Rethinking The Allocation Of Teaching Resources: … the Allocation of Teaching Resources 31 Rethinking The Allocation Of Teaching Resources: Some Lessons From High …

Rethinking the Allocation of Teaching Resources

31

Rethinking The Allocation OfTeaching Resources: Some Lessons From

High Performing Schools

Karen Hawley Miles andLinda Darling-Hammond

About the AuthorsKaren Hawley Miles is a nationally recognized

and published student of strategic planning in pub-lic schools and of district and school resource allo-cation. Her focus is how to rethink the use of re-sources to improve instruction. She has spent thelast 7 years working with school districts to rethinkthe use of resources and the organization of schoolsand she has worked to design school change andplanning processes in several urban districts. Shecurrently works with New American Schools Cor-poration to create and implement "break the mold"designs for public schools. She co-directed the re-cent study by the Economic Policy Institute, WhereHas the Money Gone?, an analysis of the componentsof school spending over time. Prior to this, sheworked at Bain and Company as a Strategy andManagement consultant for hospitals and corpora-tions. She has a B.A. in Economics from Yale Uni-versity and a Doctorate in Education from HarvardUniversity, specializing in school organization,change, and finance.

Linda Darling-Hammond is currently WilliamF. Russel Professor in the Foundations of Educationat Teachers College, Columbia University where sheis also co-director of the National Center for Restruc-turing Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST)and Executive Director of the National Commissionon Teaching and America's Future. She is activelyengaged in research, teaching, and policy work onissues of school restructuring, teacher education re-form, and the enhancement of educational equity.

This paper was originally published and sup-ported by the Consortium for Policy Research inEducation (CPRE). The work was funded by theNational Institute on Educational Governance, Fi-nance, Policymaking and Management, Office ofEducational Research and Improvement, U.S. De-partment of Education, grant number R308A60003.


33

.IntroductionSchool reform proposals aimed at improving

student achievement range from developing newstandards and curriculum to personalizing student-teacher relationships and increasing time for teach-er planning and learning. Research over the last 30years has indicated that student achievement ishigher, dropout rates are lower, and student affectand behavior are better in schools where studentsare well-known to their teachers (for reviews seeDarling-Hammond, 1997; Braddock andMcPartland, 1993; Lee, Bryk, and Smith, 1993).These findings have emerged from studies of schoolsize, class size, and school organization. In terms ofstructural variables other than size, two critical con-ditions concern reduced tracking or curriculum dif-ferentiation and greater opportunity for students towork intensely with a smaller number of teachersover longer periods of time (Gottfredson and Daiger,1979; Lee, Bryk, and Smith, 1993; Lee and Smith,1994, 1995). Other studies have emerged that docu-ment problems with “pullout” models of instruc-tion that serve students’ needs by assigning themfor brief periods of time to a variety of specialists,each of whom is supposed to treat one “problem”independent of the others (Commission on Chapter1, 1992; Soo Hoo, 1990).

Meanwhile, reformers continually note thatteachers need substantial time together in order tocreate new practices and engage in shared problem

solving (see, for example, Darling-Hammond, 1997;Little, 1993; Sizer, 1992). Studies of teacher devel-opment in other countries, notably China and Ja-pan, point out how teachers become more proficientfrom continually working on curriculum, demon-stration lessons, and assessments together (NationalCommission on Teaching and America’s Future,1996; Stigler and Stevenson, 1991). The new cur-riculum reforms in the United States require sub-stantial teacher learning which is, ideally, content-based and collaboratively pursued in tight connec-tion to teachers’ ongoing classroom work (Ball andCohen, in press). In an era of belt-tightening andrising student enrollments, finding the resources forthese reforms will require schools to reexamine theuse of every dollar.

Much publicity has surrounded efforts to redi-rect dollars from administrative functions back tothe classrooms. New Jersey’s governor has even re-fused to reimburse district administrative costsabove a fixed percentage that is lower than manydistricts currently spend. However, little attentionhas been given to rethinking the use of existinginstructional resources, especially teachers—schools’ most important and expensive resource.

On the surface it would seem that schools shouldhave the needed resources to create more individualtime for students and increase professional time forteachers. From 1960 to 1992, the number of pupils

Rethinking The Allocation ofTeaching Resources: Some Lessons From

High Performing Schools

Karen Hawley Miles andLinda Darling-Hammond

Developments in School Finance, 1997

34

per teacher dropped from 26 to 17.6. Furthermore,schools employ 1 adult for every 9 students (NCES,1994). Despite these generous ratios, class sizesexceed 25 for most students most of time, studentloads are well over 100 for most teachers in second-ary schools, and teacher planning time is both mini-mal and conducted in isolation from other teachers.The basic structure of schools has remained essen-tially the same across districts and over time, withnew resources added largely around the regularclassroom, rather than into it. And despite recentcalls for “restructuring,” a number of surveys sug-gest that public schools rarely engage in major real-locations of resources (Rettig and Canady, 1993).

How might existing resources be used to per-sonalize student-teacher relationships and provideteachers time to plan and work more closely to-gether? Can these goals be met in ways that alsosupport student learning for all stu-dents, including those with specialneeds? With so few examples of pub-lic schools organized in differentways, there is little empirical re-search on these questions. Further-more, researchers have not had com-mon ways to describe and measuredifferent models. This study aims tobegin to fill these gaps by describ-ing in detail how five schools havereallocated resources while support-ing high levels of student learning.The sample is too small and theschools too unique to claim a causalconnection between their organiza-tional designs and their students’successes.1 However, the schools do demonstratethat it is possible to support student achievement atextraordinarily high levels in contexts that manageinstructional resources to maximize individual at-tention for students and learning time for teachers.

We sought to identify the elements of organiza-tion and resource use that seem most important inthese contexts and to quantify objectively the waysin which these schools use resources differently than

traditional schools. We also aimed to learn fromthese examples about the conditions that facilitateor hinder resource restructuring. Although theschools look very different from one another, theyshare six principles of resource allocation imple-mented in different ways depending on their spe-cific educational goals and strategies. In what fol-lows, we describe their approaches, present a frame-work for examining resource allocation and use, anddevelop a methodology that may be used to mea-sure the extent to which schools use their resourcesin focused ways to support teaching and learning.

Opportunities for FundamentalReallocation of Resources

It is unlikely that schools can find ways to cre-ate more individual time for students or more sharedplanning time for teachers without prohibitively

raising costs, unless they rethinkthe existing reorganization of re-sources. In this article, we focusprimarily on the assignment anduse of teaching staff because it isthe most sizable and the mostunderexplored area for potentialresource reallocation. As we notedabove, pupil teacher ratios havedropped substantially and realexpenditures have nearly doubledover the last 30 years. A recentanalysis of staffing and spendingpatterns from 1967 to 1991 in ninevery different districts across thecountry found that few of the newteaching staff were deployed to re-

duce class sizes for regular education students; mostwent to provide small classes to the growing num-ber of students in special programs and to add amodest amount of time for teachers free from in-struction during the school day (Miles, 1997a, 1997b;Rothstein and Miles, 1995).

As instructional staff have increased, the pro-portion of teachers has declined. Since 1950, theproportion of school staff who are classified as teach-

1 Some large-scale quantitative studies do, however, suggest that student achievement is correlated with school designs thatenable teachers to spend more extended time with smaller numbers of students and that allow teachers to make instructionaldecisions in teams (Gottfredson and Daiger, 1979; Lee, Bryk, and Smith, 1993; Lee and Smith, 1995; Darling-Hammond, 1997).

. . . we focus prima-

rily on the assign-

ment and use of

teaching staff be-

cause it is the most

sizable and the most

underexplored area

for potential resource

reallocation.


35

ers has dropped from 70 percent to 53 percent, notall of whom are classroom teachers. Overall, about43 percent of staff are regularly engaged in class-room teaching (National Commission on Teachingand America’s Future [NCTAF], 1996). By contrast,60 percent to 80 percent of education staff in mostEuropean countries are classroom teachers, enablingmuch greater time for collaborative planning andprofessional development (OECD, 1995).

An analysis of the allocation of teaching re-sources in Boston public schools identified six rea-sons for the gap between potential and reality inU.S. schools (Miles, 1995). Many of these organiza-tional practices are so widespread that Tyack (1994)describes them as the “grammar of schooling” whileSarason (1982) calls them “school regularities.”These practices form the basis of our conceptualframework for understanding and quantifying theuse of teaching resources in bothtraditional and nontraditionalschools. Below we briefly describethe impact of each on the use ofteaching resources.

