Blazing New Trails - Connexions

200 CRITICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
clear and focused mission, opportunity to learn and student time on task, frequent monitoring
of student progress, and home-school relations (Kirk & Jones, 2004). As time passed, the
correlates termed the first generation evolved to what Lezotte (2010) termed the second
generation correlates. According to Lezotte, the idea of the second generation correlates was
an attempt to incorporate current research and offer more challenging goals for schools
committed to success. With the second generation correlates, Lezotte offered a warning; the
first generation correlates must be exhibited in schools before moving on to the second.
Second generation correlates shifted to include the following: safe and orderly environment
broadened to increased presence of desirable behaviors; high expectations for success
broadened to ensure success; instructional leadership was dispersed to include all adults; clear
and focused mission shifted toward a balance of higher-level learning and basic skills;
opportunity to learn and student time on task asked that students master the content; frequent
monitoring of student progress included efficiency and a move to criterion-referenced
measures, and home-school relations evolved to a real partnership between the home and
school.
Effectiveness in schools continued as a topic of research in the 90s and early in the
21 st century. In 1994, the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) contracted with the
International School Effectiveness and Improvement Center (ISEIC) to engage in a review of
school effectiveness research to determine the key determinants of school effectiveness in
secondary and primary schools. According to this study, eleven key characteristics of
effective schools were determined: professional leadership, shared vision and goals, a learning
environment, concentration on teaching and learning, purposeful teaching, high expectations,
positive reinforcement, monitoring progress, pupil rights and responsibilities, home-school
partnerships, and a learning organization (Samms, Hillman, & Mortimore, 1995). Stoll,
Wideley, and Reezigt (2002) participated in a study that compared effective schools across
European countries. They concluded that success is a journey of improvement, change agents
appear to play a significant role, and capacity and sustainability are critical to effectiveness.
Attaining effective schools through support from the California Center for Effective Schools
was outlined by Chrispeels (2002). The partnership between Oxnard School District and the
California Center for Effective Schools began in the spring of 2000. After a year and a half,
positive changes were noted as a result of this partnership and were attributed to the effective
schools’ processes of assessing need, encouraging instructional leadership, developing school
leadership teams, implementing standards-based instructional redesign, instituting facilitated
grade-level meetings, and initiating a data management system.
Currently, successful reform strategies or models of reform that meet the needs of all
diverse learners are terms that are prevalent in the literature. According to Karns (2010), the
primary task of school reform is to close the achievement gap. Project Access, Culture and
Climate Expectation, and Strategies (ACES) (2008) outlined key practices with the potential
of closing the achievement gap of: (a) providing all students with academic access, (b)
offering safe and inclusive learning environments, (c) assisting staff with the ability to use
proven instructional strategies, (d) confronting beliefs and biases that hinder learning, (e)
assessing teaching and learning, (f) embracing data to make decisions, and (g) changing the
instructional venue to meet student needs. Karns (2010) supported these practices of
embracing differences and added that elementary schools should establish a culture of
inclusion, collaboration, and celebration. Pogrow (2006) focused on restructuring highpoverty
elementary schools and stressed three essential features necessary for success: (a)
high quality teachers, (b) a synergistic blend of successful traditionalist and progressive ideas,
and (c) a means to address the large differences in skill levels among students.