Section 1: Academic Achievement - National Center for School ...

year. She couldn’t provide me with much guidance since she herself was new and not
bilingual or a language acquisition specialist. Without a mentor, I was left to figure out the
structure of my groups, the English language transitioning students’ needs and how they
affected grouping, the level of coaching required of teachers, and a meaningful assessment
program. Second, the principal who successfully led the school for the past six years accepted
a new leadership role in a nearby urban school district. His replacement was not a good fit
with the community and by early November she was reassigned to a different position. The
lack of instructional leadership left me floundering as I tried to evaluate the quality and
breadth of our math assessments. Finally, I didn’t have a formal team with which to work on
my PAR project. As questions arose I needed to seek out others who could act as sounding
boards for my untamed yet heartfelt ideas and strategies for increasing student achievement in
my homeless and highly mobile population so that problems could be identified and solutions
put into effect. The only participatory element in my project was my occasional
conversations with the Project facilitator.
I reflected quite a bit on the obstacles confronting my students and through the process of
action research, I narrowed my focus. I kept coming back to why I pursued this math
specialist position in the first place. I knew how literacy affected math skills, yet I wanted an
opportunity to focus solely on the building blocks of math. I noticed in my first year of action
research that many of my Mexican –American students had solid computational skills, yet
their conceptual understanding of math was non-existent. When working with students, I
noticed that they only wanted to review rote problems and shutdown when it came to
understanding mathematics. My question emerged: How do I make Title One Math group
meaningful for my homeless and highly mobile students? If I could identify the keys to make
it meaningful, then I could get them motivated to build the conceptual skills they lacked.
A seasoned action research participant knows that once a question forms, it is crucial to look
at the assumptions inherent in the question. Unexpectedly, this was a lot harder than I thought
it would be for me. I turned to my colleagues at school. It wasn’t hard to explain the project
and the meaning of assumptions. It was hard, however, to admit to myself that I couldn’t do
the action research project by myself. As critical as collaboration is to the success of any
project, when it is not fostered by the leadership in the building it is likely to fail. I wanted so
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