1. Specialized programs con-ducted as add-ons. In mostschool districts, a large portionof teachers work outside theregular classroom with specialpopulations of students in cat-egorical programs such as spe-cial education, Title 1 compensa-tory education, bilingual educa-tion, remedial education orgifted education. Such programsfor special student populations absorbed 58 per-cent of the new dollars devoted to education from1967 to 1991 (Rothstein and Miles, 1995). Most ofthese programs operate under federal, state, ordistrict regulations and sometimes collective bar-gaining agreements that prescribe how teachersmay be used and students may be grouped. Mostdistricts operate these programs using a“pull-out” model in which students leave theregular classroom for portions of the day for in-

struction in small groups. In 1991, in Boston,teachers in specialized programs working outsidethe regular classroom represented over 40 percentof the teaching force.2 Not only are pull-out strat-egies extremely costly, they also segregate stu-dents in sometimes stigmatizing ways and pro-vide services that are often ineffective due to theirfragmentation and lack of connection to thestudent’s classroom experience. Schools rethink-ing resources will consider how remedial, specialeducation, Title 1 and bilingual education re-sources might work together in an integrated planto benefit all students in “regular education” set-tings.

2. Isolated instruction-free time for teachers. Cur-rently, most school districts provide teachers withshort periods of time free from instruction whileusing other classroom teachers to give instruction

at these times. At the elementarylevel, teachers often have a 45minute duty-free period four or fivetimes a week which is covered byspecialists in art, music, or physicaleducation. In 1991, this represented9 percent of Boston’s elementaryteaching resources. At the second-ary level, a teacher might teach 5 of7 instructional periods, using one forplanning and the other for lunch orduties (monitoring hallways, thelunchroom, or study hall). Otherteachers cover instruction duringthe portion of the student’s instruc-tional day in which the teacher is notteaching. Although secondary

teachers have more preparation time than elemen-tary teachers (about 4 or 5 hours per week as op-posed to 3 hours), the short blocks of individualnon-instructional time do not allow much sub-stantive planning or collaboration. These activi-ties would require longer blocks of uninterruptedtime that is coordinated with other teachers.Schools rethinking their use of resources will con-sider ways of creating longer periods of time forteachers to plan and develop curriculum together.

An analysis of the

allocation of teaching

resources in Boston

public schools identi-

fied six reasons for

the gap between

potential and reality

in U.S. schools . . .

2 A similar analysis quantifies the impact of these practices in three other districts: Fall River, Massachusetts, Middletown, N.Y.,and East Baton Rouge, Louisiana. See Miles 1997a.


36

3. Formula-driven student assignment. In searchof efficiency and standardization, Americanschooling processes have been broken into seg-ments, like grades and tracks, through which stu-dents are expected to move at an even, uniformrate. Districts use formulas to assign students toclassrooms in a regularized fashion by age, sub-ject, and program. These practices are costly, be-cause the uneven allocation of teachers overgrades, small programs and undersubscribedsubjects contributes to unplanned differences inclass size that do not reflect educational strate-gies. These practices may also preclude ap-proaches such as multi-age or multi-ability group-ing that can be more effective when teachers areprepared to engage in them (Anderson andPavan, 1993; Slavin, 1990).

Using formulas to allocate students to classroomsby age can create huge variationin class sizes. For example, Bos-ton public schools cap elementaryclass sizes at 28. When the 29thstudent enters a school with onlyone class in that grade, a newteacher must be added. Thus, theclass size average falls dramati-cally from 28 to 14.5. In 1991,regular elementary class sizes inBoston’s 645 elementary class-rooms varied from 15 to 31. Classsizes could vary by 8 or 9 studentsfrom one grade to another in thesame school. The more separateprograms and subjects a schoolhas, and the more constrained byage grading or tracking practices, the more oftenthis kind of unplanned variation in allocation ofresources occurs. Schools looking to better matchresources to student needs will consider assigningstudents to groups based on educational strate-gies rather than standard classifications. Schoolsmay also strategically vary group sizes and thedaily schedule for particular kinds of lessons orskill work.

4. Fragmented high school schedules and curricu-lum. The problems of age grading are com-pounded in high schools by tracking, scheduleswith large numbers of short periods (typically 45to 50 minutes), and teacher and subject special-

ization. One unfortunate effect of this fragmentedapproach to schooling is its impact on teachers’pupil loads. With five classes of 25 to 30 studentseach, most secondary teachers work with 125 to150 students per day. Reducing teaching loadswithout dramatically increasing costs can be ac-complished by reducing the number of differentgroups teachers teach, either by combining tra-ditionally separate subject areas, lengthening theduration of classes, or having smaller groups ofstudents work intensively with teachers in smallernumbers of subjects, as in universities (Carroll,1994).

5. Large high schools. Secondary schools averagenearly twice the size of elementary schools (NCES,1994), and frequently exceed 2,000 students. Theconventional justification is that larger enroll-ments create economies of scale by distributing

administrative and operating costsand offering a more diverse cur-riculum cost effectively. However,existing research suggests thathigh schools have created more in-ternal specialization and depart-mentalization than can be scientifi-cally justified. Most studies havefound that, all else equal, aboveabout 800 students, larger schoolsproduce lower student achieve-ment and lead to increased alien-ation, higher dropout rates, andlarger numbers of administrativestaff, thereby deflecting resourcesfrom classroom instruction.Furthermore, beyond about 400

students, there are few if any gains in curriculumquality (for reviews, see Lee, Bryk and Smith,1993; Darling-Hammond, 1997).

6. Inflexible teacher work day and job definition.In Boston, like many other cities, the teacher con-tract specifies the required hours of work, start-ing and ending times, and how teachers can beassigned over the day. This makes it difficult tostagger starting times in order to make the bestuse of staff time or to meet student needs morefully. The contract prevented one high schoolfrom changing the work hours of its guidance staffto start and end later in the day so that students’meetings with counselors would not conflict with

Most studies have found

that, all else equal,

above about 800 stu-

dents, larger schools

produce lower student

achievement and lead to

increased alienation,

higher dropout rates,

and larger numbers of

administrative staff . . .


37

their courses. The contract also requires that plan-ning time be spread out over the day; this makesit difficult to combine instruction-free periods tocreate longer, shared blocks of time.

The use of part-time teachers is forbidden if theysubstitute for potential full-time positions. Whileintended to discourage management from substi-tuting lower cost and potentially lower qualityteachers for dedicated full-time ones, this regula-tion limits affordable solutions to coverage for teach-ers’ noninstructional time. One way to create com-mon planning time for groups of teachers, for ex-ample, is to schedule coverage for them by hiring alarger number of part-time specialist teachers dur-ing this time. Finally, rigid definitions of the workday exclude individuals who would be willing towork at times beyond the typical school hours.Schools looking to better match resources to studentand staff needs may want to con-sider the use of highly-skilled staffin part-time positions and on var-ied job schedules.

The strategies observed inschools that have sought to changethese conditions can be describedby six principles of resource reallo-cation:

1. Reduction of specialized pro-grams to provide more indi-vidual time for all in heteroge-neous groups,

2. More flexible student groupingby school professionals,

3. Structures that create more personalized environ-ments,

4. Longer and varied blocks of instructional time,

5. More common planning time for staff, and

6. Creative definition of staff roles and work sched-ules.

These kinds of changes can create opportuni-ties for realigning teaching resources to school goals(Miles, 1995). Our observations in schools suggest,however, that altering any one practice alone may

not free enough resources to significantly change thepossibilities for student or teacher learning.

Study Methods and AnalyticFramework

Sample

To create a sample of schools that could offerinsight into the possibilities and challenges involvedin rethinking the allocation of instructional re-sources, the study sought elementary and second-ary schools that:

1. Had engaged in a significant rethinking of re-sources touching on at least four of the resourceprinciples listed above.

2. Used no significant extra resources above theschool system average per pupil except startup

or training grants.

3. Served a diverse student popu-lation in terms of income, ability,language background, and spe-cial needs.

4. Had used a new model of orga-nization for at least 2 years.

5. Had evidence of strong and im-proving student performance.

To find such schools, we sur-veyed experts involved in reformnetworks nationwide. The fiveschools we selected represent differ-ent educational strategies. Three of

the schools started from scratch with a new designin mind, and had considerable flexibility in hiringstaff and creating programs. The other two schoolsrestructured existing programs and staff. We se-lected three elementary schools and two secondaryschools:

Quebec Heights Elementary School, Cincin-nati, Ohio had, at the time of the study, 500 stu-dents in grades K–6, with 15 percent classified ashaving special education needs and 70 percenteligible for Title 1. Quebec Heights eliminated

Our observations in

schools suggest,

however, that altering

any one practice

alone may not free

enough resources to

significantly change

the possibilities for

student or teacher

learning.


