Doug Lemov's field notes

My colleague Maggie Johnson has been leading our work with a network of inner city Catholic schools in NYC. We’ve learned a lot and have been plenty inspired.  Maggie shared this update:

We’ve just wrapped our second year of work with Partnership Schools, six pre-K through 8^th grade Catholic schools that serve over 2,000 primarily low-income students in Harlem and the South Bronx—four of which are more than a century old. The City Journal  has dubbed them “a feisty band of educators working to turn Catholic schools in Harlem and the South Bronx into shining examples of student achievement.” And they are just that—a group of exceptionally committed career teachers and leaders able hang with the likes of Pope Francis and dominate the Twittersphere with their drive for a #CatholicSchoolRenaissance that demonstrates the relevance of Catholic education in an era of unapologetic school reform.

 

Since early August, ed news has been abuzz after taking notice of the Partnership’s stunning gains on the 2016 NYS test. If you haven’t heard, here’s a recap of what they’ve achieved:

• At 43% proficiency in ELA, Partnership Schools posted a 16 point gain over their 2014-15 results and a 21 point gain from the 2013-14 school year;
• In math, students scored 45% proficient, a 13 point gain from 2014-15 and a whopping 27 point climb from 2013-2014;
• These outsized gains topped those posted by traditional public and charter schools, both within New York City and across the state
• Perhaps most impressively, they’ve steadily grown the number of students performing at the highest levels and have cut their lowest performing subset of students in half— in only two school years.

 

Their attitude toward building teacher efficacy is inspired by Joan of Arc— who Superintendent Kathleen Porter-Magee invoked at the launch of this year’s summer professional development. “Act and God will act. Work and God will work.” But it’s not just that they are acting and working relentlessly, they are doing so with more intentionality than ever before. One such example is their commitment to developing leaders and teachers, which we’ve been honored to support them in over the last two years. They’ve invested heavily in building the instructional expertise of principals and academic deans at each school, who are tasked with providing both feedback and individualized coaching to teachers, while also performing daily walk-throughs to ensure high quality instruction across the board. Network level math and literacy leaders have worked hard to expand teacher’s mastery of content—knowing that one of the strongest predictors of student achievement is the depth of their teacher’s content knowledge. And with that, building out the repertoire of strategies teachers use to engage students deeply in their lessons.

To that end, we were excited to host an Engaging Academics workshop at the end of August for new and returning teachers—many of whom opted in voluntarily, sacrificing hard-earned summer vacation. Over two days, we studied and practiced a few of our most beloved techniques: Wait Time, Cold Call, Everybody Writes, and Check for Understanding. School leaders practiced alongside their teachers—getting better is a family affair at Partnership Schools. Not only were participants serious about improving the nuances of their technique, they also spent time planning with their own lesson materials to ensure these techniques would make their way back into classrooms. Participants left with a common vocabulary and a set of concrete tools to increase the amount of cognitive work students do in their classrooms and the amount of students doing it.

The following week teachers attended a variety of different TLaC sessions focused on establishing strong student behavior and classroom culture.  Hilary and I were lucky enough to facilitate alongside Partnership’s own Stephanie Becker for 100%, and also observe Meghan Faughnan and Dominic Fanelli (pictured below) lead the Systems and Routines Plug and Play. Watching them in action was inspiring and it was a delight to see them put their own spin on TLaC. Moreover, it was thrilling once again to see the Partnership build their own capacity and expertise to lead TLaC work at their schools.

 

 

We are so grateful and eager to continue our work with Partnership Schools this year! Their ethos and energy is infectious, and reminds us just how important it is to bring joy to the hard and important work of teaching. We look forward to another inspiring year ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

Kathleen Porter-Magee, Partnership Schools, Partnership Schools; Kathleen Porter-Magee