What Works in Schools: A Research-Based Approach to School Improvement

Presenter: Bob Marzano, Marzano and Associates, Centennial, CO

This session is presented in separate parts. Use the buttons at the end of the transcription to navigate between each part.

Part One

BOB MARZANO: Good morning. Welcome to this session, entitled "What Works in Schools: Translating Research Into Action."

Actually, when I saw this scheduled at 8 o'clock in the morning, I was convinced that there would be like five people, given how early it is. Then I thought there might be a few more people who actually partied so hard the night before they just never went to bed and would show up, but I didn't realize it would be quite that many people in that situation.

My name is Bob Marzano. Some background about myself: I was a classroom teacher in New York and Seattle, Washington, and a university professor at the University of Colorado for seven years. For the last 21 years, I have worked with a research lab, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL), in Aurora, Colorado. And for the last year I've also been a half-time professor at Cardinal Stritch University.

This presentation is on some research I have been doing to try to synthesize, actually synthetic work, synthesizing research over the last 35 years on school effectiveness. As you can see by the title, I come with a bias. I believe that if you look at the 35 years' worth of research in public education, it is fairly clear what works and what does not work. I truly believe that.

And if we take up on the suggestions that I say are clear in the research literature, virtually every school, if it so chooses, can function quite well — some exceedingly well. The issue is whether we have the will to do that. And, quite frankly, I'm not sure if we do. I'm really not sure if we have that energy.

You might say, if you are already doing a great job — and I know many of you are — well, why would you want to get any better, because getting better takes a lot of time and energy? Well, let me give you my bias on that, too.

I am running fairly scared in public education. I believe that if we do not dramatically improve — not that we are doing a poor job and not that we are doing a job worse than before — it is just that I think the public demands more accountability than it ever did before. And if we do not meet that challenge, my fear is that, over the next five or 10 years, a lot of resources are going to go away. And I am starting to see that happen all across the country.

So, public education will certainly be here five years from now, but you might wake up five years from now and ask, where did the resources go?

Well, I said my work has been synthetic in nature, trying to synthesize the research. Let me start with that. Arguably, you can make the case that about 35 years ago, the first major study in public education was done in the United States. How many are old enough, like me, to remember the Coleman report?

[A show of hands]

BOB MARZANO: A number of hands out there.

If my memory serves, it went something like this. It asked the basic question: What difference do schools make in student achievement? I think it included something like 600,000 students, 40,000 or 50,000 teachers, I've forgotten how many schools, K through 12. And in answer to that basic question, statistically, they found this, that schools only account for 10 percent of the variance in student achievement. So, if schools only account for 10 percent of the differences in student achievement, what accounts for the other 90 percent?

The obvious answer is what they walk in the door with. Right? Background knowledge, home environment, et cetera, et cetera.

So, if schools only account for 10 percent of the variance, or differences, in student achievement, and background factors account for the other 90 percent, what is the logical conclusion you could come to relative to the effectiveness of schools? They don't make much of a difference, do they? I mean, no kidding.

If you want to get different test scores, higher test scores, get different kids. Isn't that what it boils down to?

[Laughter]

BOB MARZANO: Well, since then, basically two things have happened — at least two things. One is that I think researchers have gotten a little smarter about interpreting research results in a practical sense. And second, other studies have been done, basically asking the same question, and coming up with slightly different findings.

Let me start with the first: Researchers have gotten smarter about interpreting research results in more of a practical sense. Robert Rosenthal, whose name I am sure some of you recognize as the synthesizer of the research on expectations, Robert Rosenthal is just a premier researcher. I mean, he is a researcher's researcher. He came up with a technique that has a fancy name. It is called the binomial effect size display. Unfortunately, it's a complex name for a fairly intuitive concept. He said that whenever you interpret research from the perspective of percentage of variance explained, what tends to happen is it takes things that have a moderate effect and make them look like they have a massive effect. And it takes things that have a small but important effect and makes it look like they have no impact at all. And here is why.

You are dealing with a squared quantity whenever you deal with variance. Now, I'm going to give you a mathematical metaphor, and I'm not being accurate mathematically but it's a metaphor. It is kind of in the same ballpark of what happens statistically with this funny thing called variance.

Suppose that in your school district you found that for every 10 years of growth in mathematics, let's say, that six years of that growth was due to whether or not students went through a specific math program. I'll say it again. For every 10 years of growth in mathematics, six years are due to whether students go through this program or not. If they do not go through this program, they get four years of growth. If they do go through this program, they get 10 years of growth. Would you consider that a viable program?

I would. Would you want your kids to go through that program versus not? Absolutely.

However, let's square some numbers here. Let's take the 6 over 10 and square the 6. What do you get? Thirty-six. Square the 10 and what do you get? All of a sudden you have 36 out of 100. Right? It doesn't look quite as good as 6 over 10. Now, that is a mathematical metaphor, but fundamentally that is what happens when you are dealing with percentage of variance accounted for for any given independent variable that you are looking at.

Well, Rosenthal said, here is another way of looking at the same information that Coleman found. He said, let's take Coleman's findings at face value, that schools only account for 10 percent of the variance of student achievement. He said, if you were to take the 91,000, I believe, schools in this country and order them in terms of their effectiveness — and I am going to define effectiveness in terms of do they enhance the learning of students who walk in their front door.

So, let's take our 91,000 schools and order them in terms of their effectiveness. Could you see where it would pretty much create a normal distribution? A lot of schools clustered right near the middle, some way out on the skinny branches, highly, highly effective, some way down here, highly, highly ineffective? And he said, let's arbitrarily, but somewhat logically, cut the distribution in half. And let's call this half the effective schools and let's call this half the ineffective schools. So, from the 50th percentile on up, let's call them effective, and from the 49th percentile on down, let's call them ineffective.

He said, even with Coleman's original findings, that schools only account for 10 percent of the variance in student achievement, if in fact you gave all the students in all of those 91,000 schools a test, and it is a test where you would normally expect half the students to pass and half the students to fail, there is a marked difference in how many would pass in general the effective half versus the ineffective half. And let me show you that.

Even if the Coleman findings are totally accurate — and, first of all, I am not criticizing the Coleman report; for its time it was spectacular — however, even taking those findings at face value, here is what you would find. In the effective half of the schools on this test where you would normally expect half to pass and half to fail, about 66 percent would pass and about only 34 percent would fail. In the ineffective half, it is just the opposite. About 34 percent would pass and 66 percent would fail.

So, do schools make a difference, even if you take the Coleman report at face value? Absolutely. Which half of the distribution of schools do you want to send your kids to, the effective half or the ineffective half?

Now, I said two things have happened since the Coleman report. One is that researchers have gotten a little smarter about how to interpret in a practical sense research findings. The second thing is other studies have basically asked the same question and come up with somewhat different findings. Again, no criticism to the Coleman report. For its time, it was spectacular. However, they did one thing that made it a bit of a setup to look like student background had more of an impact on achievement than it probably does. And that is, as their primary dependent measure of student achievement, they used verbal aptitude.

Can you see why verbal aptitude would be highly related to background, where something like math achievement or science achievement or social studies achievement might not be? Well, if you look at the other studies that have been done over the 35 years that look at those other subject areas, and put those all together in the aggregate, I say that the updated finding is this: that schools account for 20 percent of the variance in student achievement.

So, what does that look like using Coleman's funny metric? Well, in general, I think you can say that the effective half of the schools, if the students in those schools were given a test in which you would normally expect half to pass and half to fail, you would find this distribution: About 72 percent would pass in the effective half of the schools and only 28 percent would fail; and just the opposite in the ineffective half.

Do schools make a difference? Yes, a massive difference.

Now, let's go way, way out to the skinny branches. Let's compare the top 1 percentile of schools with the bottom 1 percentile of schools, because I have made this gross classification, effective half versus ineffective half. Let's look at the top 1 percentile versus the bottom 1 percentile. Here is what you find mathematically, carrying this logic out.

There are schools out there that, if they have a normal distribution of students walking in their door, over time, on this test where you normally expect half to pass and half to fail, 85 percent of their students will pass and only 15 percent will fail. There are also schools, unfortunately, that mathematically speaking, if they get a normal distribution of students walking in their front door, over time, only 15 percent will pass and 85 percent will fail.

So, there are schools that not only make a difference, they make a massive difference. Let me stop here for a second. Notice it doesn't say 100 percent of the kids pass. Remember, this is a mathematical model. Surely there are schools out there where there are 100 percent of their students who pass. But, mathematically, it says 15 percent probably will not pass, even in the top 1 percentile of schools. What does it say about that 15 percent of the students, giving this model is valid? And I say, to a certain extent it is. Do you understand my question? What does this say about those 15 percent who don't pass?

Please turn to the person next to you and give your opinion on that.

[Pause]

BOB MARZANO: You didn't know you were going to have to talk this early in the morning, did you? Do you think I'm going to let you off the hook?

So, is that the 15 percent of the students who cannot learn? Obviously not. But that might be the 15 percent of students where one size does not fit all. And frankly, that makes a lot of intuitive sense to me.

Now, I have been in many, many schools over the last 20 years, and within the last five years I have seen many mission statements. And they commonly say something like: By the year whatever, 100 percent of our students will master complex content.

Those are great goals, and we should all have them. But what I say here is that if you don't get all 100 percent, you have not failed. It might be the case that for 15 percent or 10, or whatever the true number is, of the population, one size does not fit all. Those kids can learn and learn well, exceedingly well, but maybe not in the current context. Thank God for alternative education.

Now, again, that makes a lot of sense to me just from a practical perspective. I have four kids, and I could think of some who did well in the traditional system, others that didn't. So, certainly, all students can learn, but maybe all students cannot learn equally as well in this same environment.

Well, given that these numbers are even remotely valid, it kind of brings up a question. At least it did for me. And that is: So, what do the effective schools do? What are those magic factors that make a school have results that just anybody would be impressed with?

Now, just to qualify what I am going to show you, when I was looking at the research, I restricted what I was looking at to those factors that could be addressed in the current system. What I mean by that is the current set of resources available to us. So, I excluded things like lengthening the school year. Would lengthening the school year increase student achievement? I think obviously it would. But my guess is that is not going to happen in the near future.

Would providing tutors for more students work? Absolutely. But my guess is that is going to not happen in the near future.

So, when I show you the list, you are going to see some obvious things missing, things that probably do make a profound difference, but I wanted to look at those things that schools could do in the current set of resources. And what I found was a list of 11 factors that can be broken down, I say, logically into three broad categories: The things the school can do, the things the teacher can do, and the things the student walks in the front door with.

Now, just take a second and scan through that list. I believe you can all see it; they have great audio/visual here.

[Pause]

BOB MARZANO: Does that look familiar to anybody? Well, sure. No kidding. Didn't we know this 30 years ago? The first five factors, isn't that the effective schools factors, with a few added and deleted and combined? I might have used funny terminology, but there is virtually nothing new there; there really isn't.

Now, to me, that gives me great hope. Actually, Checker Finn, whom I've never met, he was the Assistant Secretary of Education under Bill Bennett. He reviewed the book of the same name, "What Works in Schools." And somebody sent me the review just last week. And in it he made the comment — and he gave it some nice words — he said that fundamentally it has some information, but this is just a rehash of the effective schools literature from 30 years ago.

I'm not sure if he meant it as a criticism or not, but for me I took it as a compliment. Sure, just because we knew something 30 years ago does not make it invalid today. For me this is convergent evidence. When over 30 years people look at the same research and come up with basically the same model, I say that says something. And the only differences I think you find is categories and terminology, and maybe a little discussion about ranking.

Now, if you remember the effective schools literature, one thing that is missing from that list is leadership, correct? Well, it is not missing. Actually, my assertion is that leadership is so important — and I mean leadership at the building level; this is meant as a building-level model — that it encompasses the whole thing. Without good leadership, you are not going to effect change in any one of those areas. So, I on purpose took it out and put it in a category by itself, that leadership is the thing that is necessary to effect change in all 11 of those areas.

Well, we have quite a bit of time actually. This is quite a long session for the morning. So, I am going to go through these — not all of them — some in more depth than others. Let's start with the school factors. Guaranteed and viable curriculum, challenging goals and effective feedback, parent and community involvement, a safe and orderly environment, collegiality and professionalism. Now, again, I just said that we knew that list 30 years ago. However, I would assert that there is something we know now that we didn't know 30 years ago. And that is, at least by my analysis, the rank order of those in terms of their effectiveness on student achievement, or their impact on student achievement.

So, if you read the book that ASCD just put out, I spend quite a bit of time justifying that is the rank order right there. And I truly stand behind that.

Now, what comes to mind immediately for some people — rightly so — is they say, now, wait a minute. You mean that safe and orderly environment isn't that important, it's fourth on the list? Well, let me explain that. Just because something is lower on the list does not mean that it is absolutely necessary. If you remember your logic 101 from college, remember the term "necessary but not sufficient"? Well, you can apply that to the things at the bottom of the list.

Safe and orderly environment, obviously if you don't have that, you cannot build, you cannot have the others. But can you also see the possibility that safe and orderly environment has what the researchers would call a curvilinear relationship with student achievement. That means, if you start with a 0 point in terms of safety and order, every unit of safety and order that you increase, you get great gains in student achievement. But can you see where you might get to a certain place and it starts to level out? It's like any more energy put there does not give you the increase that you used to get in student achievement.

Can you see the same thing with collegiality and professionalism? If you start with no collegiality and professionalism, well, sure, you have to have that, and every unit of increase in collegiality and professionalism you get, you get a comparable big change in student achievement. But you might get to a place where in fact it does not give you the benefit that you used to get before.

Now, to me that is compelling. Because what it says is that if you are doing a pretty good job right now to get achievement gains — I should say learning gains — it might be dealing with the first two or three as opposed to the others. And let me talk about that for a little bit. The difficulty with that is the ones at the top of the list, on the school-level factors, are the hardest to change. And so that is why sometimes I wake up a little discouraged, thinking that the ones that we need to change to get the biggest impact are probably the ones that are the most difficult and the ones we tend to shy away from.

Now let me go back for a second. Remember the three categories, the school, the teacher and the student? They are listed in reverse order of their impact. Let me say that again. The school, the teacher, the student, they are listed in reverse order of their impact. It is the student-level factors that still have the most impact on student achievement. It is the teacher-level factors that have the second most impact. And then, finally, the school-level factors that have the third most impact on student achievement. But within the school-level factors, this is the rank order.

Let me start with guaranteed and viable curriculum and go into this in a little bit of depth. Funny terms for old concepts. Here is the intended meaning. Guaranteed and viable curriculum basically means that a school — ideally, a school district — can guarantee that no matter who teaches a course or a grade level, certain topics are addressed. Now, that might sound like, well, of course. But I would assert that there are a lot of schools right now who cannot guarantee that.

Now, I think we knew this 30 years ago. It was one of the basic findings, I believe, of the beginning teacher evaluation study, done by Far West Regional Lab just right up the road here, now called WestEd.

I know some of the seminal researchers on that project -- Nicky Filby, Charlie Fisher, Dave Berliner. And I recall being told a story by one of them, and I cannot remember who it is. It was long ago. So, I always ascribe it to Charlie Fischer. And I hope that the story is true and I hope I didn't make it up. But it is a good story even if it is not totally accurate. It went something like this.

When they were looking what classroom teachers did here in the State of California, they were in one classroom, about third or fourth grade, where the teacher, according to the State curriculum and the district curriculum, was supposed to cover fractions in depth. I believe they spent 90 days in the classroom, good little researchers in the back of the room, taking notes. The teacher did not even touch fractions. At the end of the 90 days they went up and asked the teacher: The State curriculum said to teach fractions. The district curriculum said to teach fractions. You didn't teach fractions. Why?

The teacher's response was: I don't like fractions.

A similar anecdote. They were in a high school classroom. There was supposed to be a survey of the American novel and it was supposed to hit eight, nine or 10 novels just a little bit, just so kids got a sense of them. They spent the whole time on "Moby Dick." When asked, why did you spend the whole time on "Moby Dick," the response was, I like "Moby Dick."

Like I say, anecdotes, but I say there is a truth to those anecdotes, that people pick and choose what they are going to cover and what they won't cover.

Now, I've been in schools, where the individual teachers were doing a good job of teaching the content that they were teaching and kids were learning. But can you see what might happen in a school where people are making their own idiosyncratic, albeit good, decisions? You don't know what's taught and what is not taught. As a matter of fact, one of the basic findings of the beginning teacher evaluation studies was that — and I'll paraphrase — curriculum is a crapshoot in this country. You walk into a school and turn left to go into this fifth-grade classroom for math you get one curriculum, and if you turn into this fifth-grade classroom you get another curriculum.

I think a lot of the curricular mapping studies have borne that out. At McREL, where I work, in the old days we used to do what we called curricular mapping or curricular analysis, not as sophisticated as certainly Fenwick English or Heidi Hayes-Jacobs, but I have some anecdotes from those days.

I remember one elementary school we would just ask teachers, just tell us what you teach, put it down on a piece of paper, don't sign your name. We're not going to point fingers here; we just want to see what the delivered curriculum actually is.

At one school we found out that, depending on which teachers you took, you could read "Sarah, Plain and Tall" three times. That's a good book, but I don't think it's worth three times. The problem is they really weren't aware of that at the school level.

At another school, and this was a middle school I believe, they found out you could make a papier-mâché volcano three times, depending on which teachers you took. Now, apparently the parents knew this. The papier-mâché volcano was handed down from generation to generation.

[Laughter]

BOB MARZANO: Here, son, here is my papier-mâché volcano. I hope it serves you well.

[Laughter]

BOB MARZANO: I'm exaggerating, obviously, for a little bit of humor.

Now, I think that the problem that has been created currently in terms of this coverage issue is a direct function of the standards movement. Now, I'm a proponent of the standards movement, if you've read any of my work. I think it still holds great promise. But I think it has also created as many problems as it has solved. And one of the biggest problems that it has created is the issue of too much content.

Arguably, the standards movement started in 1989 at the first education summit, when then-President Bush, Sr., got all the governors together. Do you remember that, the first education summit? They set the six national goals. I think it was called America 2000, then it changed to Goals 2000, or maybe vice-versa. I've forgotten actually.

Two of the national goals dealt directly with student achievement. One went something like this: By the year 2000, American high school students will graduate having mastered complex content in math and science and history, et cetera, et cetera.

Another one went something like this: By the year 2000, American students will be number one in the world in math and science.

Oops, we didn't pull that one off quite, did we?

The logical thing to do after setting those lofty goals was to say, well, what should students know in the subject areas? Let's identify. We cannot have a national curriculum, but we can identify at a national level things students should know in the various subject areas.

Now, how many math people are here? Are there math people out there?

[A show of hands]

BOB MARZANO: You well know that at that time, the NCTM, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, already had their curriculum and evaluation standards out. So, it was a great document. They revised it a few years back, but everybody said, follow the math people. Get the subject matter specialists together and identify what should kids know in your subject area.

Within five years, I believe, there was about six national documents out. Now, at that time, Chester Finn, who I mentioned previously, was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. And he was asked, Dr. Finn, what do you think of this standards movement? And he said something that went like: Well, it was a good idea, however — and I quote; this part is what he actually said — "every subject area has exhibited gluttonous and imperialistic tendencies."

[Laughter]

BOB MARZANO: What do you think he meant by that? Every subject area identified everything in its subject area as absolutely necessary for every student in the United States. Now, actually, if you read those documents, here is what you find. The vast majority of them stated up front, to cover this content that we have identified will require more time for math, science, the arts, whatever it is. They stated it right up front. That was one of their assumptions. We are assuming more time for the content area.

Unfortunately, that assumption got lost in the translation. Now, of course, every State has their own standards documents, except for Iowa. And in Iowa, of course, they still have standards; it's just that the districts have more freedom and flexibility in creating their own.

My good friend and colleague John Kendall, and McREL, literally, for the last 10 years, has kept a database of standards documents at the national level and at the State level. I believe at last count he reviewed 112 standards documents across 14 different subject areas. He is a phenomenal man and this is a phenomenal piece of work.

If you go to McREL's Web site, which is mcrel.org, you can download the whole database. It takes you three weeks, but you can download the whole database.

[Laughter]

BOB MARZANO: It wasn't too long into the game that John said, there is a lot of stuff here. There is a lot of content. So, we started playing with numbers. Here is what we found. In 14 different subject areas, there are 255 standards that students are supposed to master.

Now, you all know what the term benchmark means. Yes, we all use a similar term. The standard is the big area. Like in mathematics, one standard commonly deals with probability. And that states something like students will understand basic concepts of probability and be able to apply it in real, live situations. The benchmarks are at grade-level intervals or grade levels. So, it says, well, at the sixth grade, here is what that means, or grades three through five, here is what that means. In those 255 standards, there are 3,500 benchmarks.

Can you teach 3,500 benchmarks in the time available? Well, to play with that, we started, again, doing a little arithmetic. Even though the average time students are in school is about six and a half hours per day, are students in class all that time? Obviously not. The average time for students being in class in a given day is 5.6 hours-ish.

Now, if you multiple that out, here is what you find. K through 12, students are in class 13,000 hours. Well, can you teach 3,500 benchmarks in 13,000 hours? It kind of sounds good at first, doesn't it? We can do that, 13,000 hours, 3,500 benchmarks.

However, are they always in a learning mode in those class hours? What percentage of time do you actually think they are in a learning mode, meaning they are actually getting new content, applying the new content, discussing the content?

Let's be generous. The highest estimate is about 70 percent of the time. So, let's do that. Seventy percent of the time, students are actually in class in a learning environment. Here is what you end up with: 9,000 hours.

Can you teach 3,500 benchmarks in 9,000 hours? Well, we did a little study where we asked classroom teachers, how long would it take you to teach this benchmark, for each one of the benchmarks. Of course, people only commented on the subject areas that they taught. Here is what we found.

[Pause]

BOB MARZANO: For those who are reading, you are getting the punch line.

Unfortunately, it would take 15,500 hours of instruction to cover the 3,500 benchmarks. Which means, to make a silly point, that if you actually wanted to teach all of the content in 14 content areas in the time available to us today, you would have to change school from K through 12 to about K through 22.

Now, that is meant to make a point which is somewhat humorous, but really it is not humorous. Unless we address this issue, I think there is a ceiling on the effectiveness of most schools. No kidding. I mean this as sincerely as I possibly could. If you are an administrator and you are sitting there and saying, what can we do at our school to have the biggest impact on student achievement, given that we have a good professional atmosphere and a safe environment, this is the place to go. No kidding. And this is one area where you will get a round of applause from your teachers, because they know all too well that in fact they cannot teach it all.

So, what are classroom teachers doing now? They are picking and choosing to the best of their ability. But we are still back in the same environment we were before, where you cannot guarantee that, no matter who teaches a course, certain things will be addressed, or who teaches a given grade level.

Now, we have to be lean and mean about this. One way to do this is to identify what is essential versus what is supplement, essential versus supplemental. And we have to be lean and mean, I believe. No kidding. By my rough count, most standards States' documents, you should identify about two-thirds of the benchmarks or the content as supplemental and about one-third as essential. I really, really mean that. It's a numbers game here; you cannot teach it all.

Now, relative to this model, the 11 factors, over the last two years I have been piloting a survey instrument. It is strictly perceptional in nature. If you got the book in the mail, it is in the back of the book. ASCD has an online version, too. And it is meant to get discussion going. It is not a research instrument. But it has actually worked fairly well. And for each of the factors, there are a series of questions.

I am going to go through some of those with you, just to get a feel for it. You basically answer on this continuum. To what extent are we addressing this factor? And 1 means we are doing not a good job at all and 4 means we are doing a great job. So, that is the scale. 1 is not at all; 4 is a great job.

Relative to this first area here, the first factor, guaranteed and viable curriculum, here is what I would like you to do. Just think of your school that you are in right now, and mentally answer these questions, 1 we are not doing a good job and 4 we are doing a terrific job, as I just go through them with you quickly.

Content considered essential for all students versus the content considered supplemental, has been identified and communicated to teachers. Now, this is a teacher talking about in my school, in my school we do this. The amount of essential content that has been identified can be addressed in the instructional time available. The essential content is organized and sequenced in a way that students have the opportunity to learn it.

Number four, someone checks to ensure that teachers address the essential content. And then, number five, the instructional time available to teachers is protected.

Just turn to the person next to you. Out of those five items, where do you think you're doing well and where do you think you're not doing so well? Thirty seconds.

[Pause]

BOB MARZANO: Commonly — as I said, I've been compiling this for a couple of years — commonly, people do pretty well on number one. I find that more often than not. Yes, we have actually identified the essential versus the supplemental. We might call it some different things.

It's number two that people fall down on. Most places, well, we really don't know. We've really never thought about that. Well, this takes some time and energy. I told you the way we did it — we actually asked teachers, how long would it take to address this content? You might have to do the same thing with your teachers. Is this a new idea? Not if you have been reading Fenwick English for the last 25 years. He said this for two and a half decades now. We should take this into consideration.

Number four is the killer, isn't it? Or at least it looks like a killer. Someone checks to ensure that teachers address the essential content. Now, that does not have to be a policing action. But does this take away some of the flexibility of the individual classroom teacher? Yes, it does. It really does. And I know that is difficult. But I think our freedom has actually gotten to the place where, in big districts, it hurts us. Let me just talk to that for a second.

I've been in small districts, where it is one high school, one middle school and one or two elementary schools. And they don't have to be formal about this. They are doing it quite informally, and it works just fine. However, when you get to a district where, instead of one high school it is five high schools and 20 middle schools and X number of elementary schools, all of a sudden you cannot do that informally. So, don't read number four as a policing action.

But the expectation would be you hire me in as a fifth-grade teacher, and you say, hey, Bob, relative to the first quarter in mathematics, I want to make sure you hit this, this and this. It's not much. You still have plenty of time to do other things. But it is not negotiable that you cover that or not. So, I can't say, I don't do fractions. Yes, I do. If you have decided that is the place where it gets emphasized I do that. You are not telling me how to teach, but you are telling me, to a certain extent, what to teach. And that is a real different way of doing business.

Let me go to the second area, challenging goals and effective feedback. It's just what it sounds like. If a school were implementing this factor, you would have challenging goals for all students. Again, going back to the effective schools literature, Ron Edmonds, this was one of his primary findings, that the expectations were just different for one group of students versus another. And, no-no, every student has challenging goals. That does not mean they all have to start at the same place, but every student can achieve and achieve well.

Effective feedback. For feedback to be effective, it must be timely. That means that students and teachers get feedback relatively quickly and in specific subject areas, specific knowledge and skill areas. A second characteristic of effective feedback is it is specific, very specific to certain areas of knowledge and skill.

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