38

age- and program-based instructional groupingand put students in smaller, multi-aged, hetero-geneous groups that remain together for 3 years.The school created reading groups of 8 or smallereach day. Teachers have common planning timeeach day and pursue professional developmentin the school’s priority areas during the schoolday. Cohort analysis of student performance datashows that both special education and regulareducation students have improved faster than theCincinnati average.

The Douglass Elementary School, Memphis,Tennessee had 475 students with 17 percent classi-fied as requiring special education and 88 percentqualifying for Title 1 support. At the time of thestudy, the school was in its third year of implement-ing the “Success for All” program which restruc-tured school resources to allow 90 minutes a day ofreading plus daily individual tutoring for first andsecond graders who did not meet grade level stan-dards. In addition, Douglass was working to inte-grate its special education students and teachersfully into the regular classroom. After the secondyear of implementing the program, the percent ofsecond-graders (the only students with two yearsof the new model) above the median in languagearts climbed from 17 to 59 percent. In addition, theschool’s evaluation of special education integrationshowed these students continuing to progress aca-demically and socially.

The Mary C. Lyons Model Elementary School,Boston Massachusetts had 90 students in grades K–5, 60 of whom were classified as regular educationand 30 of whom had severe emotional disturbancesthat previously required placement in highly restric-tive settings. Over 80 percent of students qualifiedfor Title 1. The school fully integrated all specialeducation students into regular classes of 15 orsmaller, each with a teacher and instructional assis-tant. Mary C. Lyons created extended school hourslasting from 7:00 am to 5:15 p.m. using outside con-tractors to provide instruction. The variety of dif-ferent staffing arrangements included parapro-fessionals, teacher interns, part-time workers, andstaggered shifts. The school was 1 of 15 (out of 115)Boston schools to be over-chosen by every race forboth special education and regular education slotsfor 3 years in a row. Achievement scores for both

special education and regular education studentsimproved faster than the Boston average, and 100percent of the students were reading on grade level.

Central Park East Secondary School (CPESS),New York, New York served 450 students in grades7 through 12, about 25 percent of whom qualifiedfor special education and 60 percent for free or re-duced-price lunch. All students were integrated intoheterogeneous classrooms. The school restructuredthe typical secondary schedule to create two hourblocks of instructional time in both the humanitiesand math/science. Teachers had more than 7 hourseach week of common planning time in addition totheir daily individual preparation period. To reduceacademic group sizes, CPESS allocates nearly all ofits positions for teaching, rather than hiring guid-ance counselors and various administrative staff.All professional staff members serve as advisors toabout 12 to 15 students each year. The school hiressome teachers on a part-time consulting basis forelectives like foreign languages. CPESS has beennationally heralded for its consistently exceptionaloutcomes: each year since its first graduating class,more than 90 percent of its students have gradu-ated and more than 90 percent have been acceptedto college.

International High, New York, New York is analternative school of 475 recent immigrant studentsin grades 9 through 12. Only students who havebeen in the United States less than 4 years and whoscore below the 20th percentile on an English lan-guage proficiency exam are admitted. At the timeof the study, over 75 percent of the students wereeligible for free or reduced-price lunch. InternationalHigh integrates all state-mandated subject matterin an interdisciplinary curriculum taught inmulti-aged heterogeneous groups. Teachers workwith no more than 75 students a term and spend 70minutes or more with them each day. The teachershave nearly six hours each week of common plan-ning and professional development time. All staffmembers lead a small advisory group which meetsweekly to discuss issues of personal, academic, andsocial growth. Despite its “high risk” population,the school’s dropout rate was less than 1 percent in1993–94 as compared with 30 percent citywide, andboth the graduation rate and college acceptancerates exceeded 95 percent. For more than a decade,


39

these rates have exceeded 90 percent annually (IHS,1995; Darling-Hammond, Ancess, and Falk, 1995).

Figure 1 summarizes the resource allocationstrategies used in the five sample schools. It showsthat each school implemented many strategies forallocating teachers and teaching time to address stu-dent needs and create planning time. Only the threealternative schools—Mary C. Lyons, CPESS, andInternational High—created new teaching roles bycontracting with other providers for teaching or byrestructuring some teaching positions.

Data Collection and AnalyticFramework

To understand the resource allocation practicesin each of the five schools, we collected informa-tion about school expenditures, staffing, and studentscheduling. We collected comparabledata for traditional schools, alongwith district level budget and staff-ing information. We conducted in-terviews with administrators andteachers and examined availablewritten material at each school to un-derstand the school’s organizationand its link to educational purposesand outcomes.

In addition to describing thestrategies each school used, thisstudy created measures which allowcomparison of resource allocationpatterns between these school mod-els and traditional schools. The mea-sures were developed by taking each resource allo-cation principle, hypothesizing the quantifiable im-pact it might have on resources, and then testingthis impact by using indices that are: (1) descriptiveof practices in both traditional and nontraditionalschools, (2) easy to understand, and (3) replicable.

Creating measures that accurately portray prac-tices in the fluidly organized sample schools yet al-low comparison to traditional schools creates a ten-sion between the use of measures that are easilyunderstood and calculated and those that can pro-vide meaningful description. The subtleties in-

volved can be seen through one example: the at-tempt to measure the impact of the principle “re-duction of specialized programs to create more in-dividual time for all.” In a traditional school, regu-lar class size provides a useful gauge of how muchaccess to individual attention a student might have.But, regular class size does not reflect the student’sexperience in some innovative schools because itdoes not describe the way these schools organizeby subject and over the course of the day. For ex-ample, the regular class sizes of 24 at Quebec Heightsschool do not reflect the fact that all students spend90 minutes a day in groups of 8 for reading. In or-der to capture the additional individual time for allstudents, a measure of average instructional groupsize, rather than regular class size, is used. This mea-sure relies on greater descriptive knowledge of aschool, but it more accurately reflects student expe-rience.

Figure 2 summarizes the mea-sures used for each resource allo-cation principle. The first prin-ciple, “reduction of specializedprograms to create more indi-vidual time for all in heteroge-neous instructional groups”should lead to smaller average in-structional groups for all regulareducation students and more evendistribution of resources betweenregular and special program stu-dents. Three measures helped as-sess the extent to which innovativeschools differed from traditionalschools here.

1. Students per teacher: This number includes allteachers and students in the school from all pro-grams. Our sample elementary schools had simi-lar numbers of students per teacher. However, aschool can reduce its functional student to teacherratio by converting typical non-teaching slots toteaching roles as CPESS did. The index of studentsper teacher indicates only the opportunity to cre-ate small, flexible instructional groups. It doesnot reflect the actual size of the groups in whichmost students spend time.

. . . this study cre-

ated measures which

allow comparison of

resource allocation

patterns between

these school models

and traditional

schools.


40

2. Weight average group size: This measure calcu-lates the weight average size of the instructionalgroup which a typical student experiences overthe day for academic subjects. It incorporatesthe time spent in different group sizes over theday. For example, if students in a classroom of24 spent 90 minutes a day (25 percent of theirschool day not including lunch) in readinggroups of 8, then the weight average group sizewould be 20 (.75 times 24 plus .25 times 8). In atraditional school, the average group size and theregular class size would be the same. This mea-sure may offer a clearer sense of how much ac-cess to individual attention most students in theschool have.

3. Percent of teachers in regular education instruc-tional groups: This figure divides the numberof teachers who work with regular education stu-dents (including classroom teachers, subjectspecialists and other teachers who work all dayinstructing groups that include regular educa-tion students) by the total number of teachers inthe school. The figure gives a sense of the extentto which a school has concentrated its resourceson core classroom functions as opposed to pull-out programs of various kinds.

The second principle, more flexible studentgrouping, should allow educators to create instruc-

Figure 1.—Resource reallocation strategies used by sample sites

Mary C. Lyons Quebec Heights Douglass International Central ParkStrategy Model Elementary Elementary Elementary High East Secondary

1. Reduction ofspecialized programs X X X X X

2. More flexible studentgrouping X X X X X

3. Structures to create morepersonal environments X X X X X

4. Longer and varied blocks ofinstructional time X X X X X

5. More common planning time X X X X X6. Creative definitions of staffing

roles and work day X X X

X=Sample school implements strategy.

SOURCE: Unpublished tabulations.

tional groupings that more closely match instruc-tional needs. Formulas that mandate the size ofgroups and classrooms can create situations wheregroup sizes vary for no educational reason. Whenteachers can create their own groups using criterialinked to educational strategies, they can reducethese unplanned variations and create a strategywhich maximizes the use of limited resources. Thepercent of regular education students in targeted groupsizes represents the extent to which a school hasminimized random variation in class size. In schoolswhere no group size target existed other than thecontractually defined class size maximums, wemeasured how many students were in classes whichwere within 5 percent of the average size. Moreflexible student grouping also allows teachers tocreate smaller groups for target subject areas. Theaverage size of instructional groups in focus area mea-sures how schools focus resources to create moreindividualized attention in some subjects wherethey do so. If some regular education studentsspend time in much smaller instructional groups,this would be reflected in the average by calculat-ing the percent of students receiving such support.

Four aspects of the third principle, structuresto support more personal relationships betweenteachers and students, lend themselves to measure-ment. First, a primary indicator of a teacher’s op-


41

portunity to build relationships with each studentis the academic teacher’s student load. A second in-dicator of a school’s effort to maximize personal re-lationships might be the percent of professionals whoserve as instructors or advisors to regularly scheduledgroups of students in an ongoing fashion. Thus, anassistant principal who worked with occasional dis-cipline problems or a guidance counselor meetingonce with each of 200 students to ensure compli-ance with graduation requirements would not beincluded. Although these singular contacts with

Figure 2.—Measuring resource allocation patterns (staff allocation)

Resource allocation principles Expected impact on resources School measure

Reduction of specialized programs Smaller sized regular Students per teacherto provide more individual time for all education instructional groupsin heterogeneous groups

More even distribution of Average size of regularresources between regular and education instructional groupsspecial program students

Percent of teachers in regularinstructional groups

More flexible student grouping Smaller instructional Percent of students in targetby school professionals groups in focus areas regular education size groups

Less unplanned variation Average size of groupin class sizes in focus area

Structures to create more Lower teacher/student loads Teacher/student loads per daypersonalized environments

More adults involved in instruction Percent of adult instructors/advisors

Smaller teams of teachers Size of teacher/student clustersand studentsMulti-year relationships Length of student/teacherbetween students and teachers relationship

Longer and more varied Longer instructional periods Average length of instructionalblocks of instructional time for academic subjects period for academic subjects

More common planning time More minutes of common planning Common planning minutes/for staff week

Longer periods of time for planning Length of longest planningperiod

Creative definition of staff Use of part-time or contract staff Not applicableroles and work schedules Use of interns or paraprofessionals

for instructionStaggered work schedules


students can be important, they do not aim to buildlong term, personal relationships between schoolprofessionals and students. The average size of teacherand student teams or clusters provides a third mea-sure of the opportunity to create a more personaleducational environment. For this measure,student-teacher teams had to be self-managing andself-contained. This means that virtually all in-struction occurs within the cluster and that the clus-ter has primary responsibility for curriculum, group-ing, discipline, and evaluation of its students. A fi-


42

nal strategy schools might use to create personalrelationships would be to keep teachers and stu-dents together for longer than the typical year. Thus,we include a measure of the number of years teachersand students stay together.

The extent to which sample schools createdlonger blocks of instructional time is measured by theaverage scheduled length of instructional period foracademic subjects in secondary schools. In some ofthe schools studied, teachers vary the length of in-struction from the schedule to suit a particular les-son. These variations were not calculated here.

Finally, two measures are used to understandhow sample schools create more useful commonplanning time for teachers. The number of minutes ofcommon planning time is defined as the amount oftime each week that is shared with other teachersand spent on collaborative plan-ning regarding curriculum, stu-dents, or school practices. A secondindicator of the usefulness of theplanning time is the length of thelongest planning period. For somekinds of planning and develop-ment, teachers need time periodslonger than the typical 40 to 50 min-utes.

Each innovative school is com-pared with a typical school in thesame district with a similar studentpopulation. Meaningful compari-sons must include an adjustmentfor the mix of students eligible for special servicesbecause schools typically receive additional re-sources to serve them. Adjusted for student mix,the schools in this sample used no greater resourcesthan traditional schools on an ongoing basis. In twocases, no “traditional” school existed in the districtwhich served the same mix of students as oursample sites. Mary C. Lyons Model ElementarySchool in Boston draws a large percentage of itspopulation from special education students typi-cally served by private schools. In this case, a hy-pothetical comparison was created, based on the as-sumption that these students were served in sepa-rate, self-contained classrooms of 4 each, the small-est existing class size, and that social services and

other support staff were the same as at Mary C.Lyons.

International High in New York City serves aunique population of limited English speaking stu-dents. Traditional schools serve such studentsthrough bilingual programs and ESL courses offeredseparately from the rest of the high school curricu-lum, but do not typically have 100 percent of theirpopulation requiring such services. To create a com-parison to International High, we used the New YorkCity staffing allocation formula to determine thenumber of teachers the school would have receivedfor these special needs students; we assumed theadditional resources would be used to fund sepa-rate bilingual or ESL classes. Although this gener-ous assumption about universal ESL services to lim-ited English proficient students does not hold truein many of New York’s traditional schools, it offers

a best case scenario for the alloca-tion of resources in a traditionalmodel.

These calculations are intendedto provoke discussion and to pro-vide an objective way of comparingschools to each other. Obviously,other factors which are not incorpo-rated in these measures contributeto the opportunity for individual at-tention and shared teacher time.For example, a teacher in a class of24 may use sophisticated groupingpractices that allow her or him toprovide targeted individual orsmall group instruction to students

throughout the day. These grouping strategies arenot incorporated into this measurement schemeunless the entire school uses the strategy. The exist-ence of planning and development time does notguarantee that it is used to improve teaching qual-ity. Further, many schools find common planningtime for teachers outside the school day on a volun-teer basis. Thus, these measures are intended to beused in conjunction with a descriptive understand-ing of the way a school has organized itself to matchresources to student needs and to provide opportu-nity for teacher growth.

Adjusted for stu-

dent mix, the

schools in this

sample used no

greater resources

than traditional

schools on an

ongoing basis.


43

Study Findings

We discuss our findings concerning elementaryand secondary schools separately because they be-gin with such different organizational structures.With their relatively small teaching loads andself-contained multi-subject classrooms, elementaryschools already allow more flexible, individual in-struction. But their simple structures, with limitedteacher time free from instruction, do not offer thesame opportunities for freeing time and resourcesas secondary schools. Because of these simpler dailyschedules, reducing the use of pull-out programsfor special education, language and Title 1 instruc-tion becomes a primary lever for creating smallergroups for all in elementary schools. In contrast,traditional secondary schools, with their short peri-ods, multiple classes, large teaching loads, andgreater amounts of non-teaching time offer moreways to reconfigure their resources.

Elementary SchoolsFigure 3 presents the resource

allocation measures for the threeelementary schools. In the threeurban districts studied, the tradi-tional schools served regular edu-cation students in age-graded,self-contained classrooms. About75 percent of the teachers workedwith regular education students;the other 25 percent worked withTitle 1 and special education stu-dents outside the regular classroom(figure 3, line e). Because all of theseschools are in urban areas with high concentrationsof students in poverty, even the traditional schoolswere using at least some of their Title 1 resources toadd regular classroom teachers. Thus, their regu-lar education class sizes averaged between 19 and22 (line b). Class composition and class size stayedthe same all day, for all subjects, except when stu-dents were pulled out for special education or Title1 instruction. The elementary classroom teacherinstructed all subjects except specialties like art,music, and gym which were taught by specialistsduring the classroom teacher’s free period. Teach-ers had 45 minutes 3 to 5 times a week free frominstruction in addition to short lunch periods. These

times were not coordinated with other teachers inany systematic way.

Reduction of Specialized Programs

In departing from this organization, all of thesample schools increased to above 90 percent thepercentage of teachers who worked with heteroge-neous groups of students (figure 3). The compa-rable percentages in the traditional schools rangedfrom 28 to 77 percent. The only teachers in the re-structured schools not working with heterogeneousgroups of students were teachers of special educa-tion students in separate classrooms at QuebecHeights.

Each elementary school used different levers formatching instructional resources to student needs,depending on its educational goals. First, QuebecHeights decided to use multi-age grouping to re-

spond more effectively to diversityin student skill levels. Studentswere assigned to multi-age clusters,called “families,” containing threeto four teachers and 75 to 85 stu-dents in grades 1–3 or 4–6; the fami-lies remain together for 3 years. Stu-dents may work with any instructorwithin the family during the daybut each has a homeroom teacherwho has primary responsibility fora class of 22 students for the fullyear. Rather than divide the cur-riculum by age level, all students inthe family study the same basic top-ics during the year, but at their own

developmental level.

Second, Quebec Heights eliminated separateTitle 1 programs and used these resources to reducethe size of reading groups for all students. Third,special education students and teachers were fullyintegrated into the families. In the primary grades,the special education resource teacher works as 1 of4 teachers in a team responsible for a group of 85students.

Because all of these

schools are in urban

areas with high concen-

trations of students in

poverty, even the

traditional schools were

using at least some of

their Title 1 resources

to add regular class-

room teachers.


44

The Douglass Elementary School in Memphisused its Title 1 budget as the primary lever for re-thinking resources to improve student performance.Because 97 percent of its students qualify for Title 1assistance, Douglass has long been free to use Title1 dollars across the school. At approximately$250,000 dollars per year, these resources representnearly 20 percent of the school budget. Douglassrestructured resources using an existing model forimproving student performance, the “Success forAll” program. Following this model, Douglass usesTitle 1 dollars to hire reading teachers to work asone-on-one tutors with students who do not meetreading standards in the first and second grades.These teachers and all special education teacherscombine with regular classroom teachers to reducethe size of instructional groups from 24 to about 17for 90 minutes of reading a day for all students.

The Douglass example illustrates why simplemeasures of class size do not provide enough infor-mation about how resources follow instructional

Figure 3.—High performing versus traditional elementary schools

Quebec Heights Douglass Mary C. LyonsResource allocation Elementary Elementary Model Elementaryprinciples School measure Average Traditional Average Traditional Average Traditional

Reduction of specialized a. Students per teacher 15 15 16 16 11 7programs to provide more b. Average size of regularindividual time for all in education instructional group 19 21 26 22 13 19heterogeneous groups c. Percent of teachers in regular

education instructional groups 91% 77% 95% 76% 100% 28%

More flexible student grouping d. Percent students in target sizeby school professionals instructional groupings 100% 65% 100% 60% — —

e. Average size of instructional group in reading 7 21 20 22 — —

Structures to create more f. Student loads for primarypersonalized environments classroom teachers 22 21 24 19 13 19

g. Length of time students stay with teacher (in years) 3 1 1 1 1 1

More common planning h. Common planningtime for staff minutes/week 325 100 135 0 405 45

i. Length of longest planning period 45 45 45 45 105 45

— Not applicable.


goals. Prior to implementing “Success for All,”Douglass used Title 1 dollars for regular classroomteachers and had classes averaging 17 across theschool. As Principal Myra Whitney commented,“We had slowly reduced all class sizes over the yearswith no plan for how anything in the classroomwould change. It wasn’t working, our students werestill at the bottom in reading.” To implement Suc-cess for All, Douglass raised class sizes for all othersubjects in order to reduce group sizes for readingand provide targeted one-on-one tutoring assistanceto ensure all students are reading by third grade.Douglass also redirected resources from grades 3–6to the early grades. The decision to take resourcesaway from some students and teachers to focus onothers can produce tension. Douglass’s use of aproven model that included clear staffing require-ments minimized this friction. As one teacher putit, “Everything is specified by ‘Success for All;’ wedidn’t consider quarreling with it because researchshows this works.”


45

Douglass used “Success for All” as a catalyst forincluding its special education teachers and studentsin regular classrooms. By the third year of the pro-gram, all students and teachers from previouslyself-contained classrooms and resource rooms spentmost of their time in heterogeneous groups. Dur-ing the daily 90 minutes of reading time, specialneeds students worked in heterogeneous groupsbased on their reading skill levels. The integrationof special education students was made easier bythe fact that cooperative learning plays a large rolein “Success for All” classrooms. Assigning specialeducation teachers their own reading groups thatincluded students from all programs further re-duced the size of reading groups for all students.During most of the rest of the day, special educa-tion teachers team taught with regular educationteachers. They used approximately one-quarter oftheir time for performing individual assessmentsand working with students needingmore targeted help outside theregular classroom.

While Quebec Heights rede-signed traditional age-grading prac-tices and Douglass rethought its useof Title 1 resources, the Mary C.Lyons school used the reallocationof special education dollars as a re-design lever. By including specialeducation students, who were pre-viously educated in a private settingat a cost of over $30,000 each peryear, with regular education stu-dents, Mary C. Lyons created aunique, individualized environ-ment for students and teachers. Mary C. Lyons isopen to all students from 7:15 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily.Each classroom had 15 or fewer students—10 “regu-lar” education students and 5 students with severeemotional/behavioral issues—and was staffed bya teacher, a teacher intern, and an after-schoolteacher. The pairs of six classroom teachers and sixteaching interns included three teachers with regu-lar education certification and three with specialeducation certification. This unusual integration ofspecial education students and teachers is drivennot by finances but by a belief that schools must meetchildren’s academic and emotional needs at theirlevel of development. The teaching staff is hired to

(E)ach elementary

school used its re-

sources from special

programs to support its

core design (and) . . .

staff organization

depended on the

educational strategies

and approach the

school had adopted.

ensure attitudes, skills, and expertise to meet a broadrange of academic, social and behavioral consider-ations. They work closely as a team to analyze theeffectiveness of their instructional efforts. Academicteachers have close to two hours daily of commonplanning time.

Virtually all teaching resources at Mary C. Lyonssupported this design, including Title 1 funds andfunds which would have paid for subject special-ists in traditional schools. A typical Boston elemen-tary school has four subject specialists (in art, mu-sic, physical education and computers) who supple-ment instruction and cover planning time for class-room teachers. Instead of this costly arrangement,Mary C. Lyons pooled these dollars to contract withoutside teachers for the provision of art and musicand part of the after school program.

In summary, each elementaryschool used its resources from spe-cial programs to support its coredesign. Quebec Heights andDouglass raised regular educationclass sizes and redirected funds toreduce reading group sizes. MaryC. Lyons used funds freed fromeliminating separate programs tolower teacher student ratios dra-matically all day. In each case, stafforganization depended on the edu-cational strategies and approach theschool had adopted. The organiza-tion of resources and the educa-tional goals in these schools wereinextricably intertwined because

the organization enabled the schools to implementnew teaching strategies.

More Flexible Student Grouping

Perhaps the most striking difference between thesample elementary schools and traditional schoolsis the proactive, strategic way in which teachersadapted instructional grouping to student needs. Ina traditional school, administrators assign studentsto programs and classrooms according to bureau-cratic rules and categories that stay constant overtime and subject. Teachers in sample schools usedtheir knowledge of student needs, rather than astudent’s program classification or age, to assign


46

each to a regular homeroom class and to managetheir instruction throughout the day.

In sample schools, reading groups were signifi-cantly smaller than in traditional schools. Mary C.Lyons and Quebec Heights organized staff to allowgroups of six and seven, respectively. Mary C. Lyonsused the classroom teacher and teaching intern tocreate reading groups of six. Quebec Heights ro-tated Title 1 teachers and instructional assistantsthrough regular classroom, so that each classroomhad three instructors for 90 minutes of reading timeper day. The primary classroom teacher determinedthe composition of the groups and content of les-sons daily based on consultation with the expertreading teachers and review of students’ progressin specific areas. Some lessons divided students intogroups based on areas where they need further skilldevelopment, others grouped students heteroge-neously to discuss reading content.This concentration of resources onthe reading rotation meant thathomeroom class sizes were one stu-dent larger on average than the tradi-tional model.

At Douglass, all students spent90 minutes per day in readinggroups of 15–17, as compared with22 in traditional schools. The com-position of these reading groups var-ied each day and over the course ofthe year depending on the teachers’assessment of student needs. A teamincluding the teachers, reading spe-cialists, and the “Success for All” fa-cilitator assigned students to skill-based readinggroups across grades using formal assessments ev-ery 6 weeks. Since assignment to groups indicatedskill level, as opposed to age or a static assignmentof aptitude, the student moved on once he/she dem-onstrated these skills. Students not mastering skillsby agreed upon times received one-on-one tutoringfor 20 minutes each day from one of the three read-ing specialists. About 15 percent of first and secondgrade students received tutoring at any one time,but the students receiving tutoring varied over theyear depending on who needed extra assistance inparticular skill areas.

