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| PART II |

Understanding What Equity and Excellence Schools Do Differently

After visiting all the equity and excellence schools, my colleagues and I noticed profound differences between the assessment and instructional practices of these schools and those of low-achieving schools (Reeves, 2004). This section presents seven different teaching practices equity and excellence schools incorporate to improve student achievement. This is not a recipe for success, or a cookie-cutter set of programs. Rather, the following chapters describe the specific practices that distinguish successful high-poverty schools from their well-intentioned but less successful counterparts.

These findings have been surprisingly robust over time, clearly separating transient fads and programs from practices that have enduring value. Of the seven practices described in these chapters, only the focus on professional learning communities is new. While the original research considered the value of collaboration, the latest and best evidence on learning communities suggests the value of a more intentional structure for effective collaboration (see a wide variety of specific examples of the impact of the Professional Learning Communities at Work® process at the noncommercial website, AllThingsPLC.info). It is no accident that the number of these suggestions is small. In contrast to school improvement plans I have seen with scores of priorities—I’ve reviewed school plans with more than seventy priorities and district plans with more than two hundred priorities and programs—these seven key ideas correspond to the value of focus that my large-scale quantitative study suggested (Reeves, 2011a). Moreover, this emphasis on focus is consistent with recent global observations from author, speaker, and educational consultant Michael Fullan (2016).

Chapters 3 through 9 each discuss one of the following recommended practices.

1. Organize their school or district as a professional learning community.

2. Display a laser-like focus on student achievement.

3. Conduct collaborative scoring.

4. Emphasize nonfiction writing.

5. Utilize frequent formative assessment with multiple opportunities for success.

6. Perform constructive data analysis.

7. Engage in cross-disciplinary units of instruction.

Each chapter includes specific observations useful for readers seeking to translate theory into practice.