First Things First: An Effective High School Reform Model

A Forum — September 23, 2005

Background

The high school dropout rate has been rising steadily for the past thirty years. According to a number of recent studies, one-third of public high school students in the United States fail to graduate. Only about half of black and Hispanic students finish high school.  Students who do graduate are not always prepared for success.

First Things First (FTF) is a comprehensive school reform initiative designed by the Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE).  Initially implemented in Kansas City, Kansas, FTF increased student attendance rates and improved student performance on state tests in reading and math.  FTF expanded to Houston, Texas; the Riverview Gardens district in suburban St. Louis, Missouri; and the Greenville and Shaw districts in Mississippi, with IRRE providing technical assistance to the expansion sites.  MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, evaluated First Things First in Kansas City and in the four districts where it was replicated and reports on the findings in its report, The Challenge of Scaling Up Education Reform:  Findings and Lessons from First Things First. 

The FTF reform model has three components:

• Small learning communities in which about 200-325 students remain together for 4 years and take core classes together from the same group of 10-15 teachers. These teachers have planning time to talk about individual students, plan group activities and undertake instructional improvement efforts. Each small learning community is centered on a theme such as performing arts, law and government or business and technology. These themes are intended to infuse instruction in the core subjects and guide elective courses of study within the small learning community.
• A family advocate system pairs each student with a faculty member who monitors that student’s progress, advises the student when there are problems and celebrates the student’s achievements. Guidelines call for the advocate to meet weekly with each student and at least twice a year with the student’s family. Most teachers and administrators in a school are family advocates. Forty percent of the students in one survey indicated they had no other adult in the school to whom they felt close.
• There is an expectation and professional development supports provided for staff members to improve their instructional capabilities, focusing on actively engaging students in meaningful and rigorous work that is aligned with state standards and high stakes assessments..

Janet Quint, Senior Research Associate at MDRC, explained that the hope was to replicate the successes of First Things First in Kansas City in the expansion school districts.  Quint said that two to three years into the program, the effects at the expansion sites were mixed. With the exception of one high school in Houston (Lee High School) where the program worked quite well, Quint said it is too early to say whether FTF has been a success in the expansion schools.

Quint further explained that there was considerable variation among the expansion schools in the degree to which FTF was implemented. Critical factors in whether specific schools decided to adopt the initiative were leadership at the district and school level and the intensity of technical assistance.

The results from the Kansas City schools demonstrated strong, positive and pervasive effects in a number of areas after FTF was implemented.  These included marked improvement in reading and math scores (a 20  percentage point increase in the proportion of 11th graders scoring proficient on the state reading test from 2001 to 2004); higher attendance rates; reduced dropout rates and double-digit increases in graduation rates.

In the expansion sites, there were both positive and negative findings but very few findings were statistically significant (in part because of the small numbers of schools involved). Quint discussed some of the reasons for the relative success of Kansas City:  its schools had operated First Things First for a longer period when the impacts were measured; the district-wide leadership closely monitored progress; the program developer provided more intensive, on-site technical assistance; and instructional improvement efforts were more developed. Quint says some changes in the model itself, such as a strong emphasis on engagement, alignment, and rigor in instruction, may augur well for better results in future FTF expansion sites.

Jim Connell is President and co-founder of the Institute for Research and Reform in Education. He designed First Things First and is directing its implementation in 30 elementary schools, 13 middle schools and 24 high schools in Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas. Four additional states are expected to have programs during the 2005-6 school year.

Connell explained that FTF’s instructional goals include active engagement, alignment and rigor. FTF champions teaching strategies that engage all students in their own learning. Therefore, the curriculum must be audited so that instruction is aligned to state standards and any high states assessments. In Connell’s own words, “You can have engagement and alignment but if it’s not taught at a high enough level, it won’t work.” Within the FTF model, there is an expectation of proficiency or better for all students.

The key instructional resources of FTF are time, people and information.  For example, students need additional instructional time in literacy and math, which FTF provides. Teachers need more common planning time and more time for professional development, so FTF creates schedules providing 180 minutes per week for common planning time.  Key personnel involved in professional development include instructional coaches, instructional supervisors, content area leaders and national partners. Instructional leaders throughout the system are trained to have the same vision of instruction. Because information is also a resource, IRRE has developed “Measuring What Matters,” a process whereby effective practices in classrooms, small learning communities and family and student advocacy are assessed and data on these practices related to student outcomes..

Connell went on to identify some of the reasons for different degrees of success with FTF. In Kansas City, there was district-wide implementation and strong support from the central office. Connell believes that district-wide reform – at least in all high schools -- has a greater chance of being coherent, efficient, sustainable, equitable and accountable. In many cases, FTF is the only reform strategy in a district and there is complete alignment; in other cases, there are multiple approaches under an overarching set of benchmarks and goals; and in others, the overarching goals are so weak or so weakly expected and supported that every school is doing its own thing. Connell believes that without some kind of district-wide approach, there is a lack of coherence that makes it difficult to hold schools accountable for achieving certain benchmarks of progress; and a spreading of resources that is too thin to be effective.  In Kansas City, even though there have been four superintendents since FTF was first implemented, the reform model has had support at all levels of management so that both career employees and the board of education have supported it through several changes at the top.

Janet Quint noted that part of the success of a program can be attributed to a charismatic leader like Jim Connell providing the technical assistance. Connell says his organization is working now to build capacity by “transferring our intellectual capital to technical assistance cadres inside of districts, state departments of education and regional intermediaries.”  High-quality technical assistance supports effective implementation of reform strategies. Good technical assistance, said Connell, “shows up when needed, signs on for the long haul, and focuses on building system capacity.” Ultimately, it’s necessary to build local capacity to scale up, strengthen and sustain reform.

Connell concluded his presentation with a brief discussion of the implications of FTF reform models for federal policy. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) put teachers, administrators and district personnel in a moral dilemma, he suggested, with a “punch in the heart that says these kids aren’t making it.” Now there is a role for the federal government in convincing teachers and administrators that they can do something about the problem.  Federal policy, he said, should have more to do with defining and supporting best practices and not simply ensuring compliance with a process. Federal policy should support district-wide approaches, since good things accomplished at an individual school can be undone if they lack support at the district level.  Connell says policymakers must provide models of what works and what makes a difference – providing opportunities, expectations, and examples of success; highly qualified providers of technical assistance; and networks so that people having the same problems can learn what is already available to help them make progress. Connell also urges federal policymakers to continue to track student outcomes but also invest in tracking effective practices leading to those outcomes – particularly changes in instruction and in presence and effectiveness of smaller organizational structures.   . “We can measure and track progress in the things that matter to student performance and make adjustments based on those data as we continue to monitor multi-year trends in student performance.”

Questions

One forum attendee asked about training for people who will be measuring and evaluating instructional performance in an FTF model. Connell says these individuals are trained to know what engagement, alignment and rigor (EAR) look like in classrooms and how they can be measured through classroom visits. The process helps build the capacity of a school district to look at itself. Information on all classrooms can be generated within a year of initiating FTF and then used to guide professional development activities moving forward.

When asked how his team evaluates or measures rigor, Connell said he seeks answers to a variety of questions: Do learning materials like lectures and textbooks present grade level and more advanced work? What kinds of work (writing, problem solving, responding to questions) are students being asked to do? How is their work evaluated (does an “A” truly mean proficient?) Are all kids being asked to demonstrate mastery or just the ones who raise their hands? Are all students developing and demonstrating understanding and how are the students who don’t understand the work being re-taught to achieve mastery?

Since Connell had talked about district-wide reform, he was then asked about statewide reform. In New Jersey, he said he is working with a dedicated cadre of state leaders who are learning a statewide technical assistance strategy. When asked how Connell chooses schools to be FTF partners, he said he asks “who wants it, who needs it and who is ready for it?” He acknowledged that he is often confronted with schools that are “high on need but low on readiness,” and that readiness is assessed not only at the school but the district level as well.

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