This continuous assessment and regrouping ofstudents required significant time and joint effort.A full time “Instructional Facilitator” helped teach-ers to conduct, analyze, and act on the assessments.The facilitator received in-depth training for using“Success For All” reading assessment tools andworked with a district wide expert in “Success ForAll” who had further expertise. In pulling this fa-cilitator from the classroom, Douglass once againtraded general regular education class sizes for astrategic use of resources which supported theirschool design. In this case, the facilitator enabled amore careful matching of instruction to studentneeds as well as more effective use of joint planningtime.

Traditional schools experience variations in classsizes driven by formulas and enrollment swings.Boston’s school choice plan allowed Mary C. Lyons

to cap the number of students bygrade through the student assign-ment process. Mixed age group-ing at Douglass and QuebecHeights allowed teachers to con-trol group sizes. For example, ifDouglass had used age-basedgrading, class sizes in the first andsecond grade would have been 24and 26, respectively, with classsizes declining as the studentmoved toward sixth grade. In-stead, the Douglass staff combinedgrades to create smaller groups of23 in the first three grades and 26in the intermediate grades. Thus,sample schools exerted more con-

trol over class sizes by combining ages and programsso that all students were in targeted class sizes ratherthan the 60 to 65 percent who would have been insuch group sizes using traditional age grading.

Structures to support more personalrelationships

Quebec Heights’ family structure aimed tostrengthen relationships between teachers and stu-dents by keeping teachers with the same family of85 students for 3 years, usually with the samehomeroom class. This meant that some teachers re-ceived as few as nine new students each year. As an

Perhaps the most

striking difference

between the sample

elementary schools

and traditional schools

is the proactive, strate-

gic way in which

teachers adapted

instructional grouping

to student needs.


47

intermediate teacher stated, “It’s hard to overesti-mate how much time this saves us. We get startedquickly in the new school year, students know therules and boundaries, and I know what they cando.”

The Mary C. Lyons school’s small size and in-tense staffing ratios created a highly personal envi-ronment for all students. The staff also created timeto discuss each student’s progress as a team. All theprofessionals working with each group of stu-dents—the classroom teacher, intern, a special edu-cation evaluation specialist, the afterschool direc-tor, and a social worker—met weekly for 45 min-utes. Together, they identified problems, discussedpossible strategies, and shared successes and frustra-tions.

More Common Planning Time

All three schools created morecommon planning time, but the con-straints of time and collective bar-gaining agreements meant that onlyMary C. Lyons made dramaticchanges (figure 3). Both Douglassand Quebec Heights increased com-mon planning time using the con-ventional method of scheduling spe-cialists to allow meeting time forsmall groups of teachers. Mary C.Lyons’ academic teachers shared a30 minute lunch period followed by1 hour and 15 minutes of commonplanning time while students hadlunch and recess and received in-struction from their instructional intern andafter-school teacher. In combination with the “stu-dent support” team meetings described above,teachers met together for a total of 405 minutesweekly, in contrast to no more than 60 minutes in atraditional school.

Creative Definition of Staff Roles and Work Day

The Mary C. Lyons school was able to createso much more planning time because it redefinedteaching roles throughout the day. Whereas in a tra-ditional school only the classroom teacher or sub-ject specialists assume responsibility for classroominstruction, Mary C. Lyons had a master teacher and

a highly trained and supervised “instructional as-sistant trainee” in each classroom. In contrast tooften poorly trained paraprofessionals, the Mary C.Lyons “trainees” were college educated studentsworking on their master’s degrees in special educa-tion at Wheelock University. To do this, Mary C.Lyons negotiated with the Boston Teachers Unionto convert paraprofessional slots to “instructionalassistant trainee” positions. As part of their pro-gram, the Wheelock students work in schools forstipends of $10,000 per year and participate in in-tensive coursework over holidays and summer.Wheelock sends a faculty member every two weeksto observe and discuss the trainee’s practice withthe master teacher. The trainee’s stipend costs lessthan the $18,000 in salary and benefits for a para-professional. The savings allowed the school to giveeach teacher an “instructional assistant trainee.”Where possible, the new instructional assistants

were recruited from the existingparaprofessional staff. While thetrainee position represented ashort term cut in pay, this positionled to full-fledged certification asa special education teacher forthese staff.

In addition, Mary C. Lyonscontracted with teachers to cover“schoolwide” planning time. The“afterschool” teachers overlappedthe regular school day by one hour.During this time, they managedthe classroom along with theinstructional assistant trainee. Inaddition to providing regular

teachers with planning time, this overlap provideda chance for after school teachers to transition fromthe regular academic day along with someone whohad been with the students all day, thus allowingmore continuity and better care for the children. Theeight afterschool teachers, who were providedthrough a contract with a private nonprofit organi-zation, specialized in behavior management andbrought a wide range of experience with emotion-ally disturbed as well as gifted students. The prin-cipal worked closely with the contractor to specifythe qualifications of these teachers, and the contractwas contingent on the hiring of such exceptionalteachers.

...Lyons school’s

small size and in-

tense staffing ratios

created a highly

personal environment

for all students. The

staff also created

time to discuss each

student’s progress as

a team.


48

Secondary Schools

The traditional high school, with its departmen-talized instruction and highly-segmented schoolday, offers many more opportunities for rethinkingresource allocations than do elementary schools. Weexamined a typical comprehensive high school inNew York City serving about 3,300 students.3 Theschool is considered a “good” school serving alargely middle- and working-class population ofstudents. It had nearly as many special needs andTitle 1 students as CPESS and was in the process ofbeginning to restructure its programs. At the timeof the study, however, it used traditional staffing andscheduling practices.

As figure 4 shows, the sample high schoolslooked very different from the traditional highschool on virtually every dimension measured. Al-though our analysis is focused onthe use of instructional staff, it isworth noting that the traditionalhigh school had many morenon-teaching staff than the two re-structured schools. Not includingcustodial and food service workers,more than 40 percent of its total staffhad non-teaching assignments.These included 1 principal, 9 assis-tant principals, 13 secretaries, 10school-based services specialists(social workers, psychologists, etc.),3 librarians, 17 security guards, 22non-teaching school aides, and 14classroom-based paraprofessionals.In the restructured schools, just over25 percent of staff had non-teaching assignmentsand most of them taught at least part-time(Darling-Hammond, 1997).

The traditional high school had one instructionalstaff person for every 14.7 students—and New YorkCity staffing allocations would reduce the studentload to 13 for a population of students like that

at International High.4 Because fewer than two-thirds of these instructional staff members taughtfull-time, however, class sizes averaged about 33.Special education, bilingual education, English as aSecond Language, and Title 1 programs were ad-ministered separately, with generally smaller classsizes. The typical student attended school from 8:05a.m. to 2:13 p.m. participating in seven different 42-minute classes with seven different teachers, plusone lunch period. Teachers taught five instructionalperiods a day, with two periods free from in-struction: one used for planning and the other forrotating “building assignments” such as cafeteriaduty or hall duty or other administrative or pro-gram responsibilities. Excluding these special du-ties, teachers routinely saw about 167 students perday.

By contrast, the two sample high schools beganwith resources roughly similar tothe traditional school and endedwith dramatically smaller groupsizes and teacher loads. As noted,the first difference was allocating agreater share of resources to instruc-tional staff rather than administra-tive and support staff. The secondwas assigning almost all instruc-tional staff to work directly withstudents. As a consequence, all stu-dents experienced much smallerclass sizes (18 at CPESS and 25 atInternational High), while theirteachers also had much more plan-ning and professional developmenttime. Because teachers taught a

smaller number of longer periods, pupil loads werealso reduced: teachers at CPESS saw 36 students andthose at International High saw 75 students in agiven term. The schools achieved this by reducingspecialization, reorganizing student groups andteaching structures, and investing heavily in pro-fessional development. The strategies the two

The traditional high

school, with its depart-

mentalized instruction

and highly-segmented

school day, offers many

more opportunities for

rethinking resource

allocations than do

elementary schools.

3 In a related study (Darling-Hammond, 1997), Darling-Hammond and colleagues also examined a smaller, more affluentsuburban high school of about 1,600 students. However, the large difference in student populations between this school andthe redesigned schools in New York City made this school inappropriate for the current analysis.

4 Because International High has a unique student population comprised of 90 percent Title 1 eligible and 100 percent limitedEnglish proficient students, an analogous traditional school could not be found for comparison. Instead, we used the NewYork City staffing guidelines, as outlined in the New York City publication Comparative Analysis of the Organization of HighSchools, 1992–93, to estimate staffing for students identified for special needs programs.


49

schools used reflected their instructional purposesand philosophies.

Reduced Specialization

CPESS reduced specialization in a host of waysin order to create smaller teacher-student loads andfocus resources on academic subjects. CPESS fol-lows the principles embraced by the Coalition ofEssential Schools, one of which is that “less is more.”Instead of aiming for broad coverage of content,CPESS has organized its curriculum around five“Habits of Mind” which encompass the abilities toweigh evidence, take varying viewpoints into ac-count, see connections and relationships, speculateabout possibilities, and assess value. These goalsare reinforced in every course and in a comprehen-sive portfolio assessment system. The school con-centrates its resources on a common core curricu-lum in grades 7–10, and uses college and commu-

Figure 4.—High performing versus traditional secondary school

Resource allocation Central Park Internationalprinciples School measure East Elementary High TraditionalReduction of specialized a. Students per instructionalprograms to provide more staff member 10.2 10.2 14.7/13*individual time for all in b. Students per full-time teacher 13.3 15.8 23.6heterogeneous groups c. Average size of regular

instructional group 18 25 33.4d. Percent teachers in regular instructional groups 89% 100% 70%

More flexible student grouping e. Percent students in target size grouping 100% 100% 60%by school professionals f. Average size of advisory group 15 12 29

(homeroom)

Structures to create more g. Student loads per term 36 75 167personalized environments h. Percent professional staff serving

as instructors/advisors 100% 100% 65%

Longer and more varied i. Average length of instructionalblocks of instructional time period (in minutes) 120 70 42

More common planning time j. Common planning minutes/week 450 350 0for staff k. Length of longest planning period

(in minutes) 120 140 42

* A traditional high school that had a 100 percent Limited English Proficient student population like that at International wouldreceive additional staff to reduce its student/teacher ratio for those students to 13:1.


nity resources to expand curriculum options in theupper grades.

At the time of the study, all students took aca-demic subjects in heterogeneous groups of about 18.Students in divisions I and II (grades 7–10) took two,two-hour academic courses each day, humanitiesand math/science plus a foreign language offeredin a shorter period before school. All full-time teach-ers in these grades, with the exception of two spe-cial education resource room teachers, taught oneof the two interdisciplinary courses. The resourceroom teachers helped students with their regularclassroom work, thereby reinforcing rather thanfragmenting students’ learning. Students and teach-ers told us that the extraordinary outcomes achievedat CPESS were made possible by these small classsizes and the continuity provided by (a) having ateam of teachers stay with the same students for two


50

years (b) providing extra help to special needs stu-dents connected to their regular classroom work. Inaddition, teachers were grateful for opportunitiesto extend their disciplinary knowledge by planningtogether in subject area teams and to extend theirknowledge of students by also working together in“house” teams organized around the teaching ofshared groups of students (Darling-Hammond,Ancess, and Falk, 1994).

In the Senior Institute (grades 11–12), the schoolreduced its need for specialization by working outadvanced course-taking opportunities for studentsat local colleges to supplement required courses andelectives offered in the school. All students took atleast two college courses during their last two yearsof high school, along with an internship in a localbusiness or community organization. These strate-gies expanded students’ academic and vocationalopportunities while freeing stafftime for the one-on-one advisementneeded to support students in com-pleting extensive research projectsand the other portfolio entries theywould defend before their gradua-tion committees.

Language instruction and someelectives were provided throughoutside contracts. Although stu-dents could opt to take more ad-vanced courses in specific subjects,there was no tracking, no separateTitle 1 programs, and no separatebilingual program. Instead of hir-ing guidance counselors, eachteacher was responsible for counseling 12 studentsduring scheduled advisory periods. The small size,personalization, and team organization also elimi-nated the need for attendance officers, deans of dis-cipline, assistant principals, and supervisors, rolesthat deflect resources away from teaching positionsin traditional high schools.

The organization of resources at InternationalHigh also followed its educational mission—theeducation of recent immigrants—and its philosophy,which includes the following principles:

● Language skills are most effectively learnedin context and when embedded in a contentarea.

● Successful educational programs emphasizerigorous standards coupled with effectivesupport systems.

● Attempts to group students homogeneouslypreclude the way in which adolescents learnbest (i.e., from each other).

● The carefully planned use of multiple learn-ing contexts in addition to the classroom (e.g.,learning centers, career internship sites, fieldtrips) facilitates language acquisition and con-tent area mastery.

The existence of clear school goals and a con-sensus about strategies enhanced InternationalHigh’s ability to design a coherent, carefully con-

figured organization. The school re-organized its programmatic re-sources around 12 interdisciplinarythemes. Six self-managing instruc-tional teams, called “clusters,” werecomposed of four to six teachersplus guidance and paraprofessionalstaff who developed two themati-cally based courses of study (e.g.,Motion, Visibility), which inte-grated four subject areas (e.g., litera-ture, global studies, mathematics,and physics). The team took re-sponsibility for the total educationalexperience of about 75 studentsduring a 13-week course of study.Students chose three of these the-

matic courses each year.

All teachers taught heterogeneous groups of stu-dents that included all native languages and allgrades, economic levels and ability levels. The fac-ulty integrated English as a Second Language (ESL)techniques into their content-area courses while pro-viding students with opportunities to further de-velop their language skills with instructors outsidethe core curriculum and in learning contexts suchas internships outside the school. The success ofthis strategy is illustrated by the fact that virtuallyall International High students pass the New York

The existence of

clear school goals

and a consensus

about strategies

enhanced Interna-

tional High’s ability to

design a coherent,

carefully configured

organization.


51

State competency tests in English as well as othersubjects, and virtually all are accepted to collegeprior to graduation. Teachers designed the clusterschedule because they felt that planning and teach-ing in interdisciplinary teams would enable themto have more influence on student learning. Theyfound that the school’s first cluster experiment pro-duced much greater levels of student success thanhad independent classes, because teachers’ effortswere jointly planned and cumulative, and teacherscould deal with students’ needs and problems in aconcerted fashion (Darling-Hammond, Ancess, andFalk, 1995).

In both schools, the integration of previouslyspecialized resources, along with the investment ofgreater resources into teaching positions rather thannonteaching positions, translated into much lowerpupil loads and more opportunity for individualstudent attention than in the traditional school. Inaddition to focusing resources on instructional po-sitions, the sample schools used most of their teach-ing resources in one core academic program inwhich all students participated, rather than usingspecial program resources for add-on remedial orspecial education programs. CPESS used 89 per-cent of teaching resources in its core instructionalprogram, while International High used all staff inthe core program, as compared with roughly 70 per-cent of teachers working in regular instruction inthe traditional high school.

Smaller class sizes were also achieved by creat-ing a broader role for professional staff in the re-structured schools, rather than using specialists to

perform “non-classroom” functions. Staff acknowl-edged this tradeoff in a set of “understandings thatunderlie professional staff work at CPESS” whichincludes the following statement:

In return for smaller class sizes (maximum20) and smaller total student rolls, teacherswill work with students for a total of 22 hoursper week in classes, advisories, or tutorials;conducting seminars; overseeing projects; giv-ing lectures; or advising and coaching indi-vidual students (CPESS, 1991).

More Flexible Student Grouping

Reducing the number of programs, courses, andlevels made it easier for the sample schools to con-trol the size of instructional groups. As table 1shows, although 64 percent of all classes in the tra-ditional high school had 29 to 34 students, 21 per-cent of classes were smaller than 25. Class sizes werehigher in regular education academic classes thanin nonacademic classes.5 In contrast, CPESS and In-ternational High place all of their students in targetsize groups.

Even more flexible grouping strategies werefound in CPESS’s Senior Institute (grades 11–12),where teachers and students focused substantial at-tention on preparing the graduation portfolio andapplying to colleges. Time was allocated to allowteachers to provide coaching and support for inde-pendent study. A typical teacher would teach twoclasses over about 12 hours per week. He or shewould also spend 4 to 5 hours per week supervis-ing independent projects, another 4 to 5 hours in

5 New York City Schools, Comparative Analysis of the Organization of High Schools, 1992–93, p. 82–92.

Table 1.—Class sizes in the traditional high school

Class size Academic All classes0–19 6 percent 8 percent20–24 7 percent 13 percent25–28 13 percent 13 percent29–34 72 percent 64 percentOver 34 3 percent 3 percent



52

advisory working with his or her 12 advisees on aca-demic and personal concerns, and another 3 1/2hours per week for one-on-one help to students.Class periods varied in length depending on theirpurpose. While students took courses and com-pleted internships outside the school, teachers gottime to work and plan together.

