Effective Implementation, Strong Leadership, Successful Schools Sue Szachowicz

1. Effective Implementation, Strong Leadership, Successful Schools Sue Szachowicz Principal, Brockton High School Senior Advisor, International Center for Leadership in Education WISCONSIN, NOVEMBER 2009

2. TODAY’S AGENDA: • Implementing the Literacy Initiative Across the Curriculum • What Gets Monitored Is What Gets Done • All Means ALL: Strategies for Special Education Students • Building Relationships with Faculty, Students, and Parents

3. INTRO: Who am I and why am I here? WHO: Empowering a team WHAT: Our mission – LITERACY for ALL HOW: Instructional Leadership Implementation Monitoring (next session) AND SO: Results

4. SO, Who is this woman, and why is she here?????

5. Brockton High SchoolBrockton, Massachusetts “School of Champions”

6. BROCKTON HIGH SCHOOL • Comprehensive 9 – 12 • Enrollment: over 4,300 • Poverty Level: 72% • Minority population: 71% • 30 different languages represented • 38% do not speak English as their primary language • Approximately 12% in Transitional Bilingual Ed. • Approximately 11% receive Special Education Services 6

7. Student Population 55.5% Black - includes African-American, Cape Verdean, Haitian, Jamaican, and others 27.3% White 14% Hispanic 2.7% Asian .5% American Indian 7

8. SO, That’s who she is, but why is she here?????

9. Here’s what we faced: (still do!) State mandates: High Stakes Testing (MCAS) Federal mandates :NCLB, AYP Local mandates – Graduation requirements

10. MCAS 1998 Failure ELA – 44% (Sped – 78%) MATH – 75% (Sped – 98%) MCAS 1998 Advanced+Proficient ELA – 22% MATH – 7% State Mandates…We faced: 10

11. And we had “empires” Brockton High: The Medieval Feudal System

12. But even worse… We faced a flawed belief system: “Students have a right to fail.” Former BHS Principal

13. Success at Brockton High then…

14. Success at Brockton High???

15. Success at Brockton High now…

16. MCAS 1998 Failure ELA – 44% MATH – 75% MCAS 2009 Failure ELA – 5% MATH – 15% 16

17. MCAS 1998 Advanced+Proficient ELA – 22 % MATH – 7 % MCAS 2009 Advanced+Proficient ELA – 78 % (matches the state) MATH – 60 % 17

18. MCAS??? So you think it’s easy???

19. SAMPLE MCAS QUESTION: Life of Henry V: Act IV, Scene III (ll. 1-80) Open Response question Explain how the excerpt shows that the king is an effective leader. Use relevant and specific information from the excerpt to support your answer. (Question is looking for language and style analysis, not simply content). 19

20. SAMPLE MCAS QUESTION: Excerpt from Don Quixote (pp 58-60) Open Response Question Explain how the author creates a humorous tone in the excerpt. Use relevant and specific information from the excerpt to support your answer. (Question is looking for language analysis, not simply content). 20

21. SAMPLE MCAS MATH QUESTION: Jason launched a model rocket from the ground. The formula below can be used to determine the height of the rocket above the ground at any time during the rocket’s flight. h = 16t(7 – t) In the formula, h and t are defined as follows: • t = the time, in seconds, that has elapsed since the rocket was launched • h = the height, in feet, of the rocket above the ground at time t Use the formula to answer the following questions. a. What was the height, in feet, of the rocket 1 second after it was launched? Show your work. b. What was the height, in feet, of the rocket 6 seconds after it was launched? Show your work. c. The value of h was 0 when the rocket hit the ground. How many seconds after the rocket was launched did it hit the ground? Show your work. d. How many seconds after the rocket was launched was the height of the rocket 160 feet? Show your work. 21

22. SAMPLE MCAS BIOLOGY QUESTION: Corn snakes show variety in their skin color pattern. While the complete genetics of corn snake color are complex, the most common colors on normal corn snakes—red and black—are each coded by one gene. For the red gene, the allele for the presence of red pigment (R) is dominant and the allele for the absence of red pigment (r) is recessive. Likewise, for the black gene, the allele for the presence of black pigment (B) is dominant and the allele for the absence of black pigment (b) is recessive. • Draw the Punnett square for the cross of a snake that is homozygous dominant for the red color with a snake that is heterozygous for the red color. What percentage of the offspring is expected to have red pigment in their skin? b. Draw the Punnett square for the cross of two snakes that are heterozygous for the black color. What percentage of the offspring are expected to have black pigment in their skin? c. The parent snakes in part (b) that are heterozygous for black color are both homozygous recessive for the red gene. Each parent has genotype rr for the red gene. Based on this information, what percentage of their offspring are expected to lack both the red and black pigments in their skin? Explain your reasoning.

23. SAMPLE MCAS BIOLOGY QUESTION: Corn snakes show variety in their skin color pattern. While the complete genetics of corn snake color are complex, the most common colors on normal corn snakes—red and black—are each coded by one gene. For the red gene, the allele for the presence of red pigment (R) is dominant and the allele for the absence of red pigment (r) is recessive. Likewise, for the black gene, the allele for the presence of black pigment (B) is dominant and the allele for the absence of black pigment (b) is recessive. • Draw the Punnett square for the cross of a snake that is homozygous dominant for the red color with a snake that is heterozygous for the red color. What percentage of the offspring is expected to have red pigment in their skin? b. Draw the Punnett square for the cross of two snakes that are heterozygous for the black color. What percentage of the offspring are expected to have black pigment in their skin? c. The parent snakes in part (b) that are heterozygous for black color are both homozygous recessive for the red gene. Each parent has genotype rr for the red gene. Based on this information, what percentage of their offspring are expected to lack both the red and black pigments in their skin? Explain your reasoning. c. The parent snakes in part (b) that are hetero-zygous for black color are both homozygous recessive for the red gene. Each parent has genotype rr for the red gene. Based on this information, what percentage of their offspring are expected to lack both the red and black pigments in their skins. Explain your reasoning.

