A Pioneering Collaboration to Improve Reading in Central Falls

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Respect
In any urban district teachers will talk about the need for respect. As one Central Falls teacher said, “We need to begin with respect that we all have experience and that we all care for the kids.”

As another Central Falls educator described it,

Instead of a scripted, “This is what 
I have to teach today and this is what comes next,” I can really build off 
of what I noticed them doing today and how I want to use that to inform my instruction tomorrow.

Teachers are valued as experts, 
they are listened to, and, as much as possible, the issues they raise are
followed up on. Frequently, teachers know what their students need to
succeed but do not have the authority to realign resources to meet those needs. Learning Community co-director O’Leary observed,

Understandably, Central Falls teachers became nervous for their students around the time Christine was introducing new quarterly assessments. She listened to their concerns about the number of assessments and the assessment schedule. She looked closely at the schedule. They were right. She made changes to the schedule and further earned their trust. It is simple and yet not very commonplace in large districts. It is what feeds the best kind of relationship between any two people – respect.

Rapid Results
All educators want results for every student in their classrooms. Growing Readers responds to this need for urgency by using assessments to catch students who are not meeting benchmark as early as possible and getting them the extra support they need from a reading specialist. Quarterly data give teachers real evidence to make adjustments to instruction and provide another way to gauge what is working in their classrooms. Seeing results – for both teachers and students – can be enormously motivating.

Superintendent Gallo tied the increased amount of data to a culture of accountability.

Data took away the subjectivity. If the students can’t perform it on the assessment then they need help until they can. … It’s not about what you think I know, it is about what I can demonstrate I know.

Positive results and progress are motivating both for students and for teachers. As one specialist in Central Falls said, “Doing assessments quarterly allows them to see progress more often. I think teachers do get on board more when they see results.”

Team Approach
In an era when teachers, schools, and districts are being held publicly accountable to numerical outcomes, it can be easy to seek someone to blame if the results aren’t positive. Encouraging a shared sense of accountability and teamwork across schools and between schools and families is essential to the success of urban education.

This notion of teamwork has been a key focus of The Learning Community’s culture. One specialist observed,

I especially feel like a team after assessments and you get the data. I get excited because a teacher will come to me and say, “Did you 
know a student you are working with went from here to there?” It is because we are a team. Everyone 
has a piece. You know it is not a 
one-person success – it’s a team.

And similar things are happening in Central Falls. As one specialist there noted,

There have been teachers who have come to me to ask what I’m doing with one of their students to learn more about what that is so they can use those strategies in their classroom.

What Is Hard about 
Working This Way?

A wall of distrust has been built between experienced educators who have worked to repair our nation’s urban schools and many of the 
leaders of the emerging charter school movement. O’Leary observed,

There is historic distrust on the part of public school teachers of new initiatives. That distrust is more than warranted as curriculums and sweeping reform efforts have come and gone with no consultation of teachers themselves as to what their students need. There is then little to show for it but frustrated and overstretched teachers and thoroughly confused students.

Doubts That All Students
Can Succeed
Working toward a sense of collective academic achievement requires everyone to believe that the students can succeed. One teacher pointed out,

Success depends on the attitude you have about the kids. … If it doesn’t work, the question needs to be, “What can I do differently?” not “The student can’t do it.” … The whole point of the tutorial model is that kids are going to need extra support.

Collegiality: One More Thing 
on the To-Do List
Support from colleagues is almost universally welcomed. But teachers want their students to do well, and collaboration and collegiality can feel like one more thing on a to-do list. One Central Falls educator observed,

You get stuck in, “This is what I have to do and I gotta get it done.” But it keeps you fresh if you are always talking to someone else about what you are doing, what went well and what didn’t work.

Current discussion nationally about holding individual teachers accountable for results can create an environment that is not conducive 
to collaboration. As one Central Falls specialist said,

Some people think “This is my classroom, these are my kids,” but not realizing that someone else has a classroom with similar kids and similar needs so we should be communicating all the time about what is going on, because it is only going to enhance our practice.

