Align resources with coherent improvement goals and engage constructively with the school system¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The report's third and fourth lessons: "adequate and sustained financial support for school improvement is essential, but as important is how that money is spent. Money appears to be a necessary but insufficient resource." Also important are "intellectual, social, and political resources that build upon and extend a school's existing resources," aligned with coherent goals and plans, and "constructive interaction with and engagement of the school system," since conflicts among reform initiatives and system policies pose implementation problems.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Sustained financial support plus intellectual, social, and political resources
• Coherent goals and plans to which resources are aligned

Constraints¶

• The report notes school improvement "requires hard and sustained work over long periods of time" and warns against giving up prematurely on potentially effective reforms

Target Learners¶

• elementary school students in urban public schools

Target Learning Goals¶

• school improvement supporting student learning

Related Strategies¶

• Provide external partners with adequate, sustained financial resources proportionate to their school-improvement scope
• Concentrate greater resources on a smaller number of schools selected partly for implementation capacity
• Provide well-researched maps of change to guide local initiative, alongside pluralism and self-determinism

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Smylie, M. A., Wenzel, S. A., with Allensworth, E., Fendt, C., Hallman, S., Luppescu, S., & Nagaoka, J. (2003). The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: Successes, Failures, and Lessons for the Future. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED