Northwest

education

spring–summer 2009 / Volume 14. Number 3

Focused instruction 10 

Strong leadership 18

Sustained change 24

Northwest 

Turnarounds

How Five Schools 

Made Big Jumps in 

Student Achievement
On the cover

A third-grader at Mountain View Elementary 

looks up unfamiliar words during the daily two 

and a half hour reading block. An emphasis on 

reading has been at the heart of the highly diverse 

Anchorage school’s improvement efforts.

Photo by David Predeger 
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 1

14

24

30

features

6 Turning Around Chronically Underperforming Schools

This brief introduction to the topic looks at supporting data for our five 

Northwest turnaround schools.

10 A Second Chance at Success

Intervention classes and dedicated teachers turn around more than just test 

scores at a western Idaho middle school. 

14 Going the Distance

A strong leader and an emphasis on reading bring big gains in proficiency at 

a multicultural Anchorage, Alaska, elementary school. 

18 Lessons From a Turnaround Specialist

An experienced and dynamic principal helps an Oregon high school focus 

on its most pressing needs first. 

24 The Long Turnaround

At an elementary school in Roundup, Montana, recent double-digit jumps in 

student achievement are the payoff for a long-term improvement strategy. 

28 Quick Wins and Long-Term Sustainability

Sam Redding, a coauthor of the Institute of Education Sciences practice 

guide, Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools, gives the concept of 

“turnarounds” a national perspective. 

30 The Personal Approach

A supportive and personalized environment transforms a struggling high 

school in north central Washington into a blue-ribbon winner.

Believing in Kids: How One High-Poverty Elementary Found 

a Way To Boost Proficiency

Teri Wagner, principal of Lapwai Elementary School on the Nez Perce Indian 

Reservation, talks about the school’s long-term, systemic change.

Supporting Statewide School Improvement: An Interview 

With NWREL Experts

Two experts from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory’s Center for 

School and District Improvement talk about state-level technical assistance.

Northwest

education

contents / spring–summer 2009 northwest turnarounds Vol. 14 / No. 3

Web exclusives at nwrel.org/nwedu/

18
2 nwrel.org/nwedu/

departments

3 Forum

4 Editor’s Note

34 Research Brief

Looking for Evidence

36 Voices

The Where and How of Turnaround Success

38 Region at a Glance

By the Numbers: Student Enrollment Affects 

Adequate Yearly Progress

39 End Note

40 NWREL News

Connecting Experts and Practitioners 

Recovery Act Resources 

Recognition for Training Teachers in Early Algebra 

RSS Program to Host Second Annual Conference 

2008 Annual Report Now Online 

Conference Call 

Flashback

What the Research Says (or Doesn’t Say) 

Responding to the Economic Crisis

Digging Deeper

Case Studies on School Turnarounds

On the Web

Northwest Education is available online in both PDF 

and HTML versions at www.nwrel.org/nwedu/. 

Look for Web exclusives, marked with .

Northwest Education is published three times a year by the 

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Past and current 

issues of the magazine are available at www.nwrel.org/nwedu/.

ISSN 1546-5020

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Carol F. Thomas

Deputy Executive Officer

Steve Fleischman

Administrative Director, Development and Communications

Dave Wilson

Managing Editor

Rhonda Barton

Issue Editor

Bracken Reed

NWREL News Writer

Kate Fitzgibbon

Staff Photographer

Michael Heavener

Technical Editor

Eugenia Cooper Potter

Design

Denise Crabtree

Data Analyst

Richard Greenough

Library Support

Linda Fitch

Webmaster

Jeff Jones

Circulation

Jean DeYoung

Statement of Purpose

Northwest Education aims to promote a regional dialogue and to 

elevate teaching and learning by giving readers the best information, ideas, and personal stories from practitioners, researchers, and 

other experts. 

Copyright © 2009, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory

Articles and information in this publication may be reproduced 

and distributed without permission for nonprofit educational and 

professional development purposes. Please acknowledge NWREL 

as the source.

Northwest

education
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 3

NWREL Board of Directors

Jerry Colonna (Chair)

Superintendent, Beaverton School District (OR)

Rob Larson (Vice Chair)

Federal Liaison/Director, Oregon Leadership Network 

Oregon Department of Education

Dr. Joan Parker Webster (Secretary-Treasurer)

Associate Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks 

Steve Bradshaw

Superintendent, Sitka Borough School District (AK) 

Doreen Brown (Regional Parent Representative)

Supervisor, Indian Education, Anchorage School District (AK)

Susan Castillo

Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction

Karanja Crews

Teacher, Portland Public Schools (OR)

Randy Dorn

Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction

Dr. Joanne Erickson

Associate Professor, Montana State University

Jeff Estes

Manager, Office of Science Education Programs 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (WA)

Dr. Patrick Haggarty (Private School Representative)

Superintendent, Chief Diocesan Administrator 

Diocese of Helena, Missoula (MT)

Jeri Harris

Teacher, Seattle School District (WA)

Dr. Mary Alice Heuschel

Superintendent, Renton School District (WA)

Dr. Jannette R. Hill

Chair, Division of Education 

Lewis-Clark State College (ID)

Wendy Horman

School Board Member, Bonneville Joint School District (ID)

Denise Juneau

Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction 

Jerry Keane 

Superintendent, Post Falls School District (ID)

Larry LeDoux

Alaska Commissioner of Education

Tom Luna

Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction

Dr. Richard McCullough (Ex-Officio)

Assistant Professor, Seattle University (WA)

Dr. Bruce Messinger

Superintendent, Helena Public Schools (MT)

Dr. Geoffrey Mills

Dean, Southern Oregon University 

Dr. Perla Rodriguez (Parent Representative)

Elementary Principal, Forest Grove School District (OR)

Mo Sanders

Principal, Soldotna Montessori Charter School (AK)

Corri Smith

Teacher, Great Falls School District (MT)

Dr. Tom Stritikus

Associate Dean, College of Education 

University of Washington

Frederick H. Striker

School Board Member, Battle Ground (WA)

Colleen Thompson

Teacher, Riverside Elementary School (ID)

Carol VanDerWege

Teacher, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District (AK)

Jeff Weldon (Regional Business Representative)

Attorney, Felt, Martin, Frazier & Jacobs PC (MT)

forum

Sharing Our Story

It was a pleasure to read the articles in 

Northwest Education relative to Response 

to Intervention (RTI: Tiered Instruction Goes Mainstream, fall 2008). Most 

particularly, I found the article by Jacqueline Raphael, for which I was also 

interviewed, most helpful in sharing 

our story. Last week I had the opportunity to share the article at the Education Sub-Committee for Ways and 

Means in my overview of our office’s 

work at the Oregon Department of 

Education. The article summarized in 

a clear and concise way an initiative not 

easily understood by many. Because of 

the article I was able to point to sections that I wanted to emphasize and 

yet also know that the legislative committee had the full story. Again, thank 

you for including the work of ODE in 

this story. 

Nancy Latini, Ph.D. 

Assistant Superintendent 

Oregon Department of Education 

Student Learning & Partnerships 

503-947-5702 

nancy.latini@state.or.us 

We want to hear from you! Send your 

letters to the editor, comments on current and past issues, article ideas, and tips 

on places where good things are happening to nwedufeedback@nwrel.org. Letters may be edited for length or clarity.
4 nwrel.org/nwedu/

editor‘s note

© Adobe Image Library

What is a turnaround school? It turns out 

that is not so easy to define. The definition 

used in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) practice guide Turning Around 

Chronically Low-Performing Schools was 

based largely on the need to find existing 

research into best practices. According to a coauthor of the 

study, Sam Redding (see our interview with Redding on page 

28), there are very few experimental studies of schools that 

started with extremely low proficiency rates and then made 

significant gains in a short period of time. Such schools do 

exist, but the research is scarce.

The IES guide was forced to draw on case studies and 

to include schools with proficiency levels as high as 80 

percent—a number you normally wouldn’t associate with 

chronic low performance. As Redding told me: “The studies we ended up using were looking at schools that definitely 

got better, but weren’t that terrible to begin with. That’s not 

a fault of the committee, it was a decision based on the available evidence.” 

With little to guide us, we created our own approach to 

choosing the five schools to include in this issue of Northwest 

Education. First, we consulted with state-level school improvement coordinators or specialists in each of the five states in 

our region. They gave us a list of possible schools, and from 

there, our data analyst, Richard Greenough, examined individual school data trends. As a basic guideline we looked for 

schools whose student achievement scores in reading and/or 

math were at one time chronically below state averages, but 

had then taken a dramatic upturn, typically showing doubledigit gains within a two- or three-year period in at least one 

of those core areas. Our goal was simple: We wanted to see 

what kind of “turnarounds” were happening in our region 

and to share the strategies those schools have used to make 

such dramatic progress.

In this issue you will find a brief overview of the topic, 

which includes some of the data we used to choose our five 

schools and a short summary of the recommended strategies 

in the IES practice guide. You will also notice some similarities among the schools.

In this issue’s Voices department (page 36), education 

journalist and author Karin Chenoweth offers insights drawn 

from her many years of writing about high-performing, highpoverty schools. She mentions two general starting points for 

most turnaround schools: the “functional but mediocre” and 

the “completely broken, dysfunctional.” Most of the schools 

we chose began their journey in the first category. Consequently, the turnarounds represented here are less dramatic 

—and the actions taken less drastic—than those happening 

in Chicago and other large, urban districts. That kind of total 

school restructuring is still rare in the Northwest. 

Although each of the five schools we profile is unique, 

many of the same strategies show up in their stories, including strong leadership, a narrow focus on instruction, a shared 

language and vision, and a staff that is fully committed to the 

effort. These strategies line up well with those recommended 

in the IES practice guide. 

In addition, each of the leaders of these turnarounds said 

the same thing: All of the strategies are 100 percent replicable, 

regardless of your school’s starting point or demographics. 

I hope you will find inspiration, affirmation, and great ideas 

in this issue of Northwest Education. Although the turnarounds 

represented here may be less dramatic than those gaining national media attention, they were each undertaken with great 

urgency. As Valarie Lewis, a principal in a school far outside 

our region, says: “No one has a right to waste a day in the life 

of a child.” That’s true whether you’re in Queens, New York, 

or Roundup, Montana. 

—Bracken Reed, reedb@nwrel.org
5

Northwest education Features

spring–summer 2009 / Vol. 14. No. 3

 Researchers define strategies for turning around schools 6

Small successes boost the confidence of at-risk middle schoolers 10

A focus on reading galvanizes a highly diverse school 14

A strong leader takes a struggling high school to the top 18

Big results come from many small steps 24

An innovation expert surveys the turnaround field 28

Teachers work overtime to transform school culture 30

Northwest Turnarounds

How Five Schools Made Big Jumps in Student Achievement
6 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Based on their statewide assessments 

and accountability policies, state departments of education across the nation have currently designated 10,000 

schools in need of improvement; 2,300 

of these schools are in restructuring because of failure to make adequate yearly 

progress (AYP) proficiency targets for 

five or more years. Without drastic measures, it’s anticipated that the number 

of schools in restructuring will reach 

overwhelming proportions by the year 

2014. Consequently, more districts are 

considering the turnaround option as 

the most viable plan of action. 

Until recently, turnaround literature primarily focused on efforts in the 

public (non-education), nonprofit, and 

business sectors to help failing organizations make drastic yet sustainable 

changes. The process of turning around 

chronically underperforming schools 

refers to a district-managed restructuring effort intended to make quick, 

Turning Around 

Chronically Underperforming Schools

A Brief Overview

1

Signal the need for dramatic 

change with strong leadership: A failing school does not 

have the luxury of years to implement 

incremental reforms. Instead, leaders 

at the school should make a clear commitment to dramatic changes from the 

status quo and signal the magnitude 

and urgency of those changes.

By Basha Krasnoff

Photo by David Predeger
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 7

dramatic, and sustained improvement 

in student academic achievement by 

replacing the school leader and any 

staff relevant to a school’s chronic low 

performance. 

While turnaround literature points 

out many similarities between school 

turnarounds and turnarounds in other 

types of organizations, there are critical 

differences. For example, other types 

of organizations can choose to stop 

producing a product or serving a market. In public education, on the other 

hand, while districts may significantly 

alter how education is delivered, they 

still must deliver education services to 

all children. Another example is that in 

other industries, the failure that precedes turnaround threatens the existence of the organization. Before the 

passage of NCLB, a school’s chronic 

failure had serious consequences for its 

students but only rarely did it threaten 

the existence of the school. There is a 

limited research base documenting successful turnarounds in the education 

sector. But, federal and state education 

policy demands for accountability and 

dramatic, sustained improvement of 

chronically low-performing schools is 

a leading impetus for rigorous research 

to inform school turnaround efforts. 

Approximately two-thirds of the 

states have laws enabling districts or 

states to replace a school’s leaders and 

staff, and several turnaround efforts 

were undertaken under state law before NCLB legislation was enacted. 

Most occurred during the late 1990s 

and the vast majority were implemented by district officials across multiple 

schools. These early turnaround efforts in San Francisco (1983), Houston (1993), Prince George’s County, 

Maryland (1997), and Chicago (2000) 

are well-documented. Literature about 

these turnaround efforts generally presents evidence of a set of environmental 

conditions and leadership actions associated with successful turnarounds. 

Most of the research confirms that 

no two low-performing schools were 

identical; and that, although many 

“best practices” have been identified, 

the most effective combination of 

these practices vary with each school’s 

circumstances. Although there are anecdotal accounts of individual schools 

throughout the United States known 

to have made dramatic improvements 

under turnaround leaders, there is little 

documentation in the research literature of successful turnarounds of individual schools. 

In its practice guide, Turning Around 

Chronically Low-Performing Schools, the 

Institute of Education Sciences draws 

lessons from 35 case studies to recommend a combination of four elements 

that appear to work together to help 

failing schools make significant improvements quickly:

2

Maintain a consistent focus on 

improving instruction: Chronically low-performing schools 

need to maintain a sharp focus on improving instruction at every step of the 

reform process. To improve instruction, schools should use data to set goals 

for instructional improvement, make 

changes that immediately and directly 

affect instruction, and continually reassess student learning and instructional 

practices to refocus the goals. 

3

Make visible improvements 

early in the school turnaround 

process (quick wins): Leaders 

should identify one or two clear goals 

that can be accomplished quickly, with 

notable success, and often without requiring district approval or teacher buyin. These quick wins can show that it is 

possible to move toward the overarching goal of raising student achievement 

and to establish a positive climate for 

long-term change.

4

Build a committed staff: The 

school leader must build a staff 

that is committed to the school’s 

improvement goals and qualified to carry out school improvement. This recommendation is about having the right 

personnel in the right places, and thus 

might include actions such as creating 

new positions, modifying job descriptions, organizing intervention teams, 

reviewing or expanding the roles of 

support staff, or transferring staff out of 

the school and bringing in new staff.
8 nwrel.org/nwedu/

There has been speculation that the 

documentation of individual school 

successes has not been widespread 

for two reasons: The successes in one 

school are not readily replicated by other school leaders; dramatic changes have 

proven challenging to sustain after the 

turnaround leader leaves. Challenges to 

replication and sustainability are being 

addressed by programs like the University of Virginia’s School Turnaround 

Specialist Program and Rensselaerville 

Institute’s School Turnaround Program, which train cadres of educators 

to lead and sustain school turnarounds. 

But the scope of this challenge is becoming greater each year. Researchers agree that much stronger evidence 

is necessary if we are to begin turning 

around the ever-increasing number of 

schools being identified as chronically 

underperforming. n

How We Got Here

The sizable achievement gap between the academic performance of white, middle-class 

students and poor, minority students led to the passage of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act (ESEA) in 1965. For the next several decades, the U.S. government funneled federal funds to poor, failing schools in an effort to counter the devastating effects 

of poverty on academic achievement. An accountability movement gained momentum as 

educators and legislators sought evidence of the effectiveness of these efforts. The ESEA

was reauthorized in 1994 with accountability requirements: States had to develop math 

and reading standards, administer standards-based statewide assessments of student 

proficiency, and adopt a benchmark for school improvement known as “adequate yearly 

progress (AYP).” 

Most states and districts instituted accountability systems at that time, based on standardized test scores. These systems were tied to a variety of rewards and consequences 

for schools that did or did not meet the state’s student proficiency standards. When Congress reauthorized ESEA in 2001 as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the law specified a new 

accountability framework designed to make schools accountable for closing achievement 

gaps between white and minority students, and poor and middle-class students. NCLB

required that annual test scores be reported and published for each student subgroup to 

keep in the public awareness the discrepancies in achievement that had previously been 

hidden in schoolwide averages. NCLB also required each state to develop a time line for 

meeting state-determined proficiency targets. The states were given until 2014 to bring 

every student to proficiency in reading and math.

Persistently underperforming schools faced increasingly strong consequences. After 

failing to make AYP for five consecutive years, NCLB requires that schools engage in 

restructuring activities. The law specifies five options districts can implement to improve 

academic performance. These options are more dramatic than any school reform options 

employed in the past and each offers potential for significant change. The five restructuring options are:

1. Convert the school to a public charter school.

2. Replace “all or most of the school staff (including the principal), who are relevant to the 

failure to make adequate yearly progress” (the “turnaround” option).

3. Hire an external contractor, such as a private management company with a proven 

track record of effectiveness, to operate the school.

4. Turn the “operation of the school over to the state educational agency, if permitted 

under state law and agreed to by the state.”

5. Engage in any other form of major restructuring that makes fundamental reforms “to 

improve student academic achievement in the school and that has substantial promise 

of enabling the school to make adequate yearly progress.”
turning around chronically underperforming schools

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 9

35%

50%

62%

68%

72%

70%

73%

66% 66%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

2003−2004 2004−2005 2005−2006 2006−2007 2007−2008

Students meeting state proficiency standards

School

State: Alaska

66%

Mountain View Elementary: All Grades

50%

58% 61% 59%

71%

71%

77% 74%

68%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

2003−2004 2004−2005 2005−2006 2006−2007 2007−2008

Students meeting state proficiency standards

School

State: Idaho

73%

Vallivue Middle: Grades 7−8

Note: Numbers of students tested varies 

greatly from a low of 444 in 2007−2008 to a 

high of 873 in 2006−2007. Particular caution 

should be taken in comparing proficiency 

rates between years.

37%

45%

49%

63%

65% 68%

62%

61%

57%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

2003−2004 2004−2005 2005−2006 2006−2007 2007−2008

Students meeting state proficiency standards

School

State: Montana

59%

Roundup Central: All Grades

34%

47% 45%

55%

79% 77%

52%

69%

42%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

2003−2004 2004−2005 2005−2006 2006−2007 2007−2008

Students meeting state proficiency standards

School

State: Oregon

61%

Forest Grove High: Grade 10

36%

42%

51% 50%

71%

65%

50%

60%

44%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

2003−2004 2004−2005 2005−2006 2006−2007 2007−2008

Students meeting state proficiency standards

School

State: Washington

48%

Chelan High: Grade 10

Five Northwest Turnaround Schools

Mathematics Proficiency Rate Compared to Statewide Rate, 2003–2004 to 2007–2008

Sources: Mountain View Elementary, Alaska Department of Education 

and Early Development, annual state and “school site” AYP worksheets, 

retrieved from www.eed.state.ak.us/tls/assessment/accountability.html; 

Vallivue Middle, Idaho’s online ISAT assessment results (annual), retrieved 

from www.boardofed.idaho.gov/saa/isatresults.asp; Roundup Central, 

Montana’s NCLB Report Card, retrieved from www.opi.mt.gov/ReportCard/; Forest Grove High, Oregon online assessment results, retrieved 

from www.ode.state.or.us/data/schoolanddistrict/testresults/reporting/

PublicRpt.aspx; Chelan High, Washington online report card, retrieved 

from http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us.
A Second Chance at 

Success

A middle school in western Idaho 

uses intervention classes and strong relationships 

to create a safety net for at-risk and failing students.

Story and photos by Bracken Reed

CANYON COUNTY, Idaho—On any given day in one of Debbie 

Watkins’s seventh-grade math classes you might find a student standing under a giant lightbulb, calling a parent, family 

member, or guardian on an old white telephone attached to 

the wall. Occasionally, the entire class will turn to watch the 

student make the call. Other times they barely notice, it’s become so commonplace. 

It may sound like a punishment, but it’s actually a unique 

reward. A student gets to turn the light bulb on when they’ve 

finally demonstrated mastery of a difficult concept, typically 

one that has been causing them grief for several weeks. Then 

they get to call an adult of their choosing to share the good 

news. 

It’s a small victory—one little step on the ladder of improvement—but the phone calls can be emotional moments. 

Once in a great while a student chokes back tears. Other 

times, they high-five or strut to the phone as if they’ve just 

scored a touchdown. More often, they play it cool but beam 

with pride. One can imagine the adult on the other end of the 

line, doing the same. 

“These kids love to call home,” says Watkins. “They love 

to be proud of themselves. That’s something that’s rare in all 

aspects of their lives, so when we can give them those little 

success stories it’s huge for them.”

These lightbulb moments and celebratory phone calls are 

indicative of several things at the grade 6–8 Vallivue Middle 

School, just outside Caldwell, Idaho. First, dealing with students’ emotional needs is a constant reality here, as it is in 

many middle schools. Second, the school has its share of 

struggling students who come from poverty or other disadvantaged circumstances and have not had a lot of success or 

praise in their young lives. And third, the entire staff at Vallivue is dedicated to creating an emotional and academic safety 

net for these at-risk students. Nowhere is that more apparent 

than in the school’s math intervention classes. 

In the past three years Vallivue has created an intense 

“double dose” math intervention process that gives the lowest achieving students a second chance at academic success. 

Based on the data, it’s working. 

Prior to the 2004–2005 school year, the percentage of Vallivue students meeting math proficiency on the statewide 

assessment hovered around 50 percent, well below the state 

average. Since then, the school has made big gains, raising its 

proficiency, most recently, to 72 percent. During that same 

time the statewide average for math proficiency went up only 

five percentage points. 

The school’s improvement is less dramatic in reading, but 

there, too, it has improved at a rate double that of the state’s. 

Vallivue was recently a “showcase school” at the statewide 

Title I conference, even though it has never made adequate 

yearly progress (AYP). Almost no middle schools in Idaho 

have consistently made AYP, especially those with demographics similar to Vallivue’s. Last year the school missed AYP

10 nwrel.org/nwedu/
Teacher Debbie Watkins helps 

Jennifer, an eighth-grader in an 

intervention math class. Northwest 

Education /spring–summer 2009 11
12 nwrel.org/nwedu/

by only a few percentage points in a single subject area in one 

subgroup. They’re almost there. 

The Fallen-Through-the Cracks Kids 

Vallivue Principal Rod Lowe jokingly refers to the middle school 

years as the black hole. “Grades often drop, emotions run really 

high, everything goes a little haywire,” he says. “You’ve got parents saying ‘This isn’t the kid I raised!’ I tell them: ‘If you figure 

it out, write a book, because you’re the exception.’” 

 More than anything, says Watkins, students feel confused 

and out of control. “They’re in between everything: youth 

and adulthood and everything that goes with it,” she says. 

“They have no idea what they’re doing. They’re intensely 

self-conscious. Hardly anyone feels good about themselves 

in seventh grade.” 

For many of Vallivue’s 720 students there are other pressures as well. The Caldwell-Nampa area is a semirural, semisuburban area just west of Boise. The Vallivue School District 

serves the county area between the two towns, and despite 

the proximity to Boise, agriculture is still the main industry 

here. There is a sizable population of Latino families who do 

seasonal work, and many others who struggle with rural poverty, as reflected in the 55 percent of Vallivue Middle School 

students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. A 30 

percent mobility rate also speaks to the number of families 

who jump back and forth among Caldwell, Nampa, Boise, 

and as far afield as Mexico, looking for work. 

By the sixth grade such socioeconomic pressures have already taken a toll on many students. Add puberty to the equation and it’s not uncommon to see an academic free-fall. 

These are the students that Watkins calls “the fallenthrough-the-cracks kids,” and “the hardest ones to reach.” 

Typically, they are not students with learning disabilities, but 

simply those that fell behind early and never caught up. 

“If you never have success at something, you start to give up,” 

says Watkins. “These are students who fell farther and farther 

behind, and then you start to see behavior problems because 

they’re not engaged. Before long they’ve become the troublemakers and the underachievers—the ‘worst of the worst.’” 

These are also the students most likely to drag down a 

school’s test scores and keep it from making AYP. That equation may seem cynical, but it’s not. The standards and accountability movement has given many schools the resources 

and urgency to address these “problem kids” in a more direct 

and intense way than ever before. That has been the case at 

Vallivue, and it is starting to pay off—in improved test scores, 

yes, but also in brighter futures for many students who were 

heading down a dark road. 

You Have To Believe

Vallivue’s approach to helping these struggling students is not 

unusual or groundbreaking, but like any other instructional 

strategy it can be done poorly or done well—it’s all in the details. In the simplest terms, the math “double dose” is given to 

the lowest scoring students in all three grade levels, 6–8. In the 

sixth and seventh grades they choose the bottom 48 students, 

based on assessments given the previous spring. By eighth 

grade many of those students have been brought up to grade 

level, which means there are fewer students in the program. 

In order to keep class sizes to 16 or fewer, there is a full-time 

intervention math teacher for all three grade levels: Christin 

Barkl teaches sixth grade, Watkins seventh, and Bruce Johnson eighth. Each has three 51-minute intervention classes in 

the morning and three in the afternoon. Students in the program must give up an elective and take the class twice a day, 

one period in the morning and one in the afternoon. Because 

of scheduling, students don’t stay with the same group of 

peers from morning to afternoon, but in every other way the 

program strives for consistency and structure. 

“These students don’t like change at all,” says Watkins. 

“This has been a struggle for them. They often have a lot of 

change in their personal lives, and you have to make up for 

some of that. We put a lot of emphasis on having clear expectations and specific requirements to stay in the program.”

A key to the program’s success has been to choose the best 

Vallivue students Britney, Jacob, and Shanelle have responded well to math intervention classes. Students typically test out several grade levels higher 

after a single year.
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 13

teachers and to match them to the grade level with which they 

are most comfortable. “You have to put the right people in the 

right places,” says Lowe. “In the past some schools made the 

mistake of assigning the least qualified teachers to the most 

at-risk students. We do the exact opposite. These are three of 

the best teachers we have.”

It has taken some tinkering to find just the right fit. In the 

three years the school has had the program Johnson and Watkins have switched grade levels and a different teacher has 

filled the third slot each year.

“It takes a certain kind of teacher to do this,” says Instructional Specialist Brenda Hogg. “You have to be very confident 

and have a lot of self-esteem and know exactly what you’re 

doing, because these kids will test you at first. And then, you 

have to believe that you can help them and that they can learn. 

Not all teachers truly believe that, deep down.”

Another key, says Lowe, is to build positive relationships. 

“I really encourage all of our teachers to be relational, but 

that’s especially true for the intervention teachers,” he says. 

“They have to know how to connect to these kids.”

According to Watkins that connection has to happen from 

day one. “With the intervention students, if I don’t build a 

relationship with them right off the bat, I don’t have them at 

all. It’s got to happen immediately,” she says. 

Step inside any of the three teachers’ classrooms and you’ll 

see how they create those connections. All students are treated 

equally and held to the same high standards, but each is also 

treated as an individual. The teachers are constantly working to differentiate instruction and they address individual 

learning styles by incorporating strategies from the sheltered 

instruction observation protocol (SIOP), in which the entire 

staff has been trained. The small class sizes also ensure that 

each student gets one-on-one attention when they need it.

Building a Foundation

The other major key to the program’s success is the curriculum itself. Hogg calls it a “spiraling” curriculum that focuses 

on developing students’ understanding of individual math 

concepts, one-by-one, until they have built a firm foundation of skills and knowledge. All three teachers use the same 

language to teach the concepts and they repeatedly refer to 

previous lessons in a kind of back-and-forth weave that draws 

on students’ growing knowledge base. 

Repetition and consistency are again part of routine. Each 

new concept is taught three times. First, the concept is introduced “cold”—without explanation—while students take 

notes. When the concept is reintroduced a second time, the 

students try to solve equations using only their notes. After 

they’ve tried, the concept is then explained in more depth, 

on the chalkboard or overhead projector, with reference to 

the students’ own notes as well as to related concepts they 

have already mastered. Finally, the teacher and students go 

over problems in repetition, often in a kind of rapid calland-response, with the teacher providing assistance only as 

necessary. Johnson, for one, uses whiteboards during these 

sessions, so that students can quickly hold up their answers. 

 During the course of the school year the students will 

learn approximately 200 individual math concepts, each of 

which builds on the one before it. “They get each concept at 

least three times a week, in its entirety,” says Watkins. “And 

then it goes on the board with the master list of concepts. We 

just keep adding to the bottom of the list and reteaching, reteaching, building that knowledge base.”

 Shanelle, a student in Johnson’s eighth-grade classes says 

the methodical approach has made it far easier to understand 

math. “In other classes I’ve had they just went through it really fast, from the book,” she says. “But Mr. Johnson’s teaching 

methods are really good. He does problems on the board and 

shows you what to do, what steps to follow, one problem at a 

time. The way he puts things makes it very easy to learn. And 

then he makes sure everybody gets it before he moves on.” 

 Jacob, a student in Watkins’ class says the instructional approach makes him feel more appreciated and less like a face 

in the crowd. “Ms. Watkins works with me one-on-one a lot,” 

he says. “She doesn’t give up on me when I don’t understand 

something. She just keeps trying until I learn it.” 

Watkins’ belief in Jacob has paid off. He was previously 

performing at the “basic” level, or below grade-level proficiency, but is now testing out at advanced for seventh grade. 

Next year he’ll be able to return to the general eighth-grade 

math class.

The number of intervention students who reach proficiency is impressive, especially considering that many of 

them come in well below grade level. On average, about 40 

percent of the sixth- and seventh-graders will move out of 

intervention before the eighth grade. As a result, Johnson’s 

classes average only about 10 students each. Last year, Johnson moved 78 percent of those students into proficiency and 

out of intervention. 

The intervention classes are now among the most popular 

in the school. “It’s a testament that intervention is working 

here when I have kids in the hall constantly saying, ‘I want 

to be in your math class. How can I get in your math class? 

It’s fun!’’’ says Watkins. “They’re hearing about it from their 

fellow students—kids that have been unsuccessful, academically, their entire lives, and now they’re enjoying being in a 

math class twice a day and giving up an elective to do it.”

The math intervention classes are only one part of a schoolwide strategy to help Vallivue’s most at-risk students, but their 

effect has been profound. Not only have they contributed to 

the school’s big jump in achievement scores, they have also 

helped get many students’ lives back on track. 

 “This can be such a positive thing for them,” says Watkins. 

“They’re really good kids who have a lot to offer, they just 

don’t know it yet. My goal is that, by the time they leave my 

class they’re not only up to grade level in math, but they’ve 

also started to see the positive in themselves and to think of 

themselves as successful. That’s what’s going to carry them 

through high school and into more meaningful lives.” n

a second chance at success
14 nwrel.org/nwedu/
Going the 

Distance

In the race toward student achievement, 

strong leadership and direct instruction in reading 

propel a primary school out of last place.

Story by Rhonda Barton

Photos by David Predeger

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—Even before the advent of No Child Left 

Behind (NCLB), Mountain View Elementary was cast as a 

struggling school. In 2000, only about 20 percent of the Title I

school’s third-graders read at grade level. “It was our highest 

need school in the sense of the highest poverty rate, a very high 

mobility rate, and very low student performance,” remembers 

Carol Comeau, who became Anchorage School District’s superintendent that year. “Even though they worked really, really hard, it was just a low-performing school overall.”