History of Ineffective 
Professional Development
Teachers are accustomed to professional development that is not grade specific and not easily used. Teachers have had to do a lot of “unpacking” 
in order to apply the new ideas to their classroom, with limited support.

Often, a new wave of reform or a new approach is brought in by administrators before teachers are able to 
see any results from the previous one, often leading to understandable cynicism. As one Central Falls teacher said,

There are buildings with tons of 
curriculum materials in the basement because it was given to teachers half- way through the year with no chance to figure out how to implement it.

Resource Alignment
Many charter schools have the freedom to manage their own resources, both human and financial, so they are 
able to place decisions about resource alignment close to the dynamic needs of students and teachers. In contrast, in many urban systems, it is the district that makes decisions about hiring, changes in job responsibilities, curriculum design, and other significant choices. Where possible, Growing Readers advocates for changes that would remove some of the institutional barriers to change that Central Falls teachers encounter.

Misconceptions
Misconceptions about charter schools and how they operate continue to make it difficult to nurture collaboration with traditional public schools. There are both excellent and struggling charter schools, just as there are excellent and struggling traditional public schools. Nationally, charter schools are a popular current strategy in urban school reform, which can create suspicion on the part of educators, particularly as federal and state policies begin to favor “charter school takeover” as a strategy for school change.

Some Learning Community teachers worry about how their work is being received by their colleagues in Central Falls. One team member said,

I worry that the Central Falls teachers are seeing what we do as, “This is how you should do it” instead of “This is one way to do it.” We aren’t perfect and every classroom is different.

The best way to address misconceptions on all sides has been visitation, observation, and honest dialogue. As one Central Falls principal said,

I’m not going to lie; there was animosity at the beginning. Once they were able to sit down and get it out in the open, … they aired their feelings, and now everybody works great together.

Vulnerability
Excellence in education is predicated on the quality of the teacher in every classroom. These teachers work in a complicated ecosystem of students, families, and colleagues. Gallo observed, “This is a human endeavor and you touch on human frailties, issues of friendship, and loyalty.”

Collaboration and co-accountability can require professionals to ask one another to accept feedback or constructive criticism. As one Central Falls specialist said,

I am always feeling like I’m not part of the “in group” because sometimes I’ll have to look at their data and make a suggestion or ask for an explanation based on the data for one reason or another.

Building a culture that encourages receptivity to constructive criticism requires constant, intentional work on the part of every team member. One Learning Community team member observed,

A culture of continuous improvement can also be exhausting. It is almost like being a really good athlete on a really strong team. No matter how well you do, there is always another race. You never feel like you are done.

In spite of the challenges, the Growing Readers Initiative has worked to build a positive culture that remains focused on the work and on teachers’ supporting one another to continuously improve. As one educator said,

When she has had to be constructive with criticism, she comes in with such a professional lens and her points are so clear and gentle that I was so grateful. I was excited to try a different strategy. I want to be teachable.

Looking toward the Future: Sustainable Improvement 
at Scale

The early progress of the district–charter school partnership in Central Falls is not the stuff of headlines. At the same time that Growing Readers has been achieving quiet successes, as this issue of Voices in Urban Education goes to press, Central Falls High School has become the epicenter of a far more vociferous, national debate about turnaround strategies for low-performing schools.

But the struggles of one school do not occur in a vacuum. By building strong readers in early grades across an entire district, the Growing Readers partnership helps prepare students to succeed for the rest of their school careers – through high school and beyond.

To form an enduring partnership will take considerable time, particularly as the Growing Readers Initiative is just one of many unfolding in the district. But there are early signs that the essential goal – clear gains in reading performance for all students – is possible. Perhaps equally significant is that all constituents are learning new things about working collectively to improve teaching and learning.

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Footnotes

1 These internal Central Falls Schools District reading assessments are based on data from the Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS), and the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA).

2 For more detailed information about these data and the Growing Readers Initiative, see The Learning Community, n.d.

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References

The Learning Community. n.d. The Growing Readers Initiative. Central Falls, RI: The Learning Community.
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