United States

Focus on instruction turns around Chicago schools

Talk of 'turning around' troubled schools has become synonymous with firing educators, but a nonprofit organization here with a successful track record takes a different approach.

The "Focused Instruction Process" has four main components: shared leadership, targeted professional development, continuous improvement, and parent engagement. It uses an eight-step process designed to make sure that students master skills by providing focused lessons, formative assessments, reteaching after assessing where each student stands, and a reassessment to measure student progress.

Strategic Learning�s work costs about $150,000 per school, per year, with the Chicago school district and the individual schools contributing about 80 percent; the rest comes from foundations and private donors. Reconstituting a school can cost much more, Mr. Simmons said, putting the figure at up to $1 million per school over four years.

The model brings shared leadership to bear through intensive collaboration among teachers through both grade-level teams and the school�s leadership team. Schools make time for that work; at Willa Cather Elementary School, for example, teachers have five preparation periods a week, two of which are set aside for team meetings.

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Education Week

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Last Modified: 12 Jan 2010