign all students an on-campus advisor. These advisors would complement the work of counselors by utilizing a guiding curriculum to address the social and developmental needs of young people and to help them prepare for the future. Ratios of advisors to students need to be small to be effective, ideally around 25:1 or less. Both school employees and volunteers from throughout the city should be used to maintain a small ratio.
12. Track Drop-Outs in Real-Time and Provide Supports
We need to redesign real-time processes and systems for managing the drop-out problem in our district. Five recent independent studies indicate that only half of the students who start 9th grade finish in four years. We must do better! No longer can we allow students to walk away from schooling without understanding why they left or without having in place strong intervention and targeted instructional and support programs.
13. Free, Pre-Kindergarten Education for All Four-Year Olds
Participation in pre-school has a strong positive effect on subsequent school achievement. This is particularly true for second-language children who profit greatly from the additional exposure to English prior to kindergarten as well as students who are often wrongly designated to special education. The State of Connecticut has shown leadership by investing in early education. They experienced a two-thirds decrease in preschool students requiring special services when they started kindergarten and children were three times less likely to require special education during their kindergarten year. Connecticut estimated a cost savings of $4,128,000 in the area of special education programs over a four-year period.
We should work to make on-site pre-Kindergarten education available for every four-year old attending a public school in LAUSD. We can coordinate and expand state pre-school, Head Starts and other programs to develop the capacity to serve every four-year old. Free pre-Kindergarten is an initiative that will take a substantial amount of additional funding. It should be rolled out first in the highest need areas and then further expanded as funds are obtained for the program. The LAUP plan prepared by LA County’s First Five commission provides a roadmap for this initiative.
14. Create Professional Learning Communities on School Sites to Transform Teaching and Learning
Over the past few years, LAUSD has spent millions of dollars on various professional development efforts including “Thinking Maps”, “Learning Walks” and literacy strategies. Each of these efforts was based upon solid research and was instructionally sound, but they were often not fully understood and supported by teachers and administrators. A “professional learning community” should be developed at each campus, where teacher-driven conversations centered on the teaching and learning of the school and its unique array of students and needs. Timely research and data coupled with classroom experience form the basis of the conversation. To support these communities, common planning time must be made available during the school week and year for teachers to interact around focused instructional goals by grade level, and by department, houses, and teams. Within these communities, teachers’ doors should be open as administrators, mentor teachers and colleagues are consistently observing lessons to learn and provide each other feedback. Release time would be provided to teachers, administrators and school site staff so that they can observe high performing colleagues at other school sites. Instructional leaders, including principals and mentor teachers, would regularly support new and experienced teachers by modeling classes, giving feedback and providing supports.
Animo Inglewood, a charter high school run by Green Dot Public Schools that serves the Inglewood community provides a strong example of school site based professional development. The school attributes a large part of its API growth from 622 to 739 in four years to its school site based professional development. School starts late every Wednesday to allow for an hour and a half of professional development for the entire staff, for grade levels or for departments. Eight days are built into the work year for site-driven professional development created by administrators and teachers; and teacher mentors, teacher buddies and administrators walk in and out of classrooms on a daily basis modeling and observing classes and providing support.
15. Use Student Achievement Data to Drive Instruction
Teachers and administrators need regular, reliable, disaggregated data to understand each student’s performance and the progress of the student body. With quality information about student learning and performance, teachers address unique learning needs and determine which students require intervention after school or on weekends. The main purpose for data in effective schools is not to punish, but rather to identify areas where students need support. Regional higher performing school districts in Southern California such as Long Beach and Garden Grove have been using data effectively for instructional planning, student monitoring, and program evaluation.22 User-friendly data should drive decision making at our schools with systems in place in the district to ensure that all teachers receive student achievement data about incoming students before school commences and then routinely throughout the school year.
16. Decrease Class Size by Transferring Resources from the Bureaucracy to School Sites
Teachers in LAUSD are consistently teaching in class sizes well above 30 students, particularly at the middle school and the high school levels. Class sizes should be decreased to create more manageable learning environments. Even without additional funding from the state, class sizes could be lowered by moving resources from the central and local district bureaucracies back to school sites and into classrooms.
17. Embrace Technology to Help Drive Teaching and Learning
This is an international world and technology is one of the key currencies. Our schools must embrace technology as a critical asset. Students, teachers, and administrative staff will need the benefits of technology to reach the high standards set within our schools and the global economy. Technology has the power to expedite language acquisition, ease the writing process, and inspire music composition. It should be viewed as a complement to excellent teaching. Site-specific tech plans should aim at boosting instructional excellence. Often, students are more adept in using technology than teachers. Summer institutes and professional development programming will address this situation, so that teachers have the requisite background to prepare students to succeed.
