Transforming Schools From The Ground Up

Education policymakers are increasingly concerned about how to turn around chronically underperforming schools. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), states and school districts must restructure schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for five years—and they’re looking for strategies to do so. At the same time, policymakers are focusing on early education—36 states increased pre-k funding in 2008. Yet these two policy strands rarely intersect.

They should. Research shows that quality pre-kindergarten can boost student achievement and narrow achievement gaps. While NCLB doesn’t require states to assesses students until grade three, the foundational skills that support students’ later learning are already in place by then. Therefore, efforts to improve chronically low-performing elementary schools must start early.

That’s why we’ve proposed changes to NCLB that would encourage school districts to reconstitute elementary schools identified for restructuring as “PK-3 Early Education Academies” featuring pre-k, full-day kindergarten, and aligned standards, curriculum, and teacher professional development from pre-k through grade three. A series of recent reports by the Center for Education Policy (CEP) about school restructuring efforts in California, Michigan, and Maryland provide further support for this idea. CEP identified factors that contribute to success in school restructuring:

Change the school culture. Principals of restructuring schools frequently identify the need to refocus their curriculum and inject new energy into the learning environment. Some of the successful restructurings CEP profiled brought outside specialists and coaches who helped reshape the schools’ missions and reinvigorate staff. Others changed culture by breaking up larger schools into small learning communities. As we’ve argued elsewhere, converting elementary schools to PK-3 academies is another strategy for reorienting school culture around a shared vision of early education.

Increased inter- and intra- grade collaboration makes an impact. Schools that set aside time for teacher collaboration were able to increase consistency and coordination of curriculum. PK-3 academies that emphasize alignment and integration of standards, curriculum, and teaching strategies offer a framework within which schools can build the kind of cooperation that CEP calls for.

There’s precedent for using a PK-3 focus to turnaround low-performing schools. Deep Creek Elementary in Baltimore County, for example, was once one of the county’s lowest performing schools, with only 38 percent of third graders were reading at grade level in 2003. But after a new principal implemented a vertically-aligned curriculum from pre-k through third grade, and expanded teacher professional development, the school made AYP, and 73 percent of students now read at grade level.

Of course, there are challenges to using a PK-3 reform strategy to turn around low-performing schools. CEP researchers note a tension in NCLB restructuring efforts between long term reform and the need to produce immediate results. Because early education reforms focus energy on non-tested grades, it can takes time to see the benefits—but such reforms produce lasting gains that extend all the way through the high school years, rather than temporary test score bumps.

Money is also a challenge. Officials in 32 states told CEP that NCLB provides insufficient funding to complete restructuring. And some elements of a PK-3 reform strategy, such as pre-k and full-day kindergarten, are expensive. States and schools districts need to think creatively about how they can use variety of funding streams—state pre-k programs, Reading First, Title I, and school improvement funds—to support PK-3 reforms. And federal policymakers can use NCLB reauthorization to increase resources for schools to implement such reforms.

The pressure of restructuring creates an opening for major changes in struggling schools. By focusing on the foundational early elementary years, and integrating pre-k and full-day kindergarten into school restructuring, policymakers have an opportunity to drive real improvement in early education for some of the students that need it the most.