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The Broad Prize Framework for School District Excellence

New York City Department of Education

Curriculum

Aligning Curriculum to Standards – New York City Department of Education

These tools show how The New York City Department of Education approaches the challenge of aligning schools’ curricula with the state standards. The goal is to align the curriculum both at the macro level—via pacing guides that map out all the content that needs to be covered—and at the micro level, via lesson planning tools that reflect state standards.

1 – Pacing Guide - Math - Grade 5 Lays out scope-and-sequence of math content for fifth-graders. Often called a “pacing guide” in other districts.
What to Notice In New York City, the planning guides are color-coded for easy visual identification—fifth grade is blue. On the first page, the district emphasizes a number of recurring themes that tie the content together and can help a teacher create the desired “math workshop” environment. The guide itself links the school calendar to content in the district’s off-the-shelf curriculum, which is aligned to the state standards. A section for notes allows a teacher to use the document as an interactive tool.	Questions to Ask How did the district develop the planning guide? Who was involved and how long did it take? How widely is the guide distributed? Are teachers given any training in how to use it? What kinds of feedback from teachers has the district collected? Do teachers find the document useful? Do teachers across the district use the guide in a consistent manner? Do teacher have the flexibility to deviate from the scope and sequence? If so, under what circumstances? How was the mathematics curriculum selected? How does the curriculum’s focus on the creation of a “math workshop” mesh with the state standards? How often are these scope and sequence guides reviewed?
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2 – Lesson Design Questions Offers questions that can help refine and improve lesson plans. For use by principals, coaches and other instructional leaders.
What to Notice Coaches and administrators can use these questions to improve the rigor of teachers’ lesson-planning process. Notice that the document ties individual lesson plans to the overall structure of the curriculum and the lessons that have come before. The document specifically encourages teachers to consider students’ previous knowledge and difficulties with prior content.	Questions to Ask How did the district develop this tool? How widespread is its use? Do coaches and administrators feel that it has been helpful?
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3 – Lesson Plan - Art Places specific art activity in the context of New York City and New York State standards.
What to Notice The lesson plan template begins with an overview and purpose, including a direct link to the New York State standards and New York City’s Blueprint Art Strands. The tool provides teachers with a sequential plan that moves from objective setting through closure. Materials and other resources are listed.	Questions to Ask Is this template used solely in art classes, or also in other subjects? How widely is it used? How was the tool developed? Who was involved in the process? Has the tool been revised to reflect feedback from classroom teachers?
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Instruction

Intervening With Struggling Students – New York City Department of Education

The New York City Department of Education has launched an aggressive intervention plan for students struggling with literacy. New York City’s plan provides for: (1) a hierarchy of interventions, targeted to the needs of the child; (2) a school-based approach which allows individual schools to purchase the intervention products best suited for their students and program; and (3) support from district “intervention liaisons.”

1 – Elementary School Intervention Toolbox Outlines interventions available to help teachers and principals intervene with students struggling with literacy.
What to Notice The first page provides a clear, concise overview of the district’s new intervention initiative. Note that the initiative gives local principals and teachers the discretion to select the intervention products which are best for their students. District intervention liaisons are available to help determine which programs are best suited to which students. The attached table provides a detailed list of intervention products, grouped by the set of literacy skills promoted by the product. Note that the table provides suggestions for literacy assessments, mapped to instructional programs and software packages.	Questions to Ask How many intervention liaisons does the district employ? How many schools are they responsible for? And how is their effectiveness measured? What training do they receive? How will the district judge the success of the new intervention initiative? What changes do they expect in state assessment data? Do they disaggregate the assessment results? How is the Toolbox document distributed? Did principals and teachers receive any required training on the district’s new intervention initiative? How else did the district communicate the importance of the initiative to school-site educators?
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2 – Literacy Intervention Pyramid Complements the more detailed Toolbox (see above), ranking selected intervention programs by their relative intensity.
What to Notice In comparison to the Toolbox document, which focuses on the skill sets targeted by intervention programs, this visual aid ranks common intervention programs by their relative intensity, giving teachers and principals more information that can help them target programs to the appropriate students.	Questions to Ask How widely is this table distributed? Is it used as a part of a training program? Are there tools for skills other than literacy? How is the intensiveness of an intervention determined? Are the district intervention liaisons readily available to help interpret the tool and assist educators with the selection of intervention programs?
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District Governance

Setting and Implementing Board Policy – New York City Department of Education

In 2002, the New York state legislature changed the law regarding the make-up of New York City’s board of education. As a result, eight of the 13 members of the board are appointed by the mayor, rather than being elected by popular vote, and the remaining five members are appointed by the city’s borough presidents. New York’s new board—now known as the Panel for Educational Policy—is responsible for setting educational policy consistent with the mayor’s reform objectives.

1 – Bylaws for the Panel for Educational Policy Sets forth rules by which the panel conducts official business and sets district policy.
What to Notice The document defines what the panel is responsible for and how it will conduct business. Notice that the chancellor of the school system functions as the chairperson of the panel. The document also outlines a specific role for student advisory members. Section 1.2 describes the responsibilities of the panel as a whole and of individual members. The overriding focus is on policy-setting, meaning that panel members are expected to avoid getting into the day-to-day management of the district.	Questions to Ask What are the advantages and disadvantages of an appointed board of education? Why did New York move to this model? How has it changed district governance? What does it mean to “set policy” for the district? How does a board member know where the line is between policy-setting and micromanagement? What does it mean for the chancellor of the school system—equivalent to a superintendent—to be the chairperson of the board? Does the board have a role in the appointment of a new chancellor?
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2 – New Promotion Policy Describes significant changes to New York’s approach to student promotion for the third, fifth and seventh grades.
What to Notice Issued from the chancellor’s office, this document officially changes the district’s policy on student promotion. The district decided to end the practice of “social promotion,” under which students would move up in grade level, even if they had not mastered the content of their original grade level. As this document says on the first page, students must now “meet or exceed the New York City promotion standard in order to advance to the next grade.” On the second page, in the abstract, the chancellor ties this new policy to the district’s strategic plan—Children First—as well as the state’s standards-and-assessment movement. The document clearly identifies the responsibilities of different stakeholders—including the chancellor, district staff principals and teachers. It also identifies specifically which students the promotion policy applies to. At the back of the document, the chancellor offers several tables which redefine the promotion standard.	Questions to Ask Why did New York decide to end “social promotion”? What kind of process did the district use to make this major decision? What kind of opposition did the district receive? What PR strategy did the district use in order to overcome opposition? What role did the Panel for Educational Policy play in the discussion and drafting of the document? How did promotion rates change after implementation of the new policy?
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3 – Administration Manual - Grade 3 Promotions Appeals Describes process for student promotion appeals, including description of evidence and criteria used to determine student’s readiness for promotion.
What to Notice The document re-states the district’s promotion policy and the thinking behind it. Students have multiple options for demonstrating proficiency to ensure that a student’s poor performance is not format-specific, as described on page two. Specific action steps are described for each of the summer months. Notice page seven, which describes specific evidence and benchmarks that can be used to evaluate student’s on each of the assessment options. Page eight identifies specific action steps for implementation of the process in a given school.	Questions to Ask How does a manual like this complement a document like the chancellor’s memo above? How is the manual distributed? Who is responsible for leading the implementation at the school site? What training do they receive? Who initiates a promotion appeal? What percentage of appeals are won/lost?
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Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning – New York City Department of Education

When Michael Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York City, he made school reform a key priority of his administration, hiring former U.S. assistant attorney general and Fortune 500 executive Joel Klein to lead the nation’s largest school system serving over 1 million students. In the early years of his tenure, Chancellor Klein launched an aggressive effort to engage the community in the creation of a strategic plan to transform the district and improve student achievement. Hiring a significant amount of new talent from outside the district and engaging teams of consultants to provide targeted support, Chancellor Klein sparked the process that would lead to the development of the Children First reform plan.

1 – Children First Overview Describes the history and components of the district’s strategic plan, called Children First.
What to Notice The document starts with a dramatic quote from the mayor of New York, identifying leadership, empowerment and accountability as the three pillars of the district’s reform plan. And—in big bold letters—the district identifies student achievement as the overriding focus. Notice that Bloomberg and Klein thought of their plan in two phases: (1) bringing stability to the system, and (2) empowering principals and holding them accountable for school results.	Questions to Ask How long did the strategic planning process take? What kind of resources were required, both from within the district and from outside the district? How did the district ensure community involvement? What kinds of resistance did Klein and his team face, as outsiders? How did they overcome these obstacles? Who were their allies in the reform process? What major top-down reforms did Klein and his team implement? How were these received? Did these reforms conflict with the district’s goal of giving principals more autonomy and more accountability? What was the district’s approach to parent involvement, student promotion and budgetary flexibility? How did Klein and his team make changes in these areas?
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2 – Comprehensive Educational Planning Process Describes the strategic planning process for regional districts—of which there are 12 in New York—and individual schools.
What to Notice Pages one through three describe how regional districts in New York City create their comprehensive educational plans (CEPs), which set measurable goals for improving student achievement and tie budgetary spending to these goals. Notice that the process is focused on making instructional adjustments that will lead to measurable changes in student achievement. Pages four and five provide a similar overview of the planning process at individual schools. The School Leadership Team—made up of administrators, teachers, staff and parents—is responsible for using a data-driven approach to setting strategic goals for the school.	Questions to Ask How does New York City link the overall Children First plan to the comprehensive educational plans of regional districts and schools? Are local educators encouraged to reference Children First in their plans? Are these plans living documents? Are the major components of the plan shared with teachers and staff? Are the plans revisited throughout the year?
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3 – School Improvement Plan - Elementary Lays out academic goals and action plans for an elementary school’s 10 academic goals. Forms the core of the school’s Comprehensive Educational Plan (CEP).
What to Notice The school improvement plan for an elementary school includes 10 school goals, six of which are focused on literacy and four of which are focused on mathematics. Separate goals address the performance of general education students, special education students and ELL students. Each goal starts with a measurable objective and then lists strategies to address the objective, including revenue sources, time devoted to the goal and accountable parties.	Questions to Ask Who is involved in the goal setting process? How widely are the goals known among teachers, parents, and students? How does the district communicate this information? How often does the school revisit its goals? Does the conversation start with the district’s Children First goals? At the district level, who collects and reviews the school’s improvement plan? What kind of coaching and support does the school receive?
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Performance and Accountability

Measuring District Performance Against Benchmarks – New York City Department of Education

Many high-performing districts are data-driven, meaning that they collect and analyze student achievement data to identify opportunities to improve instruction. One component of a data-driven strategy is internal benchmarking, comparing the relative performance of schools or classrooms within the district. Another important component—reflected in these documents from the New York City Department of Education—is external benchmarking, which allows district staff to compare the district’s performance to other districts in order to identify areas of strength or opportunities for improvement.

1 – Graduation Rates Compares the district’s graduation rate for high school students to two external benchmarks.
What to Notice As a district with over one million enrolled students and a high degree of poverty, the New York school system might regard itself as a unique entity, incomparable to other local districts. But this document shows that the district takes external benchmarking seriously. Here they compare their performance on graduation rates to two different benchmarks: (1) the Big 4, which consists of the other four large urban districts in New York State, and (2) the rest of the state. Notice that, even with significant gains in recent years, New York City’s graduation rate is still less than 60 percent.	Questions to Ask How does New York City calculate graduation rates? Does it capture the full population of potential students? Or does it undercount them? How confident is the district in the accuracy of the numbers? Where does New York City get the state-wide data? Who is responsible for collecting the data, analyzing it, and creating external benchmarking reports? Is there a specific department that is assigned this function by the chancellor? What kinds of initiatives or changes might grow out of this type of analysis? How does New York City use this information to improve the lives of students?
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2 – District’s Performance on State Math Assessments Compares the district’s performance on the state math assessment to external benchmarks in the state.
What to Notice Like the previous document, this presentation compares New York City’s performance to a series of benchmarks within the state. Specifically, it looks at performance on the state math assessment, comparing the New York City schools to the Big 4 (other urban districts in the state), the rest of the state, and the rest of the state with New York City taken out. Notice that, because New York City is so large, the statewide numbers are heavily influenced by the performance of the district. In order to make a better comparison, they subtract New York City from the state numbers.	Questions to Ask What is the “best” external benchmark for the New York City schools? If you were the superintendent, which comparison would you value most? How does New York City compare to other urban districts in their state? What do you think accounts for the difference? Where does New York City get the state-wide data? Who is responsible for collecting the data, analyzing it, and creating external benchmarking reports? Is there a specific department that is assigned this function by the chancellor? What kinds of initiatives or changes might grow out of this type of analysis? How does New York City use this information to improve the lives of students?
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Setting School Performance Goals – New York City Department of Education

The New York City Department of Education places a strong emphasis on goal-setting, for both principals and schools. Intervention processes are designed to help turnaround schools that are chronically failing or simply struggling.

1 – Developing a School-Wide Action Plan Leads school leaders through a process for developing a school action plan to improve student achievement.
What to Notice The tool starts with “areas in need of strengthening” and then maps strategies, resources and benchmarks to these critical areas. The end goal is, of course, evidence that student performance on state and district assessments is improving.	Questions to Ask What is the office of academic intervention services? How is this office staffed? And how many staff members are available to work directly with struggling schools? How are school-site team members identified? What is the typical make-up of an ASA team? What training do district staff members and school-site personnel receive in how to use the tool effectively? How often does a school-site team revisit the tool and progress made?
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2 – Sample Letters to Principals Re: Goal Setting Provides regional district staff with template letters regarding academic goal setting to be sent to principals three times a year.
What to Notice New York has built its Principal Performance Review (PPR) system around goals set by the principals themselves. The primary area of focus is instructional leadership, as evidenced by improvements in student achievement data. Principals also set goals in the following areas: organizational leadership, professional development and community relations. Notice that the first letter is sent to principals in early October, to ensure that goals are set as early as possible in the year. The midyear letter is generally positive and encouraging, but the regional superintendent uses this opportunity to focus the principal –once again–on specific goals that may need more attention before the end of the year. The final letter of the year is even more positive, starting with recognition of the principal’s accomplishments, but also including a preliminary list of possible improvement goals for the following year.	Questions to Ask What are the advantages of encouraging principals to take the lead in setting the goals upon which they will be evaluated? What are the challenges of this approach? When should the goal-setting process start? How specific should the goals be? How much are these template letters personalized? What is the most effective mix of encouragement, recognition of past accomplishments and identification of areas for potential improvement? What would the personalized letter look like for a chronically underperforming principal? For a first-year principal who struggled quite a bit, but who showed promise? For a veteran principal whose school had not shown much improvement over the past few years?
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3 – Interventions in Low-Performing Schools Describes full range of New York City’s programs to turn around failing schools.
What to Notice New York City places its intervention strategies within the context of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, as well as state efforts to implement standards and assessments. To address the problem of chronically failing schools, the district has developed a coordinated restructuring plan which includes school redesigns, closures, openings and the formation of “small learning communities” within larger schools. In addition, the office of school improvement and restructuring (OSIR) offers intensive support and coaching for struggling schools in need of assistance. Professional development and additional financial resources are specifically targeted to schools in the midst of a turnaround. A final section specifically addresses NCLB issues.	Questions to Ask How is a school judged to be failing and in need of restructuring? What is a school redesign? How radical are the changes? And who is primarily responsible for turning the school’s performance around? What qualities does the district seek in a principal to be placed into one of these schools? How large is the OSIR, and how many employees are available to assist schools? What kind of background do these “turnaround specialists” have?
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Organizational Structures and Management

Opening New Schools – New York City Department of Education

A critical piece of New York City’s reform plan consists of opening new schools—including many charter schools—to replace failing schools, especially those in which the performance of poor, minority students has been stagnant for decades.

1 – New Schools Initiative Presentation This presentation outlines the district’s strategy to open new schools as one component of the Children First plan to improve student achievement.
What to Notice The first two pages of this presentation focus on how the New Schools Initiative ties directly to the district’s strategic plan to improve student achievement, called Children First. Notice that the specific goal is to open small secondary schools and that the schools are meant to target “underserved” students. Later, on pages 14 through 18, the presentation compares the enrollment of the new schools to the enrollment of the existing schools, looking for evidence that certain underserved populations are well-represented in the new schools (including ethnic minorities, ELL students, and special ed students). Pages four through six focus on one critical objective of the new schools: improving graduation rates. In the existing schools, graduation rates languished below 50 percent, and the new schools show graduation rates that range from 58 percent to 96 percent. Pages seven through 12 focus on New York City’s process for opening new schools. Notice that the district ramped up its efforts in the first three years, building up to 2004 when they opened 70 new schools. Also notice on page 10 the variety of community partners that the district is working with to open new schools.	Questions to Ask Why did the district decide to focus on opening new schools for secondary students? Is there a similar plan to open new elementary schools? In addition to graduation rates, how does the district measure the success of new schools? What kinds of data does the district collect from new schools, and how is that data analyzed and distributed? What happens to a new school that fails to hit minimum performance targets? What kind of organization did the district need in order to open 70 new schools in one year? Who did they hire to lead the effort, and what kind of background did he/she have? How many employees are in the department? How do they support the development of new schools, both charters and non-charters? Are parents free to choose which school their child attends? How many options does a typical parent have? And how does the district help parents make good choices?
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