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In 1996, based on a system of multiple measures for school accountability, the Glendale Unified School district placed Horace Mann Elementary on an academic improvement program. The school began a reform effort grounded in data-driven decision making and has now exceeded its API growth target for the last three years, showing steady and continuous improvement in student achievement. Key to the reform effort at Horace Mann is an intense focus on data, standards and accountability, allocation of resources and professional development.
When the change process began, Principal Lynda Christian challenged her teachers not to accept chronic lack of student achievement. "No more excuses!" was her challenge. She asked the staff if they could teach one child to read. When they responded affirmatively, Lynda replied, "If you can teach one, then you can teach them all." Lynda reminded her staff that they couldn’t change external factors, but they could control the teaching and learning that takes place at Horace Mann.
Once the challenge was issued, Horace Mann staff had to determine a plan of action. They began by analyzing data. In the analysis, it became evident that reading was the weakest area for their students. As the leadership team delved more deeply into the data, they realized that a focus simply on reading or language arts was too broad; the data showed that students at Horace Mann could not successfully decode. Thus, learning to read became Horace Mann’s focus. After a strong foundation was established, staff then expanded the focus to include reading to learn, maintaining an emphasis on decoding in the early primary grades. This year the school goal is to improve writing as a means for greater reading comprehension.
This clear sense of direction enabled Horace Mann staff to write a school plan that is used as a road map for reform. They based the plan on the school's focus, research on effective schools, and state and district goals. All decisions — regarding professional development, resource allocation, personnel, student placement, and program implementation — are linked to the school’s plan.
To implement the school plan, the leadership team had to evaluate expenditures to ensure that funds were spent purposefully and linked to student outcomes. To make decisions about funding staff ask, "Will this expenditure directly impact the performance of students who are not meeting grade level standards?"
One change in resource allocation was to more effectively utilize instructional assistants. In the past, many of the instructional assistants spent more time making copies, grading papers, and putting up bulletin boards than helping students. The leadership team decided to assign one instructional assistant to do all of the copying, laminating, etc. and to decrease the total number of instructional assistant hours. At the same time, they provided increased training for the assistants and focused their time during the language arts period to improve instruction and student results. Assistants are now assigned to classrooms for different amounts of time based on student need. They meet regularly with a teacher specialist to discuss their responsibilities and how they can best support students and teachers in the classroom. Many of the assistants have taken advantage of this training and gone on to become credentialed teachers at Horace Mann. And with money saved on instructional assistant time, the school was able to hire a teacher specialist who focuses on data and assessment.
One of the biggest changes in school culture at Horace Mann over the last five years is an increased emphasis on data. No decisions are made without analyzing data on student performance. Data are examined often and thoroughly. In the past, Horace Mann would receive scores from the state and district once a year. Each year they would look at the data, which showed that their students were not making a lot of progress. Staff agreed that the scores were flat, but they didn't know how to address the problem, so they would continue working in the same manner. Now all staff at Horace Mann are trained to analyze data, and they use it to improve instruction.
For instance, staff decided to administer annual district tests on a monthly basis so that they could gather scores on multiple measures to strategically target their reform effort throughout the year. Each month the teacher specialist presents the scores, helps staff interpret them, and uses the information to design programs, place students, and identify appropriate interventions for students who are not improving. Interventions can take place during, before, or after school, and may include one-on-one tutoring, small group instruction, or other targeted forms of support. Once in an intervention, students are carefully monitored. The intervention programs at Horace Mann are not just one-shot programs that last four weeks. There are multiple programs that can be woven together to meet a student's needs. At the same time, staff make sure that students exit intervention programs as soon as they are ready. Finally, the message at Horace Mann is clear that the first intervention is in the classroom. Teachers are constantly looking for ways to provide access to the curriculum in the classroom.
In the past, professional development at Horace Mann consisted of teachers choosing to attend conferences or district trainings that interested them, as well as sessions mandated by the school or district. Professional development was neither cohesive nor focused on school goals. To improve professional development, school staff began banking time, adding instructional minutes to each day so that every Thursday morning the students come to school one hour later. This hour gives the teachers common time for grade level meetings, whole staff professional development, and teacher study groups. The extra hour has provided an opportunity for staff to participate together in training in key schoolwide instructional practices. Over the last five years professional development has come to mean professional reading, dialogue, and analysis of student work, all focused on strengthening student literacy.
In fact, in 2000, the school was approached by the Center for Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA) to participate in a research study. CIERA is a federally funded project that provides a way for schools to look at their own reform efforts, specifically in reading instruction. The project consists of collection and analysis of student data and professional development on research-based, proven-effective literacy instruction. It is now an important framework for professional development at Horace Mann.
Seventy four percent of the students at Horace Mann are designated English Learners. This number is divided almost equally between Armenian-speaking students and Spanish-speaking students. The school had two bilingual programs to serve these students, but when staff evaluated the programs in light of student data and parent feedback, they found that the bilingual programs were neither teaching students effectively in their primary language nor in English. Additionally, students in the primary language program did not perform as well on standardized tests as those in the English only program. Over time, the staff and community at Horace Mann made the difficult decision to disband the primary language instruction program and teach all students reading and language arts in English only.
Then they set out to create a rigorous, schoolwide, structured English immersion program, based on the district's English Language Development (ELD) curriculum and the state's ELD standards. Their instruction draws upon the latest Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE) strategies. With this change, staff aim to help all students meet and exceed grade level standards. Their data show positive gains: the redesignation rate — moving children from limited English proficient to fluent English proficient status — has increased from 3.5% to 13% over the last five years, and the rate at which students advance within the ELD levels has also increased.
Glendale Unified School District has played a critical role in the improvement at Horace Mann, providing a balance of necessary support and freedom for the school. The district worked to align its curriculum with state standards and provided professional development for all teachers on the curriculum. Additionally, the district created standards-based report cards for students and trained the teachers to use them with standards-based assessments.
Over the last five years, Horace Mann Elementary transitioned from a school that provided a nurturing environment to one that was both nurturing and academically challenging for its students. In the past, many staff believed that the students’ lives were so difficult outside of school that they shouldn’t be pushed too hard in school. Now they hold high expectations and provide appropriate support for their students.
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