In the infancy of NCLB, Mountain View continued to post 

some of the district’s lowest scores and was labeled “in need 

of improvement” after not making adequate yearly progress 

(AYP) for two consecutive years. But, change was afoot in 

this older one-story building. A charismatic leader, committed staff, additional district and federal funding, and an emphasis on direct instruction in reading helped the school start 

turning around. 

Reading proficiency went from 29 percentage points 

below the state average in 2003–2004 to 8 points below in 

2005–2006. While the school has given up some of those 

gains since, scores were still 19 percentage points higher in 

2007–2008 than four years before. In math, Mountain View 

more than doubled its proficiency rate in that same four-year 

period, going from 31 percentage points below the state average to three points above it in 2007–2008. 

The gains catapulted Mountain View into the ranks of 

schools making AYP for three consecutive years—a remarkable achievement for one of the most ethnically diverse 

schools in the state. More than 40 percent of the students receive English as a Second Language services. A huge number 

of Hmong students fill Mountain View’s desks, along with 

Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders, Samoans, Hispanics, African Americans, and multiethnic youngsters. In 2007–2008, 

only 19 of 210 students were identified as Caucasian.

Although the K–6 school barely missed the AYP mark last 

year, it no longer carries the stigma of its past. 

“No-nonsense” leadership

Ask what made the difference at Mountain View and the 

answer is likely to be Roger LeBlanc. A United States Air 

Force veteran—and current Major in the Alaska Air National 

Guard—he brought a single-minded focus and strict discipline to the new battlefield of Mountain View. Arriving in 

2001 for what was his first principalship, LeBlanc found the 

school mired in a stereotype. “It had been underperforming 

for so long that it had become the norm,” he says. “It wasn’t 

so much that there weren’t good teachers, they just needed 

someone with an untainted view to spearhead what needed 

to be done in order to provide the best education for the 

children.”

Third-grade teacher Paula Mariscal had been at the school 

for three years before the change in leadership. “Roger was 

a take-charge kind of leader ... with a single-minded goal of 

bringing scores up,” she recalls. “He reminded me of my own 

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 15
16 nwrel.org/nwedu/

father, who was in the military: ‘You’re going to do it my way, 

or the highway.’ That’s not insulting. In any military family 

that’s just how it is.” 

Reading coach Patricia Jackson also describes LeBlanc as 

a “very strong, no-nonsense leader” with clear expectations. 

“He never said ‘if you don’t want to do this, leave.’ But, we 

all knew if we weren’t going to, then we needed to move on 

somewhere else,” says Jackson. Although about a third of the 

staff turned over when LeBlanc arrived, the remaining faculty 

didn’t balk at the new regime. “There was a lot of excitement, 

especially in the people who had been here before,” Jackson 

remarks. “They were hungry for good strong leadership and 

they got right on board. We started to see results almost immediately with the kids.”

Improvements everyone can see

Making highly visible, “quick-win” improvements is one of 

the hallmarks of school turnarounds. At Mountain View an 

all-out commitment to the Reading Mastery curriculum was 

largely responsible for those wins. The switch to the direct 

instruction program preceded LeBlanc, but the school was 

experiencing varying degrees of success with the adoption. 

Under LeBlanc, all resources were concentrated on making 

it work.

Although no other Anchorage school had adopted Reading 

Mastery for all primary grades, it proved to be the perfect fit 

for Mountain View’s polyglot student body. 

Intensive training helped teachers implement the program 

with fidelity. LeBlanc comments that “outside professionals 

came in to work with the staff, but not just for one- or twoday inservices. We had them for the entire first two years of 

the program, so teachers had experts available all the time, 

every day, to help them through the process.” Extra funds 

from the district helped pay for that expertise, and LeBlanc 

also received moral support from the district’s director of 

elementary education, Patricia MacRae, who had a strong 

background in Reading Mastery and in using data to improve 

student achievement. 

Mountain View’s master schedule was overhauled to allow for two 

and a half hours of reading instruction, including a 90-minute block 

in the morning where students 

“walk to read” at their instructional level. Pull-outs for gym, library, 

art, and music were scheduled at 

the same time for all students in a 

single grade level so their teachers 

could meet once a week during the 

school day. “Roger insisted we take 

notes at our meetings, which really helped focus us,” says Mariscal, 

“and the focus was always going 

to be reading.” Bimonthly all-staff 

meetings also centered on reading instruction.

Another change was the shift to data-driven instruction. 

“We started doing DIBELS the first year,” says Jackson, 

“though we joke now that we were admiring the data and not 

analyzing it.” As teachers became more adept at mining the 

data and targeting their classroom practice accordingly, they 

saw student progress jump. Improvements were visible as 

early as the second semester of LeBlanc’s first year.

Jackson recalls how students would stop her in the hallway and ask for help with projects they were working on. “If 

they’re stuck, I’ll always say ‘read the directions.’ Now, even 

the little first-graders can and that wasn’t the case when I first 

got here,” she says. “It always brings a smile to my face, reflecting back on how far we’ve come.”

Reading wasn’t the only subject to see gains. The skills 

picked up in Reading Mastery spilled over into writing and 

math. “As kids and teachers started to see and experience success in one thing, it transitioned into others,” says LeBlanc. 

The same approach to professional development and scheduling for reading found its way into different core areas. 

Family ties

With students and staff motivated and excited about the 

changes at Mountain View, the next challenge was getting parent buy-in. LeBlanc acknowledges that was one of the hardest 

pieces, not only because of communication barriers but also 

because of low expectations. “Parents had sort of settled for 

what they were getting at the school,” says LeBlanc. “We had 

to recreate that sense of need and the fact that they, too, were 

valuable in what we were trying to do for their children.”

With 27 different languages represented at the school—and 

many parents who did not speak English—Mountain View 

relied heavily on translators at open houses and conferences. 

LeBlanc went door to door in the neighborhood—“pounding 

the pavement and being visible”—so parents had a face to attach to the school. And, he showed up at local community 

centers and churches.

Coach Patricia Jackson checks a student’s oral reading as part of her 

weekly assessment of progress.

Roger LeBlanc
going the distance

A program called Second Cup of Coffee drew parents inside 

Mountain View. Every two weeks, the school offered coffee 

and a chance to drop in on the principal for an informal chat. A 

parent resource coordinator hosted videos on job training and 

interview skills, which morphed into a Parent University. With 

grant funds, LeBlanc paid classroom teachers to extend their 

lessons to students’ parents at night, offering instruction in 

reading and speaking English. Local businesses and organizations stepped up and provided courses in finance, earthquake 

safety, and first aid. “We hosted a lot of events—math nights, 

multicultural fairs, Saturday school—and built relationships 

that way,” says LeBlanc. “We were able to sell them on some of 

the things we were doing as a school.” 

Out-of-school time

Another piece of the improvement picture—then and now—

has been a robust 21st Century Community Learning Center, 

which is in its ninth year. Five days a week, the after-school 

program serves more than 100 students a day with two hours 

of homework help, academics, and enrichment. “Students are 

teacher-referred for academic, social, or behavioral needs,” 

explains Director Denielle Baldwin. Her staff of 13 includes 

a dozen of the school’s daytime personnel, including eight 

certificated teachers and two bilingual tutors. 

In a fall 2008 survey, 98 percent of students reported that 

they were doing better in school since coming to the afterschool program. Both assessment scores and testimonials bear 

that out. A sixth-grade bilingual student comments, “My parents appreciate that I am learning better ways in math ... and 

it’s not confusing to read.” Another child says, “My dad wants 

me to be better at math than he is. He did not get to finish 

school in his country and he really doesn’t know math a lot. 

He says this program will change my life for the better.” 

A teacher credits the extra reinforcement in the after-school 

program with helping a monolingual kindergartner make 

substantial progress. She says, “He was very uncomfortable in 

the classroom setting because he spoke very little English and 

didn’t recognize any familiar faces. He was so determined to 

leave that he bolted out of the [class]room and into the street 

right in front of a passing car. It took three teachers to calm him 

down. Now, this student displays so much more confidence. 

He speaks English like you wouldn’t believe, follows directions, [and] tries really hard to be successful with his work.”

Sustaining progress

The mission of boosting student success that Roger LeBlanc 

tackled in 2001 now falls to Chris Woodward. He took over as 

Mountain View’s principal last year, after turning around two 

Yupik schools in the Alaska bush and guiding them to AYP. 

LeBlanc moved to Fairview Elementary, another troubled Title I school where he felt he could make a difference. Using 

the analogy of a relay race, LeBlanc says that after seven years 

he was ready to pass the baton. “I’m not the finisher of the 

race,” he reflects. “My job was to run some leg in between.”

Woodward faces perhaps a tougher challenge: building on 

progress rather than building from the ground up. “That’s a 

much easier task to take a school that’s very low performing 

and fix it, because pretty much anything you do is going to 

be a change for the positive,” he says. “Here, I’ve got to try 

to make changes that will keep us moving upward but also 

sustain the things that are in place. I’m looking to see where 

we can still make improvements because even if you’ve made 

AYP 100 years in a row, there’s still going to be room for 

improvement.”

While striving for improvements, Woodward faces a rapidly expanding population and growing numbers of ELL 

students. Mountain View’s enrollment shot up to 450 this 

year—an increase of 100 students—and the bilingual rate 

climbed to about 75 percent. Hmong families continue to 

pour into the neighborhood surrounding the school, some 

coming from Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand while others resettle from communities in California, Minnesota, Arkansas, 

and Wisconsin. Reading Mastery continues to serve 

these newly arrived students well, while the school 

is now using the district’s standard Houghton Mifflin curriculum for grades 4–6. Teacher collaboration, staff professional development, data-driven instruction, and parent involvement remain a key part 

of the school’s culture. 

In the race toward student achievement, Mountain View has come a long way from its starting 

position in the back of the pack. Now it’s moved 

toward the middle, but there’s still plenty of hard 

work ahead to reach the top finishers. n

 

Paula Mariscal readies her third-graders for the daily “walk to read” session.

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 17
18 nwrel.org/nwedu/

FOREST GROVE, Oregon—In 2002, Forest 

Grove School District Superintendent 

Jack Musser was looking for a new high 

school principal. The school was at a 

crossroads—students were chronically 

low achieving, and the school culture 

could be summed up in one disheartening phrase, “Good enough for Forest Grove.” The proof was in the data: 

The school had some of the lowest test 

scores and the highest dropout rate in 

Washington County. 

Musser was determined to shake 

things up. Looking through the pile 

of applications, one stood out. John 

O’Neill, a principal in San Bernardino, 

California, had turned a large, chronically low-performing high school into a 

high-achieving, award-winning institution. His previous accomplishments as 

a middle school principal were equally 

impressive. 

Rather than simply inviting 

O’Neill to Forest Grove for an interview, Musser decided to take the 

unusual step of visiting O’Neill’s 

school in California. He was looking 

for something beyond test scores—

a sense of the school’s culture—and 

the only way to find it was by meeting 

with the teachers, students, parents, 

and community members who lived it 

every day. At a group meeting, Musser 

recalls with amusement, he found what 

he was looking for. 

“One grandmother in the room 

wasn’t speaking,” says Musser. “Then 

she finally said to me, ‘I’m very angry. 

I don’t want John to leave here, so I’m 

not going to answer your questions.’”

Before the visit was over, Musser 

had decided to offer O’Neill the job, 

but he wanted to be sure his own high 

expectations were completely out on 

the table. “Can you turn our school into 

a high-performing school, as you’ve 

done here?” Musser remembers asking 

O’Neill. 

“I guarantee it,” O’Neill responded, 

not missing a beat. The failing school 

he had turned around was significantly 

larger and more troubled than Forest 

Grove High School. He knew what it 

took; he was convinced it was replicable at any school in the country; and 

he gave his word that with district and 

school board support, he could make 

it happen at Forest Grove. As he flew 

back to Oregon, Musser knew he’d 

found the right person for the job. 

Seven years later, Forest Grove is the 

only school that has been recognized by 

the state for making significant student 

achievement gains among minority and/

or low-income students for four consecutive years. Thirty-six percent of Forest 

Grove’s students are Latino, for whom 

English is often a second language, and 

45 percent qualify for free or reducedprice lunch. Despite those challenges, 

the percentage of its students meeting 

standards in reading and math has been 

consistently higher than the state average since 2004. Last spring the school 

won one of three national Breakthrough 

Schools awards given by the MetLife 

Foundation and the National Association of Secondary School Principals to 

secondary schools that make and sustain 

dramatic achievement gains for large 

Lessons From a

Turnaround

Specialist

Story by Jacqueline Raphael, photos by Katie Gleason

An experienced principal meets high 

expectations with a “keep it simple” 

approach to school improvement.
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 19
numbers of low-income students. 

Clearly, O’Neill has delivered on his 

promise, and in doing so has added to 

his reputation as a turnaround specialist. But as O’Neill himself insists, the 

story of Forest Grove’s turnaround 

has not been about a single dynamic 

leader. Nor has it been about resources, 

strategies, technical assistance, or curricula that are not available to any public school. Forest Grove’s success, as 

with the success of O’Neill’s previous 

schools, comes down to this: doing a 

few important things incredibly well. 

Setting a Course of Action

O’Neill’s first priority upon taking 

the helm of Forest Grove High was to 

look at the data. As a principal in California—one of the first states to make 

school rankings public—O’Neill fully 

understood the importance of the numbers. One of his first hires was Brigetta 

Martell, a former Intel employee, who 

was working as a part-time instructional aide in the district. O’Neill 

tapped her expertise by making her the 

school’s first full-time testing coordinator and data specialist. Martell and 

O’Neill led the other staff members 

in a “big picture” look at the school’s 

data, including graduation, dropout, 

and college enrollment rates, as well as 

student achievement on the statewide 

assessment. 

The data overview was enlightening, but only half of the picture. To 

get the rest—and to share the data and 

communicate his own vision of Forest 

Grove as a high-performing school—

O’Neill used a previously planned staff 

retreat. During two days at the Oregon 

coast, the school improvement team—

which included department chairs, all 

building administrators, as well as district, parent, student, and school board 

representatives—pored over the data, 

looked at the results from a school climate survey, and shared their perspectives about the school’s most significant 

needs. In the end, two major themes 

emerged: the correlation between poor 

reading and math skills and academic 

failure and the fact that many students 

felt “like a number” at the school.

“You have to prioritize,” says O’Neill. 

“You have to identify the most pressing 

needs first, and then put your entire focus on addressing them.” 

At Forest Grove, increasing academic rigor and improving the quality of relationships—particularly for 

underclassmen—moved to the top of 

the list. The school improvement team 

conducted research reviews on both issues and chose the strongest, most relevant strategies to implement that year. 

Drawing on his own experience taking 

school improvement strategies to scale, 

O’Neill had one important piece of advice: Keep the focus narrow.

Increasing Academic Rigor 

To address academic rigor, the school 

chose to place its initial focus on the 

incoming freshmen who were most at 

risk for academic failure. These students received a “double dose” of reading and/or math instruction on top of 

their regular coursework. These additional, more individualized “workshop” 

classes were designed to fill learning 

gaps in these fundamental subjects 

early on, before deficiencies took hold 

and left students too far behind to catch 

up. Research suggests that instead of 

remediation, many struggling students 

are more successful with this “acceleration” approach. 

Having used intervention classes 

successfully in San Bernardino County, 

O’Neill launched a pilot workshop program for Forest Grove ninth-graders 

that focused entirely on the standards 

covered by the statewide assessment. 

These classes, which took the place of 

an elective, led to significant increases 

in student achievement scores after 

only one year. 

“Once we had the data showing our 

ninth-graders, with just one year of 

support, were catching up to or surpassing our 10th-graders, we had made our 

case,” says O’Neill. As research suggests, this “quick win” earned O’Neill 

the trust and confidence of the school 

board and increased the buy-in from 

school and district staff. 

When Superintendent Musser asked 

what the school needed to maintain its 

momentum, O’Neill used this political 

capital to make a list of requests. One 

was that the school board require all 

incoming freshmen with grade 8 RIT 

scores below 239 on the state test—a 

cut-off slightly above passing—to take 

Sophomores Desteny Mathis, Max Nieto, 

and Cecilia Villanueva were in Annette 

Faris’s math workshop last semester. All 

three have now passed the state math test.

20 nwrel.org/nwedu/
workshop classes for elective credit, 

for as long as it took, until they passed 

the high school–level state test. For this 

O’Neill would need additional financial 

support, as reading and math workshops 

would now be taught to approximately 

75 percent of all incoming freshmen. 

Musser believed O’Neill was on the 

right track, but staying on it wasn’t easy 

at first. There were some battles, including some irate phone calls. 

“We had a lot of pressure to allow 

students to opt out,” Musser says. Some 

parents accused the district of caring 

only about test scores. But O’Neill and 

the district staff kept pointing to the 

correlation between skill deficiencies 

and academic risk in the early grades, 

arguing that workshops were about 

more than passing a test. 

Over time, Forest Grove fine-tuned 

the workshops with creative add-on 

strategies to enhance their power. Because workshops take the place of an 

elective, for example, students are highly 

motivated to hunker down and pass the 

test so that they can take an elective of 

their choice. The plan also provides an 

incentive for teachers: As students “pass 

out” of a section, class size is reduced, 

allowing the instructors to focus even 

more on the students who need the 

most help. Another school might have 

reconfigured workshops each semester, 

keeping class size constant and reassigning an instructor to a different course. 

Perhaps most important, O’Neill 

deliberately assigns Forest Grove’s 

most qualified instructors to these intervention classes. “For these teachers, 

who want the challenge these students 

present, teaching the workshops is a 

calling,” O’Neill explains.

Math workshop teacher Annette 

Faris agrees. “It fits me, because I see 

the absolute need for these students to 

get a double dose in math,” she says. 

Faris appreciates the variety of students in the workshop, including some 

with serious behavior issues and/or disabilities and others with small but critical gaps in their skills. She sees her job 

as getting all of them to care, at least 

enough to master the fundamental 

standards they’ll need in the future. 

Whitney Karp, who teaches AP

English as well as reading workshop, emphasizes the flexibility of the 

curriculum.

“If students are reading at the thirdgrade level, we can have them read at 

that level and build their skills from 

there. In their regular English classes, 

the teachers might just say, ‘We’re going 

to read Romeo and Juliet no matter what 

your reading level is.’” 

In the ninth-grade reading workshop 

students read books of their choosing 

and use the results of comprehension 

tests to chart their progress. In between 

silent reading, Karp provides highly 

structured lessons. Using state test data 

and the “Accelerated Reader” software 

program, goals are set every six weeks 

and target specific skills, such as making inferences. 

Karp says the “personal touch” is 

critical. “We use Accelerated Reader, 

Lessons from a Turnaround Specialist

Banners proclaiming the school’s academic achievements cover the walls.
22 nwrel.org/nwedu/

but it’s how the teachers are using it 

that creates success, not the software 

alone.” Teachers infuse workshop with 

modeling, monitoring, individual attention, and cheerleading. Karp says 

too many schools assign their weakest 

teachers to their weakest students, and 

it doesn’t work.

In her classroom, math workshop 

teacher Dawn Hofsted talks to students 

directly, treating them like adults and 

conveying a clear sense of high expectations. She also makes it fun. 

On one afternoon, for example, 

Hofsted introduces geometric transformations by alluding to the popular 

movie Transformers.

“You may think this character is Optimus Prime, but that’s just his movie 

name,” she says. “He’s really Reflection, 

Translation, Dilation, or Rotation.” The 

students laugh, but they also pay close 

attention. As Hofsted walks around the 

room, between the students’ desks, she 

pops questions at individual students—

“What part of our body dilates?”—and 

every student must be ready for a rapidfire response. 

Hofsted’s classroom also looks more 

like an art room than a math class, with 

dozens of small, colorful three-dimensional models—of cubes, spheres, and 

pyramids—hanging from the ceiling, and 

bright posters, filled with figures and formulae, covering the lime-green walls. 

 Most students respond well to the 

smaller class sizes, creative teaching 

strategies, and sense of camaraderie that 

the workshops foster. Junior Chris Wells 

says the games and rewards used in the 

class made him do his best work. “You 

feel like you have something to work 

for. Everyone says we’re supposed to 

be working toward a career after high 

school, but this is like instant gratification. You get candy, or you get to skip the 

next homework assignment. You feel 

good and special because everyone else 

who failed is sitting there doing it, too.”

Desteny Mathis, a sophomore who 

recently passed the state test, likes the 

individual attention she got in Faris’s 

math workshop. “Regular teachers 

think they can explain the math upfront and students will just know it,” 

she says. “They don’t normally walk 

around to different students the way 

Ms. Faris does.” 

By focusing on the algebra and geometry standards covered on the state 

test, math workshop helps students 

in their regular math classes. Dianna 

Torres, a junior currently taking geometry, still draws on approaches that 

her workshop teacher covered two 

years earlier, showing the long reach of 

workshop instruction.

Not all responsibility for student 

performance rests on the shoulders of 

workshop teachers. Forest Grove also 

uses reading-across-the-curriculum 

and other schoolwide approaches to 

help students develop reading skills. 

Additionally, school leaders recognized 

early on that as reading and math workshops raised the floor, the school would 

need a higher ceiling. Forest Grove 

went from offering seven Advanced 

Placement (AP) courses when O’Neill 

arrived to 23 this year. AP enrollment 

has tripled, involving nearly 20 percent 

of all students.

Improving Relationships

When O’Neill arrived, the school was 

already working on creating a more 

personalized environment for students. 

The survey conducted before he came 

(clockwise from top left): 

Math workshop teachers 

Dawn Hofsted and Annette 

Faris, and reading workshop 

teacher Whitney Karp, work 

closely with students.
suggested that many students dropped 

out during their freshman year because 

they didn’t feel connected to the school. 

Using the same federal grant that paid 

for the retreat on the coast, O’Neill 

and other staff members chose several 

strategies to address the problem. Some 

were simple, such as a summer “welcome call” from an upperclassman peer 

mentor to each incoming freshman as 

part of the new Links program. Others 

were more complex, including an advisory system that provides a teacher who 

serves as advisor and student advocate. 

Because district and school board representatives had participated in the 

school improvement retreat, they understood the rationale for these strategies and could support decisions made 

at the building level.

Furthermore, as with the focus on 

academic rigor, with each personalization strategy staff were determined to 

achieve a high level of implementation. 

By choosing only a few new programs 

to implement at any one time, the 

chances of doing each one well went up 

significantly. Also, as with the academic 

workshops, Forest Grove’s programs to 

strengthen relationships are interconnected. Incoming freshmen and their 

parents participate in a well-developed 

orientation program, for example, and 

the advisories are carried through all 

four years of high school, usually with 

the same advisor. Ninth- and 10thgraders and their teachers are grouped 

into “houses,” with the staff meeting 

during common prep periods to discuss their students’ progress. More recently, a career academy program was 

established for 11th- and 12th-graders 

to ensure they can continue in a smallschool structure through six available 

career pathways. 

Hiring, too, reflects the school’s emphasis on relationships. 

“We have ‘The Screener,’” says assistant principal Karen Robinson, referring to a set of questions used to identify student-centered applicants. 

“The tool is extremely powerful,” 

says O’Neill, who used it in California. 

“People don’t get hired here unless they 

score rather high on that.” 

Personalization strategies are also directly connected to academic rigor. For 

example, students who aren’t making 

progress in summer school are put in 

touch with a designated counselor to address their personal needs. And teachers 

have worked explicitly on connecting 

with students through the advisory and 

smaller learning community structures.

Due to these combined schoolwide 

improvement efforts, 84 percent of 

Forest Grove students now report feeling connected to the school.

Focused Leadership 

Seven years later, O’Neill has taken 

“good enough for Forest Grove” and 

turned it on its head. It’s nearly impossible now for a student to fall through 

the cracks. Reading and math workshops, houses, academies, advisories, 

and other interventions join to create a 

safety net that reinforces high expectations for all students.

When asked what has contributed 

most to Forest Grove’s turnaround, 

Assistant Principal Jerry Fitzpatrick, 

who’s been at the school for 20 years, 

says it was O’Neill’s ability to focus 

the entire building on student achievement, while not getting overwhelmed 

by the details.

“He can maintain his focus regardless of everything going on in this crazy 

environment,” adds Robinson. 

“You cannot have a broad focus,” Assistant Principal Sue Voigt agrees. “You 

need a narrow one, and John understands that.” 

O’Neill says having a wife who is 

also a principal has helped him keep his 

focus in mind at all times. “We bounce 

ideas off each other. She was a very effective high school leader when I was 

making the transition from middle to 

high school leadership,” he says. 

Just as important “is surrounding 

yourself with a great team and building 

upon each person’s strengths,” he says. 

Significantly, about 40 percent of current Forest Grove staff members were 

hired during O’Neill’s tenure, due to 

teacher retirements and an influx of 

500 new students. 

O’Neill gives a lot of credit to his 

administrative team, each of whom he 

says is “unbelievable” at taking a program and running with it. For example, 

O’Neill says he hasn’t needed to attend 

an advisory committee meeting since 

2004, when the program started. And 

the assistant principals appreciate the 

respect, stressing that O’Neill invites 

and uses their input on decisions large 

and small.

Perhaps the greatest testament to 

the school’s intense focus is that, seven 

years later, most programmatic decisions still relate directly to the goals 

established at the initial planning retreat in 2002. Indeed, the entire staff, 

whether administrators, teachers, or 

office personnel, often use identical 

language to talk about their school’s 

success: Their progress is “100 percent 

replicable”; “success breeds success”; 

and intervening early with struggling 

students is a “calling.” Such a high level 

of consistency in the language heard 

throughout the building is one sign that 

the school’s turnaround has reached a 

point of sustainability. 

“We don’t have 100 percent of everyone on board yet,” says Assistant Principal Robinson, “but we’re very close. I

think we could maintain our direction 

and current student achievement level 

if John moved on. But, we would not 

have gotten here without him.” n

Forest Grove’s Awards 

•	 2008 MetLife/NASSP Breakthrough Schools Award

•	 2008 Model School by the International Center for Leadership in 

Education

•	 2006–2007 Exceptional School

Designation, Oregon School 

Report Card

•	 2009 Oregon Assistant Principal

of the Year—Jerry Fitzpatrick

•	 2008 Oregon High School Principal of the Year—John O’Neill

•	 2007 Milken National Educator

Award—John O’Neill

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 23

Lessons from a Turnaround Specialist
24 nwrel.org/nwedu/
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 25

The Long 

Turnaround

An award-winning elementary 

school in rural Montana sees 

big jumps in student achievement 

after more than a decade of hard work. 

Story and photos by Bracken Reed

In fact, there would seem to be little in common between Central Elementary and the handful of schools that 

have gained national media attention for their dramatic turnarounds and the drastic measures, such as total reconstitution, they have occasionally taken. As a small, rural school 

in a perpetually cash-strapped state, Roundup’s only K–6 elementary school has turned things around gradually, without 

a major influx of funds, resources, new personnel, or outside 

technical assistance. 

While that may make the label “turnaround school” an uncomfortable fit, it also makes Central representative of the 

hundreds of other schools around the country—including 

many in the predominantly rural West—who have been working hard for many years to put all the right pieces in place, 

often with minimal resources. In the end, it’s less important 

what you call Central Elementary, and more important how 

they got here. 

A Hard Look in the Mirror

In the mid-1990s Joe Ingalls was a first-time principal still in 

the process of earning his doctorate via extension classes. A 

lot of the reading and discussion in those classes focused on 

the nuts and bolts of curriculum and instruction, and inevitably that information began to color the way Ingalls viewed 

the day-to-day operations at his school. “The research I was 

immersed in really indicated those things that needed to be 

ROUNDUP, Montana—According to the numbers, Central Elementary School in Roundup, Montana, seems to fit the currently fashionable definition of a “turnaround” school. After 

many years of below-average test scores, the school has recently made double-digit gains in the number of its students 

meeting proficiency on the statewide assessment. In true 

turnaround fashion, that improvement appears to have happened in a very short period of time. 

As recently as the 2005–2006 school year, for example, Central’s math score was nearly 20 percentage points below the state 

average. In the following school year that proficiency rate went 

up by 16 percent, and by 2007–2008 the school was six points 

higher than the state average in math. Meanwhile, the school’s 

reading score, while consistently above the state average, also 

rose by nearly 20 percentage points between 2003–2004 and 

2007–2008. This fall the school received a National Title I Distinguished School award, based on “exceptional student performance for two or more consecutive years.” 

Ask current principal Vicki Begin about the school’s success, however, and she’ll insist that it’s been anything but a 

quick turnaround. In fact, Begin (pronounced BEIGE–en), 

who is in her second year at Central, gives much of the credit 

not only to the school’s veteran teaching staff, which averages 

23 years of experience, but also to her predecessor, Joe Ingalls, 

who guided the school from 1994–1995 to 2006–2007. Obviously, this is not a case of overnight success or of cleaning 

house and starting over. 
in place for students to 

be successful,” says Ingalls. “And I could see 

that they were not in 

place at our school.”

Due to the school’s 

below-average achievement scores, Ingalls 

initiated a committeebased school improvement process, long 

before such a process 

would be required by 

the No Child Left Behind Act. Each staff member served on at least one 

committee, such as reading, math, school safety, 

population/demographics, or the overall school improvement steering committee. Although many of 

Central’s staff members had already been teaching 

for a decade or more, primarily within the Roundup School 

District, the committee approach gave them an opportunity 

to collectively evaluate and compare their instructional practices in a way they had never done before. 

Anita Burch, a kindergarten teacher at Central, remembers how surprised the staff members were at what they discovered. “It was the first time we really sat down together 

and said: What are we actually teaching, at every grade level?” 

she says. “And one of the things we found is that we had big 

holes in our curriculum. There was an assumption that at 

third grade this was being taught and so fourth grade could 

just start from there. When in actuality that skill hadn’t been 

taught in third grade. And so, we had to go back and say: How 

do we fill those holes?”

Although Vicki Begin was a teacher in nearby Lewistown 

at the time, she relates to how difficult, exposing, and ultimately rewarding that kind of schoolwide look in the mirror 

can be. Often, she says, the problem is wrongly diagnosed as 

bad teaching. 

“Teachers are the experts in learning,” she says. “They really are. They know what works for kids. And so, for example 

here [at Central], each of them would do exactly what they 

thought worked for kids, but the kids were having trouble 

connecting the pieces. It wasn’t that any one teacher wasn’t 

doing that important part of teaching, and it wasn’t that kids 

weren’t learning. It’s just that none of the pieces stacked 

together.”

During the improvement process Ingalls and the staff came 

to the same conclusion: The “pieces” of the school’s approach 

to curriculum and instruction were not coming together to 

make a unified whole. 

The problem revealed itself in several ways, all of them 

interrelated. First, although the school had a core curriculum 

for both reading and math, neither was being used with fidelity by the entire K–6 staff. This was the main cause of the “big 

holes” in the curriculum 

that Burch and her fellow teachers noticed.

“Generally, what happens with a curriculum 

that is inadequate or 

poorly aligned is that it 

starts to splinter,” says 

Ingalls. “People begin to 

pick and choose what they want to use, and maybe what they don’t feel is as important goes by the 

wayside. That might work fine for an individual 

teacher, but ultimately it doesn’t work for kids.”

The second problem was also related to a lack 

of alignment in the curriculum, but in this case alignment 

to state standards. Although standards were in place by this 

time, the school had only aligned its curriculum to them in 

the most general way. The problem showed up most clearly 

when Ingalls asked each grade-level team a question. “For example,” says Ingalls, “if I sat down with a grade-level team 

and asked them: ‘Where should we be with number sense 

by the end of the year?’ the teachers weren’t able to verbalize 

that. It was a real challenge to know what the teachers expected of the students. And in most cases, their expectations 

were much lower than they should have been or would later 

come to be.”

The third major problem was an inadequate assessment 

strategy. Several assessments were in place, but the fragmented curriculum made them ineffective, especially for tracking 

a student’s progress over time. In addition, teachers were not 

adequately trained in how to use assessment data to drive 

their instruction. 

The final problem was the lack of a common vision and a 

common language. The latter situation was sometimes literal. 

Even when a concept was being taught in the right sequence, 

for example, something might be lost in the translation between two teachers or two grade levels. As an example, Barbara Crosby, another veteran teacher, says: “When I taught 

third grade I used the term ‘statement’ to describe a certain 

kind of sentence. It wasn’t until I moved up to teach fourth 

grade that I realized they were using the term ‘declarative’ to 

describe the same kind of sentence. That might sound like 

a small matter, but it puts all the pressure on the student to 

make the connection and to build on the concept.” 

Of course, Ingalls and the Central teaching staff did not 

come to a clear recognition of all these problems at once. The 

actual process of identifying them, facing up to them, and coming together as an entire school to address them was gradual 

and not entirely painless. “But the biggest key,” says Ingalls, 

“was that we had staff buy-in right away. That was essential.” 

26 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Principal Vicki Begin, in 

her second year at Central 

Elementary, has taken student 

achievement to the next level. 
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 27

The Sum and the Parts

It was not by chance that Ingalls chose a committee-based 

school improvement process. As Begin says, “Joe and the staff 

developed a vision of where they wanted to be and that was 

part of the vision—the teachers had to be involved. Everyone 

had to take a piece of it and communicate with each other and 

share ownership.”

If there is a single theme that runs through Central Elementary’s decade-plus of hard work, it is that unity of vision. 

After looking their underachievement in the eye, the school 

made a collective decision that can be summarized as follows: 

We are no longer going to teach as individuals; from now on, 

we are a team. We will throw open the doors of our classrooms, speak a common language, and work for a common 

cause. And that cause will be one thing: the academic progress 

of each and every student in our school.

Without that vision, everything that followed would have 

been so many pieces and parts. With that in mind, here 

are some of the specific steps the school took to address its 

problems.

First, Ingalls and a staff committee spent a year, including one summer, on what he calls the “foundational piece” of 

identifying the essential learning skills embedded in the state 

standards and then aligning them to their core reading and 

math curricula. No longer would teachers be unable to identify what students should know and be able to do in a given 

skill area at the end of a grade level. Or, as Roberta Hagstrom, 

a member of that committee and the school’s current Title I

director says, “We always want to know exactly what we’re 

teaching, at what point we’re teaching it, and why.” 

In the process of identifying those essential learning skills, 

they realized that even if the current reading and math curricula were taught with fidelity, they would not be sufficient 

to the school’s needs. Eventually, they would replace both the 

core reading and the math programs, implement 6+1 Trait®

Writing in all grades, and add ReadWell® as an intervention 

reading program in the primary grades. Intense staff training accompanied each of these curriculum adoptions, often in 

partnership with their regional educational cooperative or the 

Alliance for Curriculum Enhancement (ACE) Consortium, 

both of which allow the school to pool its resources for professional development and other purposes. 

Each new curriculum was also mapped to the essential 

learning skills and aligned “horizontally and vertically”—or 

within and between grade levels. The math program, in particular, is also deliberately “spiraling,” a concept similar to but 

distinct from vertical alignment. The end result is that Central’s curriculum is now logical, sequenced, and transparent 

to all, while still allowing teachers some flexibility to personalize a given lesson. 

 Another significant step the school took was to update its 

assessment system. Early on they chose an assessment from 

the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA, no relation 

to NWREL), which met Ingalls’s goal of tracking student 

achievement over time. With the implementation of ReadWell 

they also began using the DIBELS assessment to monitor students’ progress more frequently. DIBELS has since been expanded schoolwide—all students take the diagnostic test at 

the beginning, middle, and end of the year. With this combination of assessments the school is no longer caught off guard 

by holes in the curriculum. Holes still show up, but they are 

caught and addressed almost immediately. 

A final important strategy, what Begin calls “achievementoriented teacher collaboration,” is almost synonymous with 

the school vision. Teachers are now in constant dialogue about 

student data, instructional strategies, interventions, curriculum, and everything else going on in each other’s classrooms. 

“For those of us who have been teaching for a very long time, 

it’s a much different type of teaching than we were brought in 

on,” says Begin. “The majority of our staff has 25-plus years 

of teaching experience. They had to learn to adapt and they 

have.”

At Central this collaboration includes all staff members, 

including the school’s invaluable paraeducators, who were 

named paraeducator staff of the year in 2007–2008 by the Montana Comprehensive System of Professional Development. 

As with the recognition of problems, this synopsis may 

give the illusion that all these actions happened smoothly and 

in a short period of time. In reality, although each piece of 

the puzzle was implemented logically, carefully, and with an 

eye toward research, it is worth reiterating that it has taken 15 

years of hard work to get to this point. 

A Constant Process

When Joe Ingalls took a job at an elementary school in Wyoming in 2007, he left Central Elementary much better than 

he found it. Still, he says, “It was difficult to leave, knowing that there were things that still needed our attention and 

needed more work.”

The hiring of Begin made his exit easier. “Vicki was the 

right person at the right time,” he says. “She came in and was 

able to see the vision we had and the direction that we were 

headed. She picked it up and ran with it and has done an incredible job.”

 The school’s national recognition as a distinguished 

school is an acknowledgment of its continued progress. And 

the school continues to push ahead. In the past year and a half 

they have established a full-day kindergarten program, started 

implementing response to intervention, and focused professional development on improving teacher’s use of data to 

differentiate instruction. In Roundup, turning things around 

may have taken awhile, but it also never stops. n

the long turnaround
28 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Sam Redding is the director of the Center on Innovation and 

Improvement (www.centerii.org) and the coauthor of the recent 

Institute of Education Sciences practice guide Turning Around 

Chronically Low-Performing Schools. Redding is also the coauthor of several books, including School-Family Partnerships for 

Student Success and Handbook on Statewide Systems of Support. An in-demand speaker and consultant, Redding talked with 

Northwest Education by telephone. 

Q: Although there are a lot of schools in the Northwest region 

that are either at the point of restructuring or getting close 

to it, there are very few that have actually proceeded with 

restructuring. Is that true nationally?

In a lot of states NCLB [the No Child Left Behind Act 

of 2001] has only been in place long enough for schools to 

just now be getting to the restructuring point based on the 

accountability system established in NCLB. So, we have a 

record of restructuring primarily in states that carried their 

prior accountability systems into NCLB. In other words, they 

already had schools that under the state system weren’t making AYP for two or three years, and then NCLB came in and 

instead of starting over they just kept them moving. There 

are about six states that did that, and that’s where most of our 

evidence is coming from. 

And in those states are many of the schools actually being restructured?

Under NCLB when you get to restructuring you’re supposed to have five options. In the early evidence, such as the 

reports coming out of the Center on Education Policy, it 

looks like districts have mostly taken the fifth option, or what 

NCLB calls “other significant change in governance.” Those 

are typically the mildest remedies. 

Is it your opinion that those milder remedies are not going to cut it—

that we need to take more drastic measures? 

I don’t think we have any evidence that they have cut it, so 

I think that’s right. It’s not about, “Let’s do the same things 

we’ve been doing but do a little more of it.” As Gene Wilhoit from the CCSSO [Council of Chief State School Officers] said recently, what we’re realizing is that—in the worst 

instances—these are schools in “toxic” surroundings. These 

schools are so much an exception to the usual pattern of how 

you go about school improvement that they need to make a 

dire departure. He thinks we have to completely reexamine 

what schooling means in some of these communities, to the 

point that we don’t take the same thing called a “school” and 

just change the people in it or change the curriculum or whatever. Sometimes these schools have such a deficit of resources 

and human capital that we have to look at how we can make 

more significant changes in the conditions of schooling. Obviously, there are schools that may have reached restructuring 

status but are not in such dire straits. You have to look at each 

school individually.

If you change the school staff but don’t change the district policies or 

any of the other factors that may have contributed, then aren’t you only 

addressing part of the problem?

Well, there are people who think that the poorest performing schools are the least desirable to work in, and so over time 

the worst employees end up in them. They’re the teachers 

that aren’t likely to get a transfer out because other schools 

don’t want them, and so you end up with the bottom of the 

barrel in terms of human capital—the people you have in the 

quick wins and

long-term sustainability

A Conversation With Sam Redding 
building. And if you can change that situation you will immediately see improvement. That’s one theory of it. 

I’ve been in many schools where they’ve attempted school 

improvement, and it’s not like every teacher in the school is 

bad. But, what you have to understand is this: If you’re a kid 

who is from a middle class family that has a lot of resources 

and a lot of other positive things going for you, maybe you 

can tolerate, as you go through your schooling years, having 

one or two or three mediocre teachers, if the rest are good. 

You’ve probably got enough positive forces in your life to 

compensate for that. But if you’re a kid that’s vulnerable and 

needs everything you can possibly get out of that school, then 

having even a few bad teachers can be hugely detrimental. 

So I think it’s not always that everyone working in one of 

these schools is lacking in the skills and attitudes and work 

ethic that you want, but you have kids who are so vulnerable that you cannot tolerate having even a few bad teachers 

on your school staff. If you cannot make strategic changes in 

your staff, as we recommend in the practice guide, then you 

may have to take these drastic measures.

Although it is anecdotal, it seems like many schools that are successfully 

turning things around are doing so by finding ways to individualize 

or differentiate instruction—frequent progress monitoring, response to 

intervention, etc. Do you think that’s an accurate observation? 

The one practice that I was most adamant about including 

in the practice guide was the focus on instruction. Ultimately, 

the only thing that gets you the turnaround and improvement 

you need is when you get really competent differentiation of 

instruction, with due attention to rich content and alignment 

with standards. But there are a lot of antecedents to that. It 

means you have to have people there who know how to plan 

and deliver differentiated instruction with rich content. They 

have to have the time to do it. They have to have the leadership discipline to do it. You can’t just say, “Tomorrow I’ll start 

individualizing instruction and paying more attention to what 

each kid is learning.” Some things have to be in place for that to 

happen. But ultimately, if that doesn’t happen then I don’t see 

how you get turnarounds or gains or improvement, no matter 

what other improvement measures you have put in place. 

So in some ways all of the other recommended practices in the practice 

guide come down to that? 

I think so. I think that’s exactly right. But all the other 

things are essential in order to provide the culture, discipline, 

and skill to deliver the quality instruction.

What role can professional development play in achieving that? 

Instructional planning and delivery skills can be very specifically taught to teachers. But then, the other side of that is 

it also takes planning time to do it well. I think it’s difficult for 

each teacher to do it alone. If you can put instructional teams 

together—grade-level teams or subject area teams—you’ll be 

more successful. And then they can’t just be together to have 

a book club. They’ve got to be together to do the hard work 

of looking at their instructional objectives, developing differentiated lessons, developing the materials to go with that, 

learning how to detect which students need what, teaching 

that, examining results, and making adjustments. All of that 

is hard work that takes time. So there has to be both the time 

for teachers to do it and the discipline for them to do it well. 

Professional development can teach them how to do it, but 

it also takes leadership to provide the time, and the internal 

discipline to do it well. 

When you say that these things take a lot of hard work and time, does 

that contradict the idea of a “quick” turnaround? 

In a way you’re right. Even though I can say that these are 

schools where the clock is ticking and time is running out and 

we can’t talk about it being gradual improvement anymore, 

it’s still true that in the schools I’ve worked with teachers have 

to work very hard to align instruction to curriculum and to 

differentiate that instruction. If they work really hard it still 

takes at least a year, probably more, to get that done in one 

subject area. So, if you’re saying “Let’s do reading, let’s do 

math,” it might take three to four years to get through those 

two subject areas, and then you’ve still got other subjects. So 

in one sense—all of that aligning and individualizing of instruction, it’s not like you just turn a key and do it. 

Fortunately, you would hope that in this day and age a lot 

of schools have already done the hard work of aligning curriculum to standards. They haven’t necessarily done the work 

of aligning it to instruction or aligning it to individualized 

instruction. But we should be ahead of where we were 10 

years ago or even five years ago when we always thought that 

the first thing that needed to happen was the school needed 

to align its curriculum to state standards. That should be done 

by now. We saw some gains when we took that step, and many 

of those schools have already improved. So, now we’re looking at those that didn’t. It’s the next step. 

The idea of quick wins is to dramatically change the culture of a school so that the staff realizes good things can happen. Again, that is a necessary antecedent to the hard work of 

instructional improvement. And frankly, in schools in need 

of dramatic turnaround, a strong infusion of hope, expectation, discipline, and candor can provide the jolt that gets early 

improvement, which the other work must build upon and 

sustain. n

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 29
30 nwrel.org/nwedu/

CHELAN, Washington—It’s the start of the school year. A senior student and his mother are meeting with Chelan High 

School principal Barry DePaoli in his office. The student is 

not on track to graduate. 

“Francisco, let me tell you my dream,” the mother says to 

her son. “My dream is to see you in your cap and gown on 

the stage.” 

DePaoli smiles at the student. “Your mother loves you 

more than anybody else in the world. Now you know her 

dream. If that doesn’t motivate you, something’s wrong.”

The student nods, and DePaoli goes to work. He arranges 

for additional tutoring and instructional support from Francisco’s teachers. He suggests to classified staff that they show 

a personal interest in Francisco. And he gives Francisco his 

cell phone number and tells him to call when he needs access 

to the school’s computer lab. 

“He’s been working here many weekends,” says DePaoli, 

several months later. “With that level of commitment, I think 

he’s going to cross the line.” He glances up at the poster on 

his wall, filled with individual portraits of all 393 Chelan High 

School students.

“The reason I come to work every day,” he adds, “is to 

make sure each and every one of those students shakes my 

hand at graduation.”

Chelan’s personalized approach to education has produced impressive academic results. In 2008, it was one of four 

Washington schools to be recognized as a national Blue Ribbon School for its dramatic student achievement gains. Three 

years ago, only 42 percent of its 10th-graders passed the math 

test, 54 percent passed the writing test, and 63 percent passed 

the reading test. Last year, 62 percent passed math, 80 percent 

passed writing, and 87 percent passed reading. Compared 

to schools with similar demographics, Chelan High School 

ranks among the highest performing schools in the state. 

School staff members at Chelan don’t feel they “turned 

around” by adopting a new instructional program—although 

they did that. They believe it was their slow and steady progress toward building a positive, supportive, and personalized 

school environment that is now coming to fruition. 

A Close-Knit School Community 

Scenic Chelan, with 3,800 residents, sits at the tip of Lake Chelan, a gorgeous 50-mile long, 1,500-foot deep lake filled with 

pristine, glacier-fed water. Nestled beside Washington’s Cascade Mountains and surrounded by apple orchards and wineries, its many visitors enjoy abundant year-round recreational 

opportunities, including boating, fishing, skiing, and golf. 

As in many resort communities, a division of sorts exists in 

Chelan: Some of its residents own the resorts, apple orchards, 

and wineries, while others work in the service industry that 

is connected to those industries. At the high school, too, the 

student body is divided: 40 percent of the students are Hispanic, and most of the rest are white. About half are eligible 

for free and reduced-price meals. 

 The

Personal Approach

A small resort town in north central Washington 

focuses on strong relationships 

to improve student achievement.

Story by Jacqueline Raphael

Photos by Richard Ulhorn

32 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Students say that those differences don’t matter and have 

not divided their school.

“We’re all mixed up together,” says Cindy Avila, a senior 

and vice president of Associated Student Body (ASB) student 

government. “There’s a real closeness among us.” 

