Overloaded and Underprepared

Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids

Denise Pope, Maureen Brown, Sarah Miles

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781119022442
• eBook ISBN: 9781119022466
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

Praise for Overloaded and Underprepared

"Parents, teachers, and administrators are all concerned that America's kids are stressed out, checked out, or both—but many have no idea where to begin when it comes to solving the problem. That's why the work of Challenge Success is so urgent. It has created a model for creating change in our schools that is based on research and solid foundational principles like communication, creativity, and compassion. If your community wants to build better schools and a brighter future, this book is the place to start."
—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind

"Challenge Success synthesizes the research on effective school practices and offers concrete tools and strategies that educators and parents can use immediately to make a difference in their communities. By focusing on the day-to-day necessities of a healthy schedule; an engaging, personalized, and rigorous curriculum; and a caring climate, this book is an invaluable resource for school leaders, teachers, parents, and students to help them design learning communities where every student feels a sense of belonging, purpose, and motivation to learn the skills necessary to succeed now and in the future."
—Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education, Stanford University

"Finally, a book about education and student well-being that is both research-based and eminently readable. With all the worry about student stress and academic engagement, Pope, Brown and Miles gently remind us that there is much we already know about how to create better schools and healthier kids. Citing evidence-based 'best practices' gleaned from years of work with schools across the country, they show us what is not working, but more importantly, what we need to do to fix things. Filled with practical suggestions and exercises that can be implemented easily, as well as advice on how to approach long-term change, Overloaded and Underprepared is a clear and compelling roadmap for teachers, school administrators and parents who believe that we owe our children a better education."
—Madeline Levine, co-founder Challenge Success; author of The Price of Privilege and Teach Your Children Well

"This new book from the leaders behind Challenge Successprovides a thorough and balanced exploration of the structural challenges facing students, parents, educators, and administrators in our primary and secondary schools today. The authors' unique approach of sharing proven strategies that enable students to thrive, while recognizing that the most effective solutions are tailored on a school-by-school basis, makes for a valuable handbook for anyone seeking to better understand the many complex dimensions at work in a successful learning environment."
—John J. DeGioia, President of Georgetown University

Chapter One
From Vision to Action: An Overview of the School Change Process

A Cheating Story

Megan was a high-performing student at an academically challenging parochial school—and she was frustrated. Everywhere she looked it seemed like her classmates were cheating. They copied each other's papers, wrote answers on their shoes, and forged notes to get extra time on tests; one student even created a custom water bottle label with test material embedded in it. Megan had never cheated. She wanted to do the right thing, but it felt like she was getting the short end of the stick. Why should everyone else get ahead by cheating, but not her? She couldn't help but think she was in a situation where you had to “cheat or be cheated.” She considered approaching her faculty advisor about what she was observing, but that was complicated. She didn't want to get her friends in trouble, and besides, it seemed like some of the teachers knew what was going on and just looked the other way. So she decided not to do anything, and her frustration continued to build.

Megan wasn't the only one who noticed the cheating problem. A local newspaper ran a story on extensive cheating at her school when some high-profile incidents were leaked to the press. To their credit, the school leaders acknowledged that the school had a problem, and they came to Challenge Success for help. They formed a team of administrators, parents, teachers, and students that began to gather data to learn more about why students were cheating. By interviewing and surveying students and faculty, they learned that kids cheated for a number of reasons, such as having too much work to complete in the time available, feeling pressured to take too many high-level courses or to make a certain grade in a course, perceiving that the teachers didn't care about breaking the rules, and sometimes because they felt the whole system was unfair so cheating didn't really matter. The team collected and reported information on 38 incidents of general cheating, along with 50 incidences of plagiarism during the course of one school year, out of a total student body of approximately 1,600 students.

With data in hand, the team began a school-wide discussion on the importance of integrity. A panel of students spoke candidly to the faculty, sharing what was happening on campus and how concerned they were about the culture emerging at their school. As a result of these conversations, students and teachers together created an honor code to be used with every paper, quiz, test, project, and assessment. They also engaged in a massive educational effort to make sure that all parties—students, parents, faculty, and administrators—understood what this new honor code meant. All stakeholders signed the agreement, showing a commitment to solving the integrity problem together. The school made it clear that the honor code was in place to help students and faculty take responsibility for poor choices, not just to punish cheaters. The academic integrity task force clearly defined cheating practices and created a transparent process for reviewing infractions, including a student-run judicial board. The administration educated teachers on how and when to report violations, and because there was a consistent policy in place, the faculty felt supported in their efforts. In professional development sessions, teachers also learned to develop more “plagiarism-proof” assignments and alternative forms of assessment and to rotate exam materials to reduce the chances of cheating.

Integrity became as important as every other part of the curriculum, and teachers integrated the study of integrity into their subject areas when possible. For example, students were regularly asked to write journal entries on current events reflecting integrity or cheating behavior, and the principal wrote about positive integrity practices each month in her community newsletter. The faculty understood that adolescents make mistakes and that valuable lessons could be learned from a poor choice in order to prevent it from happening again. In parent education sessions, administrators addressed parents' fears of a blemish on their children's permanent record, and parents were coached on a case-by-case basis on how to respond appropriately at home when a student received a judicial infraction.

