Module IV Race Accountability and The Achievement Gap B

Module IV: Race, Accountability, and the
Achievement Gap (B) (p. 401-421)

From Cases in Public Education Leadership: Managing
School Districts for High Performance
Childress, Elmore, Grossman, Johnson 2007
Frame: Which Leadership Move stands out to

ED8010 J. Gumz
you?
Context: Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
● Borders NW side of Washington, D.C.

● From 1970 to 2005, the population shifted from 95% to 65% white
● 2005-2006 school year:
○ 43% African American and Hispanic students
○ 25% Free and Reduced Lunch
● Module IV (A) describes the beginning of their strategic plan to “seriously address
issues of race and act deliberately to remove institutionalized barriers that
inhibited or discouraged minorities from reaching their full potential” (371).
In this Module IV (B), the MCPS leadership team takes action to target the finding
that “MCPS’s mathematics program had traditionally been viewed as having
institutional barriers that impeded African-Americans and Hispanics” (401).
Leadership Moves - Establish Focus
Leaders:
Deputy Superintendent Frieda Lacey, who is African American, & Superintendent Jerry Weast, who is white
● Goal for ALL:

○ Accelerating math instruction in elementary and middle schools for ALL (ultimate goal of all
students completing Algebra 1 by eighth grade)
● Data Driven Reasoning:
○ Weast’s data showed that “ African-American and Hispanic students enrolled in higher-level
courses scored significantly higher on the SAT,”
○ Minority students succeeding in advanced courses was critical component of closing the
achievement gap” (402).
● Data collect with focus:
○ Collect all advanced math enrollment figures disaggregated by race, starting with elementary
schools.
● Define and Courageous Conversations:
○ Defined “institutional racism”
○ Hurricane Katrina link - Weast and Lacey
○ Weast: “You need to talk about it. You need to have that [conversation] because we are going
to [work] together to destroy institutional barriers that have sorted kids for way too long”
(402)
Institutional Racism p.402
Weast’s definition:
Institutional Racism is the failure to act on
removing institutional barriers that hold students
of a particular race behind….institutional barriers
[are] those policies, procedures, and practices that
do not serve all children equitably.
Weast’s Plan: p. 403
3 Key Components to Closing Overcoming the Achievement Gap
1. Give more African-American and Hispanic students access to high-level

quality and equitable instructions
2. Build the capacity to allow more minority students to participate in

rigorous coursework
3. Develop “can-do belief system of courage, commitment, and productivity”

vs. a “can’t do attitude of complacency, compliance, and inactivity” (403)
Protocols - M-Stat Exhibit 1 p.411
● Inspired by New York Police Department Comstat data-driven
accountability system
● Plan/Do/Study/Act
● “Collectively look at data across schools and work together on crafting
solutions to high-priority issues based on best practices and research”
(403)
● Lacey used framework of M-Stat to brainstorm all possible barriers
the district had in place and the focus of PSAT participation and
Advanced course enrollment was first strategic push
Leadership notes - Mid-Process
● Used protocol and data to help identify barriers and brainstorm
● Use data to create focus and strategic goal
● Lift as focus in executive team meeting for SEVERAL meetings..longitude
commitment
● Note awkwardness, “foster productive environment whereby everyone
felt comfortable to be honest and open to new ideas while …addressing
tough issues related to race”(404)
● Focus targets - are interventions in place targeting the needs of who
needs intervention? Lacey would ask: “What are you doing specifically for
African-American and Hispanic students at schools where the students
are mostly white?”(404)
Lead to School Strategies at more local level
Communication
Incentive
Procedural tactics
Target strategies:
Meet with student individually, meet with related clubs or groups, reaching
out directly to minority-student parents individually
Leadership - Progress Monitoring and Continued Development
● Compiles best practices recommended by successful principals
● Gives recognition to success of certain goal achievement “in the form of
recognition requested by the principal” (405)
● Use HAPIT - Honors/AP Potential Identification Tool

○ Developed Protocol to address push back and excuses
○ Variety of factors:ethnicity, PSAT, grades, course enrollments, past performances on exams
○ Conducted Empath Surveys-
■ Individually met with minority students, developed relationships and coaching
○ Needed to train principals, counselors, resource teachers in HAPIT
○ Led to 92% of African-American students and 63% of identified Hispanic students to at least 1 AP
or Honors course. (60 of 80 minority students)
● School Improvement Targets by race
Shaping Expectations
● Training
○ Facilitated Diversity Training with modules at every level from their Diversity Training Department’s Courageous Conversations
about Race and Communicating High Expectations to Students. These were online modules.
○ Build in Training into the work day - Tier 1 for Adult Learning too
● Communicates progress
○ Showcase high-Achieving minority students in the community to reinforce high expectations and positive images
● Build Capacity in Leadership and Hiring Practices and Recruitment
○ Minority Leadership Recruitment
○ Asked principals and community members to nominate outstanding minorities for potential school leadership opportunities in
the Future Administration Workshop.
○ Use Resources and Coaches
■ School Based Teams worked with a CAP consultant to determine appropriate academic or behavioral interventions
● Sustained Focus on Target / Collaboration
○ Calendar - regularly scheduled to work together on similar issues each month
● Monitoring and providing systems
○ easy to explain to staff what central office expects
○ provide struggling leadership or principals with a framework,
○ but can border on feeling micromanaging
“Forging Ahead” : Weast - p. 409
Path to Achievement “Access + Equity + Rigor = Achievement”
“Forging Ahead”: Another Superintendent p. 409
We need to do three things to help our African-American and Hispanic
Students:
1. Give them access to the most rigorous and most comprehensive classes
2. Provide them with an opportunity to be successful in those classes by
offering adequate support systems
3. And most important, we’ve got to invite the student to be in those classes.
Many students or parents don’t know the maneuverability of the system,
and often times they’re counting on the system to do it for them.
“Forging Ahead”: Lacey p. 410
We have to do a better job at monitoring school data and reinforcing successful
strategies for students who are struggling. When we get positive outcomes, we
need to share that information. We need a formalized, systemic process that
identifies and recognizes schools that are doing a great job. We need to package
best practices to be shared with other schools. This means we must continue to
disaggregate the data. And we need to strengthen the message that it’s OK to have
specific strategies in place for underperforming minority students.
The biggest challenge is making sure that people have high expectations for all
students. The one thing that I really think makes a difference in changing
expectations is data. We have to keep showing performance results from
successful schools to those individuals who just don’t get it.
Interactive: Forging Ahead and Exhibits / Artifacts
1. Re-read the three different quotes from leaders from “Forging Ahead” slides (Weast,
Another Superintendent, and Lacey). Which one resonates with you? What is your
take-away from each of their messages?
Break-Out
2. Look at the 9 Artifacts and Exhibits on pages 411-421 Room
a. Which one stands out to you? What makes you say that?
b. Which Artifacts connect to the messages you most gravitated towards in the “Forging Ahead Quotes”?
3. What is a “target” group or need in your current work (building, district, classroom)?
What interventions currently address that group or target, specifically? How will you
“forge ahead”?
Leadership moves for Race, Accountability, and the Achievement Gap
Drive Strategy to specifically address
● Establish Focus your target group
● Define and Drive Courageous Conversations and build capacity
● Establish Protocols
● Mid Process Support - Acknowledge Awkwardness and build capacity
● Allow Local Level Implementation while Progress Monitoring and Continued Development
● Shaping Expectations
● “Forging Ahead”

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Module IV: Race, Accountability, and the

Achievement Gap (B) (p. 401-421)

Frame: Which Leadership Move stands out to

● Borders NW side of Washington, D.C.

● Goal for ALL:

1. Give more African-American and Hispanic students access to high-level

2. Build the capacity to allow more minority students to participate in

3. Develop “can-do belief system of courage, commitment, and productivity”

● Use HAPIT - Honors/AP Potential Identiﬁcation Tool

● Deﬁne and Drive Courageous Conversations and build capacity

● Mid Process Support - Acknowledge Awkwardness and build capacity

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