“I know there are student groups, but they’re ... blurry,” 

says senior Rachel Yaun, who will speak on behalf of her class 

in English at the upcoming graduation, while Dia Galvan will 

speak in Spanish. “We can talk to anyone. People are really 

open.” 

“We’re pretty small and tightly knit,” adds junior Derek 

Brunner. 

About eight years ago, staff from Chelan’s elementary, 

middle, and high school started working together more closely. The school district began to examine instruction across 

all grade levels, identifying and filling in holes. In reading, 

curricula were aligned to strongly emphasize reading comprehension skills. In math, the district undertook a curriculum mapping process that brought increased academic rigor 

and consistency to instruction, particularly in the elementary 

grades. The district also started to replace retiring teachers 

with instructors who were gifted at connecting with students 

on a personal level. Slowly, test scores started climbing.

On the Students’ Level

Because of the school’s emphasis on personalization, staff 

members rarely stay secluded in their classrooms or offices. Instead, they are often in the cafeteria asking students about their 

jobs and future plans. Or, they’re supervising an after-school 

club or extracurricular activity, or coaching a sport. Teachers 

also makes themselves eminently available to students.

“Everyone I know has their teacher’s home number, and 

it’s okay to call them at night or on the weekends,” says Yaun. 

This is not an isolated circumstance: Students say most of 

the teachers, administrators, and classified staff spend time 

well beyond school hours helping students in one way or 

another. 

Teachers also work hard at engaging students in their 

learning.

“They switch it up all the time,” says Yaun. In her English 

class, students are “reading one day, dancing the next.” 

“We reenacted a Greek play in a park,” adds Avila, who’s in 

the same class. “Most of our classes aren’t just ‘sit down and 

do your work’ classes.” 

These students may be responding to Chelan’s implementation of a research-based instructional approach called Powerful Teaching and Learning (PTL), designed to mitigate the 

effects of poverty. Developed by Duane Baker and others at 

Seattle Pacific University, PTL strategies include scaffolding 

instruction, flexible grouping, cooperative learning, projectbased learning, and service-learning. The program complements Chelan’s personalization efforts perfectly.

Steve Bovingdon, the English department chair and a PTL 

coach for the district, says it has transformed his teaching: 

“PTL suggests that if you don’t have strong relationships with 

students, you’re not going to get a high level of student learning. At Chelan, we have a building full of people who care 

very deeply about students.” 

DePaoli is especially well-known for the respectful and 

caring way he conducts his relationships with students and 

staff. By the time he became principal in 2008, he knew the 

Chelan school community well, having served as a teacher, 

middle school principal for five years, and combined middle/

high school principal for two years. His first priority was to 

establish trust throughout the building. 

Rarely do high school students become effusive about a 

principal, but DePaoli gets high marks. 

Previous page: Students Victoria Wright, 

Derek Brunner, and Cindy Avila identify 

what they like best about Chelan’s unique 

personalized approach to education. The 

Lake Chelan Valley in central Washington state encompasses the communities of 

Chelan, Manson, and Stehekin. 

This page: (left) Principal Barry DePaoli;

(below) math teacher Ken Barnes works 

with a student. 
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 33

“Not only does he know every student in the building,” 

says senior Annalise Nelson, “but he knows their class schedules and their parents’ names.” 

According to senior and ASB president Victoria Wright, 

DePaoli is a unique school leader who doesn’t expect the students’ respect simply because he’s the principal. 

“He really works at getting on our level, talking to each 

student one-on-one,” she says. “He’s a lot more like a friend 

than a principal.”

“Even students who don’t do well academically respect Mr. 

DePaoli,” says Brunner. “He’s always striving for new ways to 

get students interested in what they’re doing here. I don’t really know what it is he does, but he sure does his job well.” 

Math teacher Ken Barnes says even when DePaoli brings 

students into his office to suspend them, “By the time they 

leave, they’re feeling pretty good about themselves.”

DePaoli admits he often gives a ride home to students he 

has had to expel.

“If you respect students, even when you’re disciplining 

them, you give them an opportunity to improve. I learned 

this working at the alternative school.” 

Empowered To Raise Expectations

Slowly, over time, Chelan High School’s focus on personalization created fertile ground for new ideas among the staff. 

As teachers began trusting themselves and their influence on 

students, they became more likely to take risks in order to 

help students succeed. They began using Chelan’s positive, 

supportive environment to challenge all students, on a highly 

personal level, to succeed academically—and then the teachers started making it happen.

Nowhere is that more clear than in the math department, 

which holds high expectations for itself and the students. Each 

of its three instructors teaches a full course load, teaching at 

all math levels, and puts in countless extra hours before and 

after school. Each coaches a sport. One already has National 

Board certification and the other two are in the process. 

“We’re all pretty tired at the end of the day,” says Marty 

Rothlisberger, in his eighth year at Chelan. When Rothlisberger first arrived, he spent a lot of time with Ken Barnes, 

trying to figure out how to help students perform better on 

the statewide assessment. 

 “We didn’t accept that some kids would do well and others wouldn’t,” he says, noting that all three math teachers get 

genuinely frustrated if every student in the school doesn’t excel in math.

Newcomer Tom Robinson, in his second year at Chelan, 

says that at this school—unlike larger ones—teachers think 

more about the connections among their individual courses.

“You can teach to get students through the course you’re 

teaching them, or you can teach to make them successful at 

what’s coming down the road,” says Robinson. “Here, we all 

work hard to understand what students will be expected to do 

in the next course. If I teach my students Algebra I, I want to 

know what Marty expects of them in Geometry, and Ken in 

Algebra II. I don’t just want them to get through algebra.”

The math department combines a strong personal investment in student success with the belief that all students can 

meet high standards. On a small scale, Rothlisberger demonstrated this a year ago after he noticed some students weren’t 

completing homework. With DePaoli’s approval, he sent 

their parents a letter offering to stay after school with these 

students until they finished their homework. That small but 

significant innovation, says DePaoli, changed many student 

and parent attitudes. 

Another innovation that has helped many students go further in their math coursework started with one teacher’s data 

analysis project for National Board certification. The teachers 

observed that although the department had offered a number 

of remedial classes over the years, the failure rate was high, 

and students weren’t really benefiting. So, the teachers came 

up with a new system: They eliminated all remedial classes 

and put all freshmen, including struggling students, into Algebra I.

The results still surprise them. Many of the students pass 

and earn full credit. Some fail, but often these students were 

failing the remedial classes, too. Others make progress but do 

not fully meet the standard, so the math teachers designed 

a system in which they give those students “basic algebra” 

credit, similar to a prealgebra credit. 

“The students end up way ahead of where they would have 

been with a remedial class,” says Rothlisberger. 

“And, they’ve spent the year surrounded by high-achieving 

peers, exposed to high-level instruction,” adds Barnes. Some 

of the students are able to retake the course and pass, yielding 

a much higher success rate than the remedial track did. “They 

come in with more confidence,” says Barnes. “The first three 

chapters are pretty easy for them because they’ve seen it all 

before. That gets their momentum going.” 

These teachers don’t look at the state test to measure the 

results of their experiment. Instead, they point to the fact 

that eight years ago it was a struggle to get 10 students into 

Precalculus, but last year 50 took it and 23 went on to take 

Calculus.

“We take these kids who have struggled with math before 

and we give them hope,” says Barnes. “We have a real ‘you can 

do this’ attitude.”

Over time, Chelan has become a school with “a ton of 

teachers who care about kids, who make them feel valued,” 

says Rothlisberger. “And now all the test scores—in reading and math—have gone up. It takes the whole staff to pull 

something like that off.”

DePaoli puts it this way: “If you were to ask me what makes 

this such a good school today, I’d say it’s the combination of 

extremely dedicated professionals who are good at their craft, 

and a really positive and supportive building culture.” n

the personal approach
34 nwrel.org/nwedu/

research brief

Under the increasingly high-stakes accountability frameworks 

established in the NCLB law, state education agencies (SEAs) 

and local education agencies (LEAs) are required to assume a 

more proactive role in directly supporting the improvement 

of chronically underperforming schools (U.S. Department 

of Education, 2006). It seems reasonable to expect that external pressure from SEAs and LEAs to turn around a failing school would play an important role in the success of a 

turnaround effort, but Mintrop and Trujillo (2005) suggest 

that the external performance expectations characteristic of 

NCLB accountability systems alone have not been sufficient to spur substantial improvement in many schools. With 

10,000 schools currently designated in need of improvement 

and 2,300 of them in restructuring status, there is a pressing 

need for research to inform school turnaround efforts (Rhim, 

Kowal, Hassel, & Hassel, 2007).

The current base of turnaround literature primarily documents successful efforts to turn around failing organizations 

in non-education settings. There is limited research on how 

to apply the turnaround practices found to be effective in 

other settings to chronically underperforming schools. In 

education, turnaround refers to a district-managed restructuring effort intended to make quick, dramatic, and sustained 

improvement in student academic achievement, usually by 

replacing the school leader and any staff associated with a 

school’s chronic low performance (Kowal & Hassel, 2005). 

The general literature on district support for school improvement indicates that districts optimize the conditions for 

change at the school level by signaling to staff that real change 

is a priority for the district (Rice & Malen, 2003). 

School turnaround research is generally qualitative, consisting primarily of case studies of large districts managing 

turnaround efforts in multiple schools. While there are no 

experimental or quasi-experimental studies to provide evidence of causal validity, researchers have attempted to construct analytical frameworks based on what they and others 

have observed across many turnaround implementations. 

Similar sets of conditions and actions have been documented 

that seem to influence the implementation of turnaround 

initiatives (Calkins, Guenther, Belfiore, & Lash, 2007; Duke, 

2006; Herman, et al., 2008; Rhim, et al., 2007). In particular, 

two factors related to the environmental context of the school 

undergoing turnaround efforts and the actions of the school 

turnaround leader have been identified.

Multiple environmental factors outside the school influence its ability to turn around. Operating within a multilayered 

system that is driven by public and private agendas, public 

schools are highly regulated by federal and state statutes and 

regulations and local district policies and procedures. These 

are the environmental contexts that influence a school’s prospects for successful turnaround (Cross, 2004). One environmental factor deemed critical to turnaround success is the 

pressure for speedy results. Researchers speculate that fast, 

focused results during the initial year are important to help 

establish credibility, create momentum for change, and break 

down resistance (Kotter, 2001).

Timing, another environmental factor, is critical at all stages 

of planning, implementing, and sustaining a turnaround. Researchers suggest that if the turnaround process is to succeed 

beyond the initial stages, an entire year should be devoted to 

planning the turnaround strategy. According to Malen and 

Rice (2004), schools that make major staff and leadership 

changes over the summer often struggle with chaos and poor 

results the following year. During the implementation stage, 

turnarounds seemed more likely to succeed when only a few 

restructuring strategies have been implemented very early in 

the process. Then, to sustain first-stage improvements, there 

must be a longer-term strategy that incorporates the changes 

into sustainable structures (Roberto & Levesque, 2005).

Sufficient latitude to implement substantial changes must 

be afforded to chronically failing schools undergoing turnaround. Research indicated that schools have a higher chance 

of successfully improving student performance when the 

district allows as much freedom as possible from regulations 

about scheduling, transportation, discipline, and curriculum 

(Kowal & Hassel, 2005). Giving turnaround principals the 

authority to hire and fire personnel and alter working conditions was identified in multiple cases as the kind of autonomy 

necessary to achieve school turnaround (Duke, et al., 2005). 

On the other hand, studies showed that when some leaders 

were not formally granted the freedom to act, they achieved 

results anyway, by working around the rules and seeking approval only after their strategy proved successful.

Decades of research have documented that strong leadership is a crucial determinant of school success (Walters, Marzano, & McNulty, 2003). The specific capabilities that distinguish effective turnaround leaders from ineffective ones 

are not known; however, research documenting turnarounds 

across public and private organizations concludes that having 

the right kind of leadership at the right juncture of the turnaround effort is critical. There is also some evidence that the 

qualities of successful turnaround leadership change over the 

course of the turnaround effort (Kim & Mauborgne, 2003). 

Looking for Evidence By Basha Krasnoff
During the initial phase of turnaround, when speedy results are crucial, successful leaders require competencies and 

skills that provoke and facilitate dramatic change. The literature suggests that turnaround leaders draw on a unique capacity to spend all initial energy on speedy, urgent, trial-anderror activity to quickly determine what changes will work 

and then take incisive actions to get results in one specific 

problem area (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom 

2004). An early victory in one specific problem area plays 

an important role in the ultimate success of the turnaround 

because it serves as a powerful symbol for the entire school 

community that dramatic change and success are possible 

(Galvin & Parsley, 2005). Then, as the organization shifts to 

sustaining these changes, leaders are more likely to exhibit 

the classic leadership competencies typically associated with 

organizational success. 

Successfully turning around a 

chronically underperforming school 

necessitates significant organizational change. This requires willingness 

on the part of leadership to implement strategies that deviate from 

current organizational policies. The 

case study literature is replete with 

examples of actions successful turnaround leaders took to implement 

real change that created conflict in 

the organization. In his examination 

of turnaround change in schools, 

Fullan (2005) explained that the deviation from organizational policies 

creates “productive conflict” because requiring that things be done 

differently communicates that the status quo is no longer 

acceptable. 

Each year, as increasing numbers of schools are identified 

as chronically underperforming, more districts are being required by law to implement restructuring strategies. It would 

serve these districts and schools well to have documentation 

of successful school turnaround processes and analyses of the 

critical factors across schools. Without a solid body of evidence 

directly based on school turnaround efforts, it is impossible to 

identify with any validity the kind of conditions, knowledge, 

skills, and competencies that are essential to successfully turn 

around chronically underperforming schools. n

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 35

References

Calkins, A., Guenther, W., Belfiore, G., & Lash, D. (2007). 

The turnaround challenge: Why America’s best opportunity to dramatically improve student achievement lies in our worst-performing 

schools. Boston, MA: Mass Insight Education and Research 

Institute.

Cross, C.T. (2004). Political education: National policy comes of 

age. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. 

Duke, D.L. (2006). What we know and don’t know about improving low-performing schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 87(10), 

729–734.

Duke, D.L., Tucker, P.D., Belcher, M., Crews, D., HarrisonColeman, J., Higgins, J., et al. (2005). Lift-off: Launching the 

school turnaround process in 10 Virginia schools. Charlottesville, 

VA: Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education. 

Retrieved February 12, 2009, 

from www.darden.virginia.edu/

uploadedFiles/Centers_of_Excellence/PLE/VSTPS-Final.pdf 

Fullan, M. (2005). Turnaround leadership. Educational Forum, 69(2), 

174–181.

Galvin, M., & Parsley, D. (2005). 

Turning failure into opportunity 

[Online article]. Educational Leadership, 62. Retrieved April 6, 2009, 

from www.ascd.org/publications/

educational_leadership/summer05/vol62/num09/Turning_

Failure_Into_Opportunity.aspx

Herman, R., Dawson, P., Dee, T., 

Greene, J., Maynard, R., Redding, 

S., et al. (2008). Turning around 

chronically low-performing schools: A practice guide (NCEE No. 

2008-4020). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center 

for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. Retrieved April 6, 2009, from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/

practiceguides/

Kim, W.C., & Mauborgne, R. (2003). Tipping point leadership. Harvard Business Review, 81(4), 60–69.

Kotter, J.P. (2001). What leaders really do. Harvard Business 

Review, 79(11), 85–96.

Kowal, J.M., & Hassel, E.A. (2005). Turnarounds with new leaders and staff. Washington, DC: Learning Points, Center for 

See Research, page 37

© Adobe Image Library
36 nwrel.org/nwedu/

voices

A Writer’s Voice: The Where and How of Turnaround Success By Karin Chenoweth

Karin Chenoweth is a senior writer at the Education Trust and the 

author of “It’s Being Done”: Academic Success in Unexpected 

Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2007).