As a result of a community effort to fairly, transparently, and meaningfully address cheating, the school saw general infractions drop from 38 to 7, and plagiarism incidences drop from 50 to 11 during the next school year. Students and faculty reported feeling proud of their collective efforts to change the culture to one of community trust and integrity (Challenge Success, 2012b). As a result of their work with Challenge Success, the students on the team developed a catchphrase, “Find it, own it, live it.” As one student explained, “Finding what integrity means to you and really owning that definition and living it out in academics, sports, extracurriculars, and even outside of school. This is something that you could apply to any aspect of your life.”

This is just one example of how Challenge Success works with schools to make positive changes. Throughout this book, we will look at a number of examples of different kinds of changes in policy and practice that we think are relevant to schools nationwide. By sharing success stories and lessons learned, we hope to help educators consider the challenges their own schools are facing and how best to address the problems by creating an action plan for change. The next section describes the typical stages of this change process.

How Does This Work? Principles for Change

Our concept is straightforward: we believe that effective school change happens when all stakeholders—administrators, faculty, parents, counselors, and students—come together to identify problems and work on solutions. This is not a revolutionary concept, but how often have we seen reform efforts superimposed on schools with little student or teacher voice or input, and how often have we watched them fail? School reform experts agree: When schools work with a team of stakeholders in a focused way, they can make real progress toward improving policies and practice (Barth, 1991; for review, see Desimone, 2002).

At Challenge Success, we partner with suburban and urban public, charter, parochial, and independent schools. Schools involved in our program send full teams to attend an intensive conference in the fall, where they identify problems to be addressed at their school sites. In some cases, teams have a pretty good sense of what needs to be worked on when they arrive; in others, predetermined ideas are turned on their heads based on discussions and workshops at the conference. Our process allows schools to take the time to determine the root causes of student stress and disengagement at their particular site, and then we help the school design an individualized school plan for changes during the year to increase student engagement and well-being. We provide each school with a coach, who guides the team through this process every step of the way. This team-based, site-specific approach is key, and the coach helps to make sure schools stay on track and don't lose focus throughout the year. The coach serves as a primary facilitator and liaison who shares research-based approaches and best practices and helps schools to select and implement these at their sites. Finally, teams reconvene each spring to problem-solve challenges with other schools and to celebrate success stories. Many schools admit that without the helpful prodding from an experienced coach and without the built-in accountability that comes with attending the spring conference, they might not have made as much progress throughout the year.

We don't want “flash in the pan” results at Challenge Success schools; we want changes to stick. Too often schools enact the newest policies or practices du jour without thinking through how these changes fit with long-term goals and other initiatives going on at the school or district level. We know that in order to effect lasting change, several things need to happen: Everyone on the team needs to feel like he or she is a part of the process, and all voices need to be heard. You'd be surprised by how wise a sixth grader can be if you give her a chance to speak her mind. Our successful teams have a common vision for the long term, and they work with us to develop a roadmap to get to where they want to go. Team leaders take what they learn at our conferences back to their broader community to educate more students, teachers, and parents in order to earn their buy-in. When all of this work has been done thoughtfully, we see a culture of collaboration and trust form alongside a willingness to change that frequently doesn't develop with a top-down approach.

The Characteristics of Effective Challenge Success Teams

Since the inception of our project in 2004, we have learned a lot about what makes an effective school team and the general progression that teams go through as they create changes to reduce student stress and increase health and engagement at their school sites. Figure 1.1 presents a visual depiction of typical stages in the process. While the change process varies from school to school based on the unique circumstances and needs of each, we have found some common characteristics of effective teams and the stages most teams go through as they create change.

Figure 1.1 Typical Stages in the Challenge Success Change Process

An effective Challenge Success team has a clear leader or champion and a stable core team that may include the principal or other administrator, one or more teachers, one or more parents, two or more students, and one counselor or psychologist.

This team:

• Attends the Challenge Success fall conference and spring follow-up conference, and meets multiple times with the Challenge Success team coach at the school site.
• Regularly gathers and disseminates information to the school community about student health, engagement, and integrity, and encourages cross-stakeholder dialogue about this information.
• Has an action plan that reflects a vision for change and contains a clear but flexible schedule for moving forward.
• Holds meetings at least quarterly to review and push forward the action plan.
• Involves all stakeholders at each stage of the change process.
• Pilots discreet, incremental changes rather than trying to do too much all at once. Changes are based on the school community's needs and are known from research to improve engagement with learning and student well-being.
• Evaluates results of incremental changes before deciding to institutionalize reforms.
• Attends fall and spring Challenge Success conferences in future years as needed.

Identifying the Problem: Causes of Unhealthy Stress, Pressure, and Disengagement

Frequently school teams confuse symptoms of stress and/or student disinterest in learning with the root causes and sources of pressure at their school. For example, in the case study mentioned earlier, the school reported a widespread cheating problem among students. In theory, there could be several causes for the cheating: the student body could hypothet...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables, Figures, and Exhibits
• Dedication
• About the Authors
• About Challenge Success
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One: From Vision to Action: An Overview of the School Change Process
• Chapter Two: A Saner Schedule
• Chapter Three: The Homework Dilemma
• Chapter Four: Engagement Matters: Backward Planning and Project-Based Learning
• Chapter Five: Authentic and Alternative Assessments
• Chapter Six: The Advanced Placement Program—Benefits and Challenges
• Chapter Seven: Creating a Climate of Care
• Chapter Eight: Educating the Whole School
• Chapter Nine: Keeping Momentum for Positive School Change
• Appendix: Shadow Day, Fishbowls, and Dialogue Nights
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement