# Presentation: 010410

## First Things First:A Framework and Supports For District and School Reform

- First Things First:A Framework and Supports For District and School Reform

- Steve GeringKansas City Kansas Public SchoolsInstitute for Research and Reform in EducationSt. Louis, MOApril 23-24, 2004

**Archived Information**

- ©IRRE

## Who Are We?

**Institute for Research and Reform in Education**

- IRRE is a not-for-profit organization
- We created and developed the district and school reform framework First Things First
- We provide direct technical assistance to schools and school districts
- We advise state departments of education

- ©IRRE

## A comprehensive reform framework...
developed to raise students’ academic performance... 
to levels required for post-secondary education and high quality employment. 

- developed to raise students’ academic performance...
- to levels required for post-secondary education and high quality employment.

- What Is First Things First?

- ©IRRE

## Who Does IRRE Work With?

- Urban Districts
- Kansas City, KS
- Kansas City, MO
- Riverview Gardens, MO
- Houston, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Rural Districts
- High schools in Greenville and Shaw, MS
- State Departments of Education
- Missouri
- Colorado
- New Jersey

- ©IRRE

## Who Are IRRE’s “Sponsors”?

- Private Foundations
- State Departments of Education
- US Department of Education

- ©IRRE

## Slide 6

## FTF Strategies

- Small Learning Communities
- Family Advocate System
- Instructional Improvement

- ©IRRE

## Evidence Of Effectiveness

- Preliminary data from external evaluation of FTF in Kansas City, Kansas
- Approximately 20,000 students
- Majority of children minority
- 74% free and reduced lunch
- Four comprehensive and one selective high schools
- Completed third year of district-wide implementation of FTF in 2003

- ©IRRE

## Five Year Trend In KCK -High School Attendance Rate

- ALL COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOLS (N=4)
- Source data: Kansas State Department of Education

- All high schools implementing FTF

- ©IRRE

## KCK Dropout Rate – Six Year Trend

- ALL COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOLS (N=4)
- Source data: Kansas State Department of Education

- All high schools implementing reform

- ©IRRE

## KCK Graduation Rate – Six Year Trend

- ALL COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOLS (N=4)
- Source data: Kansas State Department of Education

- All high schools implementing reform

- ©IRRE

## Trends In 11th Grade Reading Assessment Scores: Kansas City, Kansas High Schools

- Source data: Kansas State Department of Education – all students tested

- ©IRRE

## Closing The Racial Achievement Gap In KCK (Grade 5, 8 and 11)

- Source data: Kansas State Department of Education – all students tested

- ©IRRE

## Closing The Economic Achievement Gap (Grades 5, 8 and 11)

- Source data: Kansas State Department of Education – all students tested

- ©IRRE

## Other Evidence 

- Implementation and sustainability
- Six generations (1998 – 2003) of FTF high schools (24 high schools) now implementing the framework
- No school beginning implementation has stopped implementation over this period

- ©IRRE

## Slide 16

- ©IRRE

## IRRE Technical Assistance To Districts And States

- Clarifying expectations and rationale for high school reform
- Outcomes
- Conditions
- Implementation strategies and standards
- Needed supports
- School
- District
- Community
- State

- ©IRRE

## IRRE Technical Assistance To Districts And States

- Planning process toward implementation
- Structured
- Participatory
- Efficient

- ©IRRE

## IRRE Technical Assistance To Districts And States

- Capacity building
- System leadership development to initiate and sustain reform
- Mapping responsibilities and building capacity
- Existing leaders
- Emerging leaders
- Data based continuous improvement
- Measuring what matters
- Using data to guide innovation

- ©IRRE

## IRRE Technical Assistance To High Schools

- Small Learning Communities
- Staffing and scheduling
- Facilities use
- Teacher leadership
- Effective team work and use of common planning time
- Ensuring equity and purity
- Using data to improve student commitment and performance

- ©IRRE

## IRRE Technical Assistance To High Schools

- Family Advocate System
- Set up
- Advocate training
- Curriculum
- Instructional Improvement
- Effective instructional coaching and supervision
- Curriculum enrichment
- Struggling readers and math learners
- Thematic infusion
- Design and effective use of professional development time
- Engagement
- Alignment
- Rigor

- ©IRRE

## Why District-wide Reform Of High Schools?

- Morally defensible
- Why don’t all our students deserve these opportunities?
- Prevent draining of innovative teachers into “reforming” schools and out of equally needy schools
- Efficient
- Not enough money to run one kind of high school much less two or three
- Compels realignment of core resources to support highest priorities

- ©IRRE

## Why District-wide Reform Of High Schools?

- Coherent focus for district supports and policies
- Professional development of teachers and administrators
- Personnel recruitment, evaluation and retention
- Sustainability
- Individual schools easily marginalized and tokenized when surrounded by business as usual
- Reform less vulnerable to departure of individual leaders
- Reform becomes the work of the district rather than a program in one school
- Easier to align state supports and policies with the work of districts

- ©IRRE

## IRRE

**IRRE**
**1420 Locust Street, 7Q**
**Philadelphia, PA  19102**
**215.545.1335**
- _[www.irre.org](http://www.irre.org/)_
**Laurie Levin**
**levinassoc@aol.com **

**KCKPS**
**625 Minnesota Ave.**
**Kansas City, KS 66101**
**913.279.2269**
- _[www.kckps.org](http://www.kckps.org/)_
**Steve Gering**
**stgerin@kckps.org**