Solid evidence shows that school improvement can be achieved by implementing practical strategies, according to Douglas Reeves. Reeves shared his experience and research with educators gathered at the fourth annual Education Leadership Conference (ELC), emphasizing that his presentation would include evidence-based, achievable practices, not “super-teacher success stories.” 

The ELC is an event sponsored by Dover-based Measured Progress as a way to encourage dialogue between education leaders of all kinds. Superintendents, teachers, principals, directors of professional development, testing and assessment directors, curriculum coordinators, directors of special education and other education leaders gathered on May 11 and 12 in Wakefield, Massachusetts, to address the conference’s central theme: “Taking the Lead: Assessment Literacy for School Improvement.” 

Reeves is the founder and chief executive officer of the Center for Performance Assessment, an organization dedicated to improving student achievement and educational equity. He is the author of many articles and more than twenty books, including The Learning Leader: How to Focus School Improvement for Better Results and the best-selling Making Standards Work: How to Implement Standards-Based Assessments in the Classroom, School and District.  

Reeves’s message aligned with Measured Progress’s commitment to help every student succeed. During his presentation, Reeves paused to read from a poster displaying the Measured Progress motto—It’s all about student learning. Period. “I love this,” he said, “because this is what successful schools say.” 

Reeves began his address by presenting previous research and “brutal facts” about what is happening in America’s schools. He pointed out that high-quality teachers, one of our nation’s most important resources, are unfairly distributed; teachers with the most experience are found less often in schools with high minority or poverty rates. 

He cited another troubling trend: the increasing gap between grades and exam results. Grades are frequently unrelated to achievement, he said, because students, especially minorities and females, receive high grades for “quiet compliance.” And so, the result is that some students get A’s in class but are unable to pass basic reading and math tests. 

“The nation is over-tested,” Reeves said. “We are under-assessed.” He argued that testing without immediate feedback is an “academic autopsy,” asking the audience if they’d ever seen an autopsy patient get better. He said that testing should be a way of improving performance immediately, providing feedback for learning. The schools with the greatest gains, Reeves observed, tend to offer frequent, collaboratively scored assessments. These schools also incorporate consistent in-school writing assessments for every subject and they use data constructively.  

Reeves presented several other ways that schools can bring about positive change. He noted that many schools are emphasizing fiction writing, at the expense of non-fiction. Reversing this trend, he said, can improve writing skills as well as overall performance. Reeves also offered professional learning communities, in which educators work together to evaluate student work, as a means of improving schools. 

Another practice Reeves advocates is offering students multiple opportunities for success. He stressed that the penalty students face for not doing their work should not be a “zero.” The penalty, he said, should be doing the work. He provided several practical applications of this idea. In one school Reeves described, students who did not turn in assignments were giving same-day, after-school detention, during which they were required to complete their work. Another school gave students who had not finished all course requirements a month in which to complete their missing assignments. These schools significantly decreased their course failure rates. 

Reeves went on to emphasize that reforms cannot be successful until schools and districts discard hierarchical change models, which he described as flawed because they do not take real networks into account. Hierarchical, reform models assume that connections are made from the top down, but this is seldom the case, Reeves said. 

To illustrate this point, he asked the audience where they would seek help if they were having a problem with their computer. Out of five respondents, only one replied that she would ask her school’s IT department. Reeves used this example to introduce a realistic model for school reform—“finding Jill.” 

Reeves described the “Jills” of any organization as the people who “know a lot about a lot of things.” They are the people most others seek out when they need help or have a question, but they are seldom in the hierarchy and they are usually anonymous. To successfully implement a change model, he suggested that districts find their “Jills” and leverage their knowledge and skills. 

Reeves also described Jill’s “evil twin,” Jack, the “competent jerk.” Jacks may be as knowledgeable as Jills, but people avoid the Jacks in their organization because they have an impact that is very similar to harassment. 

Reeves then gave his audience a chance to write down their own questions, challenges and success stories, which he collected. He spent the remainder of his address answering questions and discussing comments. Many educators were able to relate the idea of “Jacks” and “Jills” to their own experience; some attendees requested further information on how to find Jills and deal with Jacks. 

Other discussion centered on classroom assessment. Reeves asserted that teacher assessment literacy, including assessment creation, remains essential. He demonstrated the shortcomings in accountability systems that rely entirely on assessments designed to measure only whether students are crossing a single proficiency threshold. Students need to know why they are getting the results they get, he said, because, “If I don’t know why I’m losing the game, I won’t continue to play.” 

Reeves also discussed the importance of having an inter-grade dialogue and giving every teacher a multiple-year perspective. He observed, “You can’t do high school reform if you don’t include middle-school colleagues.” Reeves stressed that reform is possible, despite many challenges. He asserted that “when someone says that schools can’t close the equity gap, they are wrong.” Demographics, he said, are important, but not definitive. 

Reeves concluded his presentation with two remarks.  He encouraged participants to e-mail him, telling the audience that “this is not the end of our conversation.” And, he told the gathered educators, “for every kid who’s never said it, ‘thank you.’”