Educators who want to lead improvement in their schools 

sometimes are stymied by not knowing where to begin. After all, principals in low-performing schools must attend to 

a great deal—discipline, school environment, curriculum, 

instruction, textbooks and supplies, teacher quality, teacher 

evaluation, scheduling, relationships with parents, relationships with districts. And that doesn’t even touch the dayto-day crises with late buses, lunch deliveries, and broken 

furnaces.

In the past few years, writing about successful high-poverty and high-minority schools for the Education Trust, I have 

been lucky to speak at length to quite a few educators who 

have been part of turning around low-performing schools.

I have yet to meet a successful principal who has tried to 

tackle everything alone. Rather, they approach the complex 

issues involved in running schools by mobilizing the collective skills and knowledge of their staff. They lead their entire 

schools through a process of improvement that requires the 

hard work of every grown-up in the building. In other words, 

they don’t try to be superhuman. But they do hold onto what 

one principal I know calls the “superhuman belief ” that all 

students are capable of learning and that it is the job of educators to figure out how to teach each of them.

Sometimes these school leaders began with functional 

but mediocre schools; sometimes they faced completely broken, dysfunctional schools. In the first category is P.S./M.S. 

124 in Queens, New York. “We weren’t a failing school; we 

were marginal,” is how the current principal, Valarie Lewis, 

describes the school as it was back in 1999, when she was a 

teacher. With more than 80 percent of its students meeting 

the requirements for free lunch, P.S. 124 today performs at 

levels normally associated with some of the wealthiest schools 

in New York City and the state.

In the broken, dysfunctional category was Granger High 

School, in the Yakima Valley of Washington. I spoke to a number of people about what the school used to be like, and the 

general consensus was “dangerous.” The town of Granger had 

the highest crime rate in the Yakima Valley, which is plagued 

by the presence of gangs. About 90 percent of Granger High’s 

students, most of whom are Latino, qualify for free and reduced-price meals, and academic achievement back in 2001 

was startlingly low—far less than half of the students graduated, and only 20 percent of students met state proficiency 

in reading. Writing and math 

proficiency rates were in the 

single digits. 

That was when Richard Esparza became principal. Seven 

years later, in May 2008, 90 

percent of the students graduated, and 90 percent of graduates had concrete plans for 

postsecondary education ranging from technical school to 

four-year university. Reading 

and writing proficiency rates 

were near the state levels. And 

the last time I checked, Granger had the lowest crime rate in 

the Yakima Valley.

On the surface, P.S. 124 and Granger have very little in 

common. One is a high-performing elementary-middle 

school, the other a rapidly improving but not yet high-performing high school. One is mostly African American and 

Asian, the other mostly Latino with some American Indian 

students. One has more than 1,000 students, the other about 

330 students. One is urban, the other in the middle of a rural, 

agricultural area where most families pick apples, hops, and 

grapes for a living.

But the things the schools have in common are what permitted them to make the kinds of gains they have made.

Both had leaders who believed that all students could 

achieve and insisted that teachers take responsibility for their 

students’ academic achievement. “I come from poverty,” Esparza told me. “I come from where the students come from. 

I figure if I can make it, anybody can make it.” 

With that as the foundational belief, both schools had faculty willing to change what they were doing—and leaders 

who encouraged the departure of any faculty member unwilling to change. “No one has the right to waste a day in the 

life of a child,” says Lewis. In both schools, educators spent 

a great deal of time thinking deeply about what they want 

students to learn and how to teach them. They also thought 

carefully about the kind of school environment to cultivate 

for students. Both schools involved students’ families in direct ways—P.S. 124 by teaching the curriculum to parents on 

Saturdays; Granger by setting up a system where all students’ 

parents or guardians have attended parent conferences twice 

a year for seven years. 

Those are just a few of the things that have allowed 

once low-performing schools to achieve academic success. 
Sustaining such success is another question, requiring supportive districts that appoint principals willing to build on the 

success of their predecessors. I haven’t met a high-performing principal who thinks he or she is indispensable, but they 

all know that a successor can easily dismantle carefully built 

structures that supported high achievement. This is why it is 

important to understand those structures. 

I explore many of those issues in a book that will be published in the fall by Harvard Education Press. The title is How 

It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons From Unexpected Schools. In the 

meantime, to read more about Granger High School, see this 

posting on Britannica blog. To read about P.S. 124 and a number of other high-performing, high-poverty, or high-minority 

schools, look under “School Profiles” in the reports and publications section of www.edtrust.org. 

If you would like to hear directly from leaders in what I

call “It’s Being Done” schools, consider participating in one 

of Ed Trust’s free webinars. To participate, e-mail jvelasco@

edtrust.org and put “Webinar RSVP” in the subject line. You 

will receive instructions on how to link in. n

Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement.

Leithwood, K., Louis, K.S., Anderson, S., & Wahlstrom, K. 

(2004). Review of research: How leadership influences student 

learning. New York, NY: Wallace Foundation. Retrieved 

April 6, 2009, from www.wallacefoundation.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/WF/Knowledge%20Center/Attachments/PDF/ReviewofResearch-LearningFromLeadership.

pdf

Malen, B., & Rice, J.K. (2004). A framework for assessing the 

impact of education reforms on school capacity: Insights 

from studies of high-stakes accountability initiatives. Educational Policy, 18(5), 631–660.

Mintrop, H., & Trujillo, T.M. (2005). Corrective action in lowperforming schools: Lessons for NCLB implementation from state 

and district strategies in first generation accountability systems (CSE 

Rep. No. 641). Los Angeles, CA: University of California, 

Center for the Study of Evaluation. (ERIC ED488713)

Rhim, L.M., Kowal, J.M., Hassel, B.C., & Hassel, E.A. (2007). 

School turnarounds: A review of the cross-sector evidence on dramatic organizational improvement. Lincoln, IL: Center on Innovation and Improvement.

Rice, J.K., & Malen, B. (2003). The human costs of education reform: The case of school reconstitution. Educational

Administration Quarterly, 39(5), 635–666.

Roberto, M.A., & Levesque, L.C. (2005). The art of making 

change initiatives stick. Sloan Management Review, 46(4), 

53–60.

U.S. Department of Education. (2006). LEA and school improvement: Non-regulatory guidance (Rev. ed.). Washington, 

DC: Author.

Walters, T., Marzano, R.J., & McNulty, B. (2003). Balanced 

leadership: What 30 years of research tells us about the effect of leadership on student achievement. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent 

Research for Education and Learning.

Digging Deeper

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 37

research

Continued from page 36
38 nwrel.org/nwedu/

region at a glance

Across the Northwest region, the bigger a school is the more 

likely it is to miss the “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) targets under the No Child Left Behind Act. This is an often 

overlooked but not surprising fact, given that larger schools 

are more likely to meet the minimum number of students 

required for AYP determinations on subgroups such as economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, 

or racial/ethnic minority students. 

Title I middle and high schools that missed AYP in the 

2008 determinations are three times as large in enrollment as 

Title I schools that met AYP. At the elementary level, Title I

schools that missed AYP are 47 percent larger than those that 

met it. 

For non–Title I schools, which are larger on average than 

Title I schools, the differences are slightly less dramatic but 

still impressive. At the middle and high school levels, non–

Title I schools that missed AYP are twice as large as those 

that met AYP, and at the elementary level they are 38 percent 

larger. 

It is important to recognize and account for the correlation 

between school size and not meeting AYP when examining 

other patterns in AYP results. Great caution should be used 

in comparing schools that do not meet the minimum subgroup sizes for the same groups. In addition, since the same 

school may meet minimum subgroup sizes one year and not 

the next, identification of “turnaround” schools should use 

underlying assessment data rather than AYP met/not met determinations. n

By the Numbers: Student Enrollment Affects Adequate Yearly Progress By Richard Greenough

0

250

500

750

1,000

344

Primary

SCHOOL LEVEL

Average Enrollment of Non−Title I Schools, 

by AYP Status and School Level, 

in the Northwest Region, School Year 2007–2008

Average school enrollment

AYP not met

AYP met

Middle

633

349

Other 

(K−12, 7–12, etc.)

128

388 417

912

High

473

0

250

500

750

1,000

288

Primary

SCHOOL LEVEL

Average Enrollment of Title I Schools, 

by AYP Status and School Level, 

in the Northwest Region, School Year 2007–2008

Average school enrollment

AYP not met

AYP met

Middle

434

125

Other 

(K−12, 7–12, etc.)

121

247

167

503

High

422
Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 39

End note

Lapwai Elementary, located on the Nez Perce Reservation in 

Lapwai, Idaho, has received national attention for its remarkable record of increasing student achievement. As chronicled 

in How It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons From Unexpected Schools 

(see Voices, page 36), the high-poverty, Native American 

school raised student proficiency rates from around 20 percent in the 1990s to 80 percent proficiency in reading and 86 

percent proficiency in math today. Principal Teri Wagner reflects on the journey:

“I walk into the same classroom that I taught in all those years ago and every child is sitting 

there reading a book independently at their grade level. That sounds ordinary but to me it’s 

extraordinary because I’ve seen the difference. It’s those children’s parents that I taught and 

now their children are successful and have choices and will be able to do anything they want 

to do. That is quite a story. It took too long, but it is an extraordinary story and there are the 

same stories that are being told all over the country. So, it really can be done.”

Read how Lapwai did it in our Web exclusive interview with Wagner. 

Believing in Kids: How One High-Poverty 

Elementary Found a Way To Boost Proficiency © Geoff Allen
nwrel news

40 nwrel.org/nwedu/

In this age of No Child Left Behind, student proficiency percentage scores are ubiquitous. However, according to one national 

expert, these statistics can offer a skewed and even misleading 

picture of educational improvement over time and are especially problematic as indicators of progress toward equity in 

educational opportunity.

Dr. Andrew Ho, a researcher from the University of Iowa, 

presented his research at a daylong workshop on March 25, 

2009, in Seattle, Washington. Ho’s presentation was one of 

three events this spring sponsored by the Northwest Regional 

Educational Laboratory (NWREL), the Institute of Education 

Sciences (IES), and other partners. The aim of these events 

was to share the latest findings from IES-sponsored research 

with teachers, administrators, and policymakers. 

Using the analogy of six blind men describing an elephant, 

Ho demonstrated how our perception of proficiency can be 

influenced by what part of the distribution of student data we 

emphasize. Just as one man might touch the elephant’s trunk 

and another its tail and arrive at wildly different ideas about 

the animal, educators examining the same data may come to 

different conclusions by selecting various cut scores.

The failure to see the bigger picture contained in the data 

has serious consequences for school accountability decisions 

and policy making. For example, achievement gaps might 

be increasing at one point in the distribution (at the “basic,” 

“proficient,” or “advanced” cut score) but decreasing at another point. Both could be “correct” views of the data, but 

neither by itself leads to a sound understanding of changes in 

achievement gaps. Instead, Ho argues that plotting averages 

of test scores or changes over time at certain percentiles will 

foster a more complete understanding of trends and gaps.

Drs. Michael Coe and Bob Rayborn of NWREL’s Center for Research, Evaluation, and Assessment invited Ho 

to present his work to the region and collaborated with the 

Washington Educational Research Association to sponsor the 

event. Additional presentations are planned for Alaska, Idaho, 

Montana, and Oregon. “Andrew’s work provides an elegant, 

comprehensive understanding of the problems with the current terms of discussion about student achievement,” says 

Coe. “He presents a suite of improved methods for reporting 

and interpreting student achievement data.”

Ho’s session was attended by data analysts from 18 of Washington’s largest school districts, representatives from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, and other education professionals. “As Dr. Ho was talking, I realized we need 

to be more cognizant of the need to report data in different 

ways,” said Lynn Caulkins, a data specialist from the Edmonds 

(WA) School District. Debbie Tito, director of assessment for 

the Renton (WA) School District, commented, “I’m really excited about going back to my school district and pulling just 

one cohort—for example, ninth-grade reading—and applying 

averages to see if it tells our story differently. I’m intrigued by 

the notion that we think we’re monitoring the achievement 

gap but we’re not, because we’re not doing it properly.”

An April 22 workshop given by Dr. Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at Claremont McKenna College, described 

how teachers can support girls in math and science classrooms 

through strategies such as project-based learning, use of technology, and group work on real-world problems. Halpern’s 

keynote was followed by panels of teachers, directors of enrichment programs, and women who’ve forged successful careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.

“Finding ways to encourage girls and students in other 

underrepresented groups to remain in science, math, and 

engineering classes—and eventually pursue careers in those 

fields—is of considerable importance in the region and the 

nation as a whole,” according to Dr. Liza Finkel of NWREL’s 

Center for Classroom Teaching and Learning. In presenting 

the workshop, the center partnered with the Pacific Northwest Girls Collaborative Project and Lewis & Clark College 

Graduate School of Education. 

Turning Around Low-Performing Schools: A Research 

Forum for Northwest Region Leaders convened principals, 

superintendents, and improvement facilitators from schools 

in corrective action or facing restructuring. At the April 30 

gathering, Drs. Rebecca Maynard and Sam Redding presented 

the four major findings contained in their IES practice guide 

on school turnarounds. “This practice guide provides actionable recommendations based on research about chronically 

underperforming schools that have made significant improvement in student outcomes within three years,” says Deborah 

Davis, a unit director in NWREL’s Center for School and 

District Improvement, who organized the workshop. Davis 

points out the research is especially important to the Northwest since nearly 300 schools here are in “corrective action” 

or “first year of restructuring planning” because, according to 

2007–2008 data, they have not made adequate yearly progress 

for five or more years. 

NWREL plans to offer additional workshops that connect practitioners to evidence-based research. Check out the 

events section of www.nwrel.org for future listings. n

NWREL Connects Experts and Practitioners at IES-Funded Workshops
The infusion of $115 billion in new shortterm federal education aid from the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act (ARRA) presents both a breathtaking 

opportunity and a sobering challenge. 

States, districts, and schools are faced 

with the unique chance to introduce 

effective and long-lasting changes 

that could ultimately improve student 

achievement for generations to come.

How then to decide where to invest 

these one-time funds, especially when 

facing a fast-track time line? Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory 

is offering guidance through the online 

Northwest Education Recovery Clearinghouse. Located at www.nwrel.org/

nwarra/, the Clearinghouse offers principles for investing, links to federal and 

state resources, and an opportunity to 

get answers to specific questions. The 

site is frequently updated and provides 

easy access to critical information. 

“The Recovery Act site will help 

those who receive funding make good 

spending decisions,” says Deborah Davis, unit director in NWREL’s Center 

for School and District Improvement. 

Davis is part of the team responsible for 

keeping the site’s content current. “The 

goal is to minimize the funding cliff by 

making decisions that lead to sustainable improvements,” she says. “In most 

cases there is a two-year time frame 

for spending, so people want to know 

how to spend funds in such a way that 

there is long-term impact.” Davis notes 

that NWREL offers expertise through 

“shovel-ready” projects and awardwinning materials that can help schools 

and districts build capacity to maximize 

and sustain ARRA investments.

After conversations with superintendents, principals, and state policymakers, NWREL developed these guidelines for using Recovery Act awards 

effectively:

•	Build sustained capacity for improvement through specialized training 

or recertification of existing school 

staff or the creation of district- and 

school-level specialists in key areas 

such as improved instruction, more 

effective use of data, or dropout prevention. Some of these may be onetime, “just in time” investments that 

can accomplish their goal within one 

to two years, such as technology upgrades or training in technology integration. Others, such as training programs or the creation of specialists, 

may require a larger up-front investment but can be sustained at lower 

costs in the long run. 

•	Optimize and upgrade the use of 

existing resources for the long haul. 

Invest in human capital by maintaining talent and developing in-district 

expertise. Improve classroom space, 

laboratories, and technology access.

•	Increase the efficiency of essential services to reduce long-term 

fixed costs. Upgrade systems such 

as HVAC, lighting, and computers 

and software for both classroom and 

administrative functions. Integrate 

services to streamline central office 

functions with strategies such as cooperative purchasing and combining 

administrative functions. 

•	Create a more evidence-based decision structure for planning, implementing, and evaluating district 

programs. Consider evaluating all 

major programs, new and old, so that 

if and when funds are more limited 

the most effective programs can be 

kept and others reduced or eliminated. Create policies, procedures, and 

expertise for prioritization, budgeting, and roll-out of new programs. 

•	Consider investments in innovative 

programs with potential major benefits for students. These should be 

programs that will demonstrate their 

promise in their first years of operation, making a case for future support 

by government or other sources. 

In addition to resources, the site 

offers several quick and easy ways for 

educators and administrators to contact 

NWREL with specific questions about 

understanding and taking advantage 

of ARRA. Users of the site can e-mail 

requests or call NWREL directly for 

assistance. Education Resource Advisor Jennifer Klump, who handles the 

Northwest Lab’s Reference Desk, is 

fielding the inquiries.

“I think that carrying on with 

NWREL’s goal of providing useful and 

reliable information easily, as I do on 

the Reference Desk, can be a valuable 

service for our region,” says Klump. 

“One thing we’ve always known is that 

people will contact NWREL looking 

for reliable information rather than just 

doing an Internet search and trying to 

make sense of it on their own. Also, 

if people are interested in maximizing 

their investments, I will be able to direct them to services and products to 

guide them in that.”

NWREL stands ready to help our 

constituents use the funds wisely to 

stimulate learning for future generations. n

NWREL Offers Recovery Act Resources

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 41

ARRA team members Jeff Jones, Deborah 

Davis, Lisa Todd, and Jennifer Klump
42 nwrel.org/nwedu/

NWREL’s mathematics professional development program, which helps teachers introduce algebraic reasoning in the 

elementary grades, has been drawing 

national attention. An article in Education Week titled “Kiddie Algebra” highlights how teacher Melissa Romano in 

Helena, Montana, taps into her second-graders’ intuitive number sense to 

build algebraic concepts. According to 

the article, Ms. Romano’s typical math 

lesson now involves a lot of interaction 

based not only on what “the correct answer” is, but also on the processes students use to solve a problem. 

“During one recent class, she gave her 

second-graders a problem about geese 

flying in V formation. She used flocks 

of different sizes—three geese, five 

geese, seven geese. If the geese fly in a 

perfect V, she asked them, how many 

end up flying on each side? 

Over the course of the class period, 

the pupils learned that with odd-numbered flocks, they could solve the problem by dividing the total number of 

geese by two, and subtracting one, for 

the lead goose. Ms. Romano moved on 

to ever-larger numbers: 49, 105. Eventually, she and children worked out 

a formula they could use to solve the 

problem: x-1

 2

Some students ended up making calculations into the hundreds. When others struggled, Ms. Romano encouraged 

them to draw pictures to illustrate their 

thinking. All told, the teacher spent 60 

minutes working on variations of that 

single problem.”

Source: Cavanagh, S. (2009, February 10). Kiddie Algebra. Education Week, 

28(21), 21–23.

A December 28, 2008, article in The 

Oregonian by Betsy Hammond reports 

how schools in Lebanon, Oregon, are 

introducing algebra as early as the first 

grade and how this approach is starting 

to pay off. “More than 80 percent of 

Lebanon eighth-graders passed the state 

math test, compared with 66 percent at 

schools with similar demographics. No 

other large or medium-size Oregon 

district outdid its peers by 15 percentage points,” writes Hammond. 

What do the Helena School District 

and Lebanon School District have in 

common? As the Education Week and 

The Oregonian pieces point out, elementary teachers in these communities 

attended NWREL’s mathematics institutes on developing children’s number 

sense and algebraic reasoning.

This summer, K–8 educators have 

the opportunity to attend these popular professional development institutes 

July 7–10 in Pasco, Washington, or August 10–13 in Spokane, Washington. 

 The four-day institutes are separated by grade bands into three different 

workshops. In addition to the previously offered workshops for educators 

serving grades K–2 and 3–5, NWREL 

staff are introducing a new workshop 

for teachers of grades 6–8 this year. 

While the overall objective of the summer institutes is to provide instructional strategies for building connections 

between number sense and algebraic 

reasoning, each workshop has a different content focus: 

•	Participants in the K–2 session will 

learn how children develop concepts 

for addition and subtraction. 

•	In the grades 3–5 session, teachers 

will learn how children construct 

concepts for multiplication and 

division.

•	The new offering for educators of grades 6–8 will focus on 

rational numbers and proportional 

reasoning.

Linda Griffin directs NWREL’s 

Mathematics Education Unit, which 

has trained about 700 teachers in algebraic reasoning and number sense 

since 2004. She encourages team attendance at the institutes. “We like to 

see any combination of teachers, paraprofessionals, and administrators from 

the same school or district participate 

together in hopes that the work they 

begin at the institute can be sustained 

through continued collaboration upon 

returning to school,” she explains. 

Clock hours are available for the 

summer institutes. To learn more, go 

to www.nwrel.org/math/institutes/ or 

contact Cathy Clark Thomas at 800- 

547-6339, ext. 662, or clarkc@nwrel.org.

Schools and districts can also contract with NWREL for on-site training 

and technical assistance in K–8 number 

sense and algebraic reasoning, as well as 

many other areas related to mathematics teaching and learning. Visit www.

nwrel.org/math/ for descriptions of 

available services and to find contact 

information for each service. n

Early Algebra Training for K–8 Teachers Available This Summer

nwrel news

Mathematics Education Unit training facilitators (clockwise from top left) Melinda Leong, 

Claire Gates, Lisa Lavalle, and Linda Griffin
After a successful inaugural event in 2008, NWREL is holding the 

second annual From Structure to Instruction: Sharing Best Practices and Lessons Learned From High School Redesign Efforts. 

High school leadership teams from across the country will 

convene in Las Vegas, June 21–24, to learn effective approaches and develop plans for transforming large, comprehensive 

high schools into more personalized learning environments.

Participants at last year’s conference praised the opportunity to network with practitioners from all over the country; 

learn from “excellent speakers with functional information”; 

attend a variety of “well-organized, relevant, absolutely incredible” sessions; and participate in “up close and personal” 

coaching sessions for “individualized help” with “practical 

items and strategies.”

During an intensive four days, teams of teachers, administrators, and district staff will gather information in interactive 

workshops given by technical assistance providers and practitioners with “in the trenches” experience in high school restructuring. “What makes this conference unique is that after 

attending topical workshops, teams can opt to participate in 

team planning with coaches of their choosing. In the coaching sessions, teams can pursue questions about how to apply the information they gathered or how to solve problems 

they are encountering in their school improvement efforts. 

This is not your typical ‘sit and get’ seminar event,” explains 

NWREL’s Diana Oxley, author of From High School to Learning Communities: Five Domains of Best Practice and one of the 

event’s organizers.

This year’s conference features preconference sessions on 

Sunday. These half- and whole-day sessions offer in-depth 

information and assistance in a small-group format on topics 

such as interdisciplinary curriculum design, scheduling, and 

district support. Concurrent presentations on common redesign issues follow, Monday through Wednesday. On Tuesday 

and Wednesday, practitioners and technical assistance providers offer tailored coaching to help teams solidify their plans 

and troubleshoot anticipated barriers. All sessions are in 

workshop format.

Sessions are organized into six strands:

1. Competence in Core Subjects—Making Change Really 

Happen

2. Participating in Professional Learning Communities—

Supporting SLC Strategies

3. Combining the Core and CTE—Creating Relevance and 

Rigor in Career and Technical Education

4. Equity and Access for All—Working With Special Education, Diverse Students, and Homogeneous Grouping

5. Sorting Shifting Leadership Roles—Sharing Leadership 

Across the Building

6. Keys to the Kingdom—Creating a Flexible Master Schedule and Changing Classroom Practices

Keynoting this year’s event are Dr. Martin Haberman and 

Ako Kambon. Haberman, who founded the National Teacher 

Corps, is widely known for his work in developing teacher 

education programs focused on serving students at risk and 

in poverty. His presentation will address the ideology and behaviors of effective teachers in the most challenging settings. 

Kambon, president of Visionary Leaders Institute and a leader 

in educational team building, will look at the profound differences of urban classrooms today and how teaching and leadership strategies must and can align with those differences to 

achieve academic excellence. 

The event is organized by NWREL’s Recreating Secondary Schools Program, which has a seven-year track record of 

helping high schools around the country transform into more 

personal learning communities. Conference planners collaborate with a national advisory group of practitioners. n

Dates: June 21–24, 2009 (full and half-day preconference 

workshops on June 21)

Location: University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Participants can 

lodge across the street at the newly renovated Embassy 

Suites Las Vegas for the group rate of $134 per night.

Registration: Register by May 20 for the early bird rate of $550 

per person. After May 20 the cost is $650 per person. Team 

participation is strongly encouraged—teams of three or 

more people from the same institution pay the discounted 

rates of $495 and $585 respectively. The final day to register is June 19, 2009.

Web site: www.nwrel.org/slcconference/2009/

E-mail; phone: hays@nwrel.org; 503-275-9621

This national conference is organized by the Recreating Secondary Schools Program of NWREL. It is NOT affiliated with the 

USDOE/OESE SLCP Program or with the technical assistance 

provided through its contract with NWREL. All activities will be 

underwritten by registration fees and contributions by participating organizations and businesses.

Recreating Secondary Schools Program To Host Second Annual Conference in June

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 43
44 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Visit NWREL’s online calendar of events 

at www.nwrel.org/events/ for complete 

details on upcoming workshops and 

conferences.

6+1 Trait® Writing Introductory

workshop

May 13–15, 2009, Welches, OR

October 14–16, 2009, Cannon Beach, OR

The introductory institute is designed 

to address grades 3–12 in one session, 

and grades PK–2 in another. Participants—classroom, special education, 

and ELL teachers; literacy coaches and 

trainers; curriculum specialists; and 

school and district administrators—

will explore proven teaching strategies 

and classroom-tested resources, learn 

how to build a learning community 

that shares a common vocabulary and 

vision of quality writing performance, 

and much more.

6+1 Trait® Writing for presenters

June 30–July 2, 2009 

Gleneden Beach, OR

This advanced institute is for those 

who wish to conduct their own in-district trait workshops. Participation in 

an introductory trait institute and classroom experience teaching the traits are 

prerequisites. The institute will include 

the examination of the research supporting the 6+1 Trait Writing Model 

of Instruction & Assessment, lesson 

design and curriculum mapping, and 

how to incorporate adult learning strategies into professional development 

workshops.

6+1 Trait® wee writers’ institute

July 13–14, 2009

Chicago, IL

Learn the 6+1 Trait Writing model using the renowned children’s literature 

your youngest students (grades PK–2) 

know and love. Get comfortable with 

the traits vocabulary so that you can 

share with your students a common 

language to talk about writing each day 

and provide them with a solid foundation for writing throughout their school 

lives. This workshop provides a variety 

of practical activities that are flexible, 

creative, take no more than a few minutes to prepare, and can be implemented in the classroom immediately.

High School Learning Communities 

National Conference

June 21–24, 2009

Las Vegas, NV

See page 43 for details.

Mathematics Institutes for Teachers 

of Grades K–2, 3–5, and 6–8

July 7–10, 2009, Pasco, WA 

August 10–13, 2009, Spokane, WA

See page 42 for details.

Conference Call 

nwrel news

NWREL’s annual report for fiscal year 

2008 was released earlier this year and is 

available online in PDF format at www.

nwrel.org/annual-report/. The report 

highlights stories about how the Portland-based nonprofit research, development, and service agency is making a 

difference in building educational skills 

and knowledge throughout the Northwest region and beyond. 

Whatever the activity—conducting 

ELL program reviews, providing training and coaching to help recreate secondary schools, helping service organizations with training and resources, 

conducting evaluations of Reading 

First programs, supporting vocational 

education grant programs on Indian 

reservations, or spreading the word 

about effective practices through our 

award-winning magazine—NWREL’s 

ultimate goal is to improve teaching 

and learning by applying researchbased knowledge.

Last year, more than 23,000 people 

received training, technical assistance, 

or other services from NWREL, approximately 40 percent of whom were 

from schools and local education agencies and another 42 percent from nonprofit and community organizations. 

This reflects a broadening of NWREL’s 

reach to include a wider array of clients who are important to supporting 

learners and lifelong learning. The majority of these activities (59 percent) 

were in the form of workshops and 

other meetings that prepare educators 

and community people to work more 

effectively with learners, while another 

17 percent included data collection and 

information-gathering activities that 

result from NWREL’s growing capabilities in applied research.

The stories in the annual report 

are concrete demonstrations of how 

NWREL is building knowledge and 

sharing lessons, encouraging high expectations for learning, helping educators meet demanding standards, 

promoting dialogue and connecting 

people, facing educational challenges 

together with school leaders, acting as 

critical friends and coaches, building 

community capacity and, through it all, 

making a difference in the lives of students and educators. n

2008 Annual Report Now Online 
Flashback

Author Facilitates Workshop on

Using Wee CanTM Write

Teachers of “wee” writers from Oregon 

and Washington came to NWREL in 

January for the 6+1 Trait® Wee Writers’ Institute. The sold-out event was 

facilitated by Carolyn McMahon, coauthor of the best-selling line of Wee 

CanTM guidebooks offering 6+1 Trait 

writing activities for teachers of grades 

PK–2. Participants spent a fun but intensive two days learning practical ways 

to enrich writing experiences across the 

classroom curriculum content areas, 

as well as creative ideas and activities 

based on classic literature that children 

love.

Event Focuses on the Report of

the National Mathematics Advisory

Panel and Its Implications for SEAs

A symposium was held in late January 

for SEA representatives from Idaho, 

Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and 

Oklahoma to discuss implications and 

next steps regarding the 2008 report 

Foundations for Success: The Final Report 

of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. 

NMAP members presented the report’s 

findings and recommendations in seven areas that can impact student success 

in preparation for algebra. The two-day 

event held in Portland was sponsored 

by the Northwest Regional Comprehensive Center (housed at NWREL) in 

collaboration with the Mid-continent 

Comprehensive Center (MC3). 

People From Across North America 

Learn To Deliver Trait Workshops 

Educators from nine states plus Canada 

gathered in Portland for the 6+1 Trait®

Writing Institute for Presenters, March 

4–6. After participating in this advanced 

three-day institute, 26 new presenters can now instruct other educators 

in their communities on how to use 

the internationally popular trait-based 

model for teaching and assessing student writing.

NWREL Board Meets in Whitefish for 

Annual Retreat

In March, the Board of Directors spent 

an intensive three days in Whitefish, 

Montana, examining NWREL’s role 

in supporting state and local education agencies with the investment of 

American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act (ARRA) funds. A highlight of the 

meeting was a talk given by Montana’s 

newly elected Superintendent of Public 

Instruction Denise Juneau. She offered 

a view of the state’s K–12 education system and its challenges and spoke of the 

significance of the ARRA dollars to the 

state. “This is the moment schools have 

been waiting for,” she said. “We will use 

additional federal dollars to rejuvenate 

education with innovative programs 

that will increase student achievement. We will all be required to tell our 

state’s story of how these dollars helped 

students. If this opportunity is squandered, another moment like this may 

never arrive. It is an important time in 

our education system, and I know our 

system is up for this challenge.” n

Northwest Education / spring–summer 2009 45
nwrel.org/nwedu/

Northwest Education is available online in both PDF and html versions.

Look for Web exclusives. 

Up next in the fall issue:

Doing More With Less

Nonprofit org.

U.S. Postage

PAID Portland, OrEGon

Permit no. 250

Northwest regional Educational Laboratory

101 S.W. Main Street, Suite 500

Portland, Oregon 97204

www.nwrel.org/nwedu/

For questions regarding 

Northwest Education

call 503-275-9518

For all other inquiries 

regarding NWREL

call 503-275-9500

Northwest

education