24. 1998 TERM 1 859 STUDENTS (4400 students) 2008 TERM 1 1299 STUDENTS (4300 students) Honor Roll Statistics 24

25. THEN “Students have a right to fail.” BHS Principal NOW “There is no such right! High Standards, High expectations, No excuses!” BHS Principal 25

26. Turnaround at Brockton High Emphasis on literacy brings big MCAS improvement Principal Susan Szachowicz, shown chatting at lunch with Yiriam Lopez, is in many ways the school’s biggest cheerleader. (Essdras M Suarez/ Globe Staff) By James Vaznis Globe Staff / October 12, 2009 BROCKTON - Brockton High School has every excuse for failure, serving a city plagued by crime, poverty, housing foreclosures, and homelessness. Almost two-thirds of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, and 14 percent are learning to speak English. More than two-thirds are African-American or Latino - groups that have lagged behind their peers across the state on standardized tests. But Brockton High, by far the state’s largest public high school with 4,200 students, has found a success in recent years that has eluded many of the state’s urban schools: MCAS scores are soaring, earning the school state recognition as a symbol of urban hope.

27. OK, so some good things happened at Brockton High, BUT… • WHAT did you do, and HOW did you do it???

28. For Whole School Reform It’s ALL about the 3 R’s: Rigor Relevance Relationships

29. Eight Components of School Reform Embrace a Common Vision and Goals Inform Decisions Through Data Systems Empower Leadership Teams to Take Action and Innovate Clarify Student Learning Expectations Adopt Effective Instructional Practices Address Organizational Structures Monitor Progress/Improve Support Systems Refine Process on an Ongoing Basis

30. RIGOR: HIGH standards, HIGH expectations for ALL students It all started with that!

31. Eight Components of School Reform Embrace a Common Vision and Goals Inform Decisions Through Data Systems Empower Leadership Teams to Take Action and Innovate Clarify Student Learning Expectations Adopt Effective Instructional Practices Address Organizational Structures Monitor Progress/Improve Support Systems Refine Process on an Ongoing Basis

32. EMPOWERING A TEAM WHY start with that???

33. The Importance of Empowerment

34. Whack-a-Mole

35. Empowering a Team How do I “…get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people into the right seats?”Jim Collins, Good to Great

36. Empower Leadership Teams to Take Action and Innovate Essential Groups • Restructuring Committee, our “think tank” • Administrative Leadership Team • Data Analysis Team • Steering Committees in every Department

37. Empowerment: Building a Leadership Team How do I select the team? “Getting the right people on the bus” Restructuring Committee – our “think tank” • Every department represented with a mix of teachers and administrators • Balance of new teachers and veterans, new voices and voices of experience

38. Empowerment: Building a Leadership Team “Getting the right people on the bus” • Administrative Leadership Team • Qualifications • Professional Strengths • Personal Qualities • (Humor, Trust …It’s all • about the relationships)

39. Empowerment: Building a Leadership Team “Getting the right people on the bus” Data Analysis Team • Led by Associate Principal for C&I • Eight-ten members – teachers & admin. • Target area depts. represented (Testing areas, Sped, Bilingual)

40. Empowerment: Building a Leadership Team “Getting the right people on the bus” and “Getting the right people in the right seats” Restructuring Committee Mission: FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS!!!!

41. YOUR TURN: EMPOWERMENT Think about someone on your staff who you think has the disposition to lead but has not been involved. How can you bring that person in?

42. RIGOR, RELEVANCE, RELATIONSHIPS For us, two goals: • Increase student academic achievement • Personalize the educational experience for every student

43. We had to look in the mirror: We HAD to think differently and ask ourselves a new set of questions…

44. WHAT are we teaching? • HOW are we teaching it? • HOW do we know our students are learning it?

45. What can we control, what can’t we control? • What do we have now that we can use differently?

46. What will my BEST teachers think? • What’s best for our kids?

47. And, our favorite… QUESTION: WHY do we do it this way??? ANSWER: Because we’ve ALWAYS done it this way!!!

48. Eight Components of School Reform Embrace a Common Vision and Goals Inform Decisions Through Data Systems Empower Leadership Teams to Take Action and Innovate Clarify Student Learning Expectations Adopt Effective Instructional Practices Address Organizational Structures Monitor Progress/Improve Support Systems Refine Process on an Ongoing Basis

49. Inform Decisions Through Data Systems “Confront the brutal facts.” Jim Collins in Good to Great For us – 76% Failure!!! Below the state average on EVERY open response (writing) question PICK ONE THING!!! (We started with literacy/writing!)

50. Embrace a Common Vision and Goals Clarify Student Learning Expectations FOUNDATION LEARNING: What are the NON-negotiable skills and knowledge that ALL students must master? Our school wide Literacy Initiative