Leadership magazine Nov/Dec 2014 V 44 No 2 | Page 30

Essential practices for

C

alifornia’s students hold vast
potential. With the proper academic support, they will become college- and career-ready
and go on to help the state’s businesses,
farms, non-profits and local governments
succeed. Unfortunately, too many of California’s public schools are struggling to
bring out their students’ talents. This is
especially true among schools serving lowincome students of color.
In some cases, external support providers can help a school transform into a place
where staff and students excel. Partners
in School Innovation is one such provider
that facilitates the transformation of underperforming schools. Using a continuousimprovement, equity-focused approach,
Partners works to help schools eliminate
achievement gaps and create an environment in which every student, regardless of
background, thrives. In the schools that we
serve, where 84 percent of students are lowincome and 94 percent are students of color,
the need for accelerated learning is urgent.
Partners helps schools align their leadership, professional learning systems and
instruction around the goal of such accelerated learning. We do not address all of the
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Leadership

This program aligns leadership,
instruction and professional
development around the goal
of accelerated learning to
close achievement gaps.
factors that influence student achievement,
such as parental involvement, but our approach does include explicit conversations
about equity. The conversations are substantial and informed by regular monitoring of
student achievement data.
To assess a school’s progress, we regularly
conduct assessments called School Transformation Reviews. These reviews are done
in the fall of the initial year of a partnership
(which generally lasts three to five years) and
in the spring of each subse