Structures to Create Personal Relationships

The sample schools were organized more likeelementary schools than most secondary schools,featuring small teaching units and closer, more sus-tained relationships between teacher and student.In addition to the smaller class sizes, both sampleschools used “advisory groups” as a key strategyfor maintaining ongoing relationships with students.Each professional staff member worked with agroup of 12 to 15 students and their families. Theuse of all professional staff, not just teachers, allowedadvisory groups to be smaller thanaverage class sizes. Advisorygroups met for approximately 4hours a week at CPESS, and forabout 2 hours weekly at Interna-tional High. Teachers and advisorsused the time for individual study;to discuss health, social and ethicalissues; and for individual and groupadvising and counseling. The ad-visor served as the “expert” on thestudent, meeting regularly with thefamily and other teachers to discussthe student’s needs and progress,coordinating parent conferencesand the preparation of narrative as-sessments of student work.

Whereas all professionals in the two restructuredschools worked on a regularly scheduled basis withgroups of students, only 65 percent of the pro-fessional staff at the traditional high school had regu-larly scheduled contact with a continuing group ofstudents. While guidance counselors and other sup-port personnel worked intensively with some stu-dents, they did so on a reactive, usually sporadicbasis that was not designed to create close, long termrelationships.

Longer and More Varied Blocks of InstructionalTime

In contrast to the traditional high school’s seven42-minute periods each day, both restructured highschools created longer periods and more flexibleschedules to accommodate more ambitious kindsof work and to allow more time for teachers’ to sup-port student learning. At CPESS, students in grades7–10 had two 2-hour blocks of humanities andmath/science each day. Since these two teachersworked together as a team, they could vary the splitof time between the two to accommodate daily les-son plans. In addition, one morning per week stu-dents spent 2 1/2 hours in a community serviceproject while their teachers were engaged in cur-riculum planning. Other coursework, such as lan-guage instruction, took place in smaller (usually 1hour) blocks of time. In the Senior Institute, classesvaried in length from 1 to 2 hours, while advise-

ment sessions, internships, and in-dependent work time were sched-uled for longer blocks of time toallow students to undertake ex-tended work with adequate coach-ing and time for research.

At International High, studentstypically had four courses each ofwhich met for 70 minutes fourtimes per week. They also had a 2hour internship and an hour longseminar each week. Because eachcluster of four teachers controlledtheir shared students’ entire timeschedule during a 13-week cycle,they could vary time across classes

each day as needed for the work in which studentswere engaged.

More Common Planning Time

Both sample high schools created structures thatdemand and allow much more common planningtime. In addition to individual “prep” time, CPESSteachers spent on average 7.5 hours per week inscheduled common planning time. CPESS used fourstrategies to create this time. First, teachers met withtheir disciplinary teams for 2 1/2 hours of weekly

. . . both restructured

high schools created

longer periods and

more flexible sched-

ules to accommodate

more ambitious kinds

of work and to allow

more time for teach-

ers’ to support student

learning.


53

curriculum planning while students were in com-munity service placements. Second, while teach-ing fellows and other professionals provided cov-erage, teachers had from 1 1/2 to 3 hours each weekto meet with fellow “house” teachers and with stu-dents individually. Third, students’ hours were in-creased during the week so they could be dismissedat 1:00 p.m. on Fridays to create time for a weekly 2hour staff meeting. Finally, as its governance planstates, “the full staff agrees to meet during hourswhen the students are not in attendance to com-plete necessary business.” In addition to the Fri-day meeting, teachers attended a regular Mondaymeeting from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

At International High, teachers had 140 min-utes each week to plan with their cluster while stu-dents participated in college courses and other ac-tivities. During a half day each week set aside forclub activities for students, teach-ers staff-initiated professional de-velopment. In addition, teachershad a 70 minute individual plan-ning period each day which oftencoincided with that of other mem-bers of their team. These modelsoffer stark contrast to the traditionalhigh school model in which teach-ers had one or two separate 42-minute periods free from instruc-tion, one often devoted to nonaca-demic duties and the other orga-nized as an individual preparationperiod.

Creative Definition of Staff Rolesand Work Day

Both of the sample schools have made manychanges to the roles of teachers and the typical or-ganization of the teacher work day in ways thatenable greater personalization for students. Theyfocused teaching resources on core academic sub-jects by contracting with outside providers for elec-tives and non-academic subjects. CPESS increasedresources for teachers by incorporating counselingand advising into the teaching role. In both schools,teachers are involved in curriculum and assessmentdevelopment, hiring and evaluation of staff,schoolwide decisionmaking, and staff develop-

ment. These broader professional roles not only re-duce the need for nonteaching specialists assignedto manage and oversee teaching, they also enrichteachers’ knowledge and skill by giving teacherscontinuous opportunities to reflect on their teach-ing and learn from one another, thus expanding theexpertise available in the school (Darling-Hammond, 1997).

Policies, Regulations, and Contract-ual Issues

To accomplish these things, the sample schoolsdirectly challenged policies, regulations, and collec-tive bargaining agreements. First, most of theschools changed the contractually defined teacherwork day and contractual rules for such matters asseniority transfers. Second, in breaking down bar-riers between programs, age groupings, and sub-

jects, they confronted staffing for-mulas, program administrationrules, and, sometimes, teacher li-censing categories. Third, many ofthese schools redefined both teach-ing and non-teaching positions tocreate new jobs which do not fitneatly into existing contractuallydefined categories.

Collective bargaining agree-ments in most districts clearly de-fine the teacher work day, outliningthe hours teachers are required towork and limiting the number ofrequired afternoon and eveningmeetings. Most go further to

specify the number of minutes of time teachers musthave free for lunch and planning activities, and somelimit the number of hours in a row teachers can beinvolved in instruction, making it difficult to createconnected blocks of planning time. It is easy to un-derstand the reasons for these provisions, but it isalso clear that new strategies are needed for schoolsin which teachers jointly develop curriculum andmanage their own and students’ time.

As teaching jobs are broadened, schools can runinto state, district, and collective bargaining restric-tions. Using teachers across subjects or programs

Both of the sample

schools . . . focused

teaching resources on

core academic sub-

jects by contracting

with outside providers

for electives and

non-academic sub-

jects.


54

can require waivers. Mary C. Lyons use of three spe-cial education teachers and three regular educationteachers to teach integrated classrooms of specialneeds and regular education students required waiv-ers from the Boston teachers contract and Massachu-setts state certification laws. The principal arguedthat she knew how to identify individuals with ex-perience and disposition to handle both special edu-cation and regular education students. She devel-oped a plan to create a team structure which tookadvantage of teachers’ diverse skills and a profes-sional development plan for each teacher and for theentire school, so that they would develop the skillsthey needed.

Schools also can run into certification problemsin moving to interdisciplinary instruction, becausemany collective bargaining agreements and stateregulations require teachers to hold certification inmore than one subject to teach hu-manities or math/science in middleor high schools. Finding individu-als with the subject and pedagogi-cal knowledge to combine thesesubjects effectively is obviouslycritical to successful interdiscipli-nary instruction. Although certifi-cation in both fields is one indica-tor of this ability, it is not the onlymeans for developing expertise ina second field. At CPESS, teacherswith a background in one field planin curriculum teams (a math/sci-ence team and a humanities team)that provide the additional disci-plinary expertise they need tohandle the breadth the core courses require.

New job positions and hiring arrangements alsoconfront some collective bargaining agreements andtraditional allocation guidelines. For example, MaryC. Lyons and CPESS created a different kind of In-structional Assistant by using teaching interns—graduate students who are preparing to becometeachers—instead of paraprofessionals or untrainedsupport staff. In addition, three of the sample schoolsreceived waivers from collective bargaining agree-ments to use outside contractors for specific kindsof instruction.

Selection and retention of teachers with the re-quired qualities and experience to match theseschool designs is critical to their success, yet manydistricts treat staff as interchangeable when theymake assignments and move staff on seniority trans-fers. Some districts have solved this problem bycreating alternative personnel tracks for speciallydesignated schools. Cincinnati has done this forPaidea and Montessori schools. In Boston, schoolsnegotiate control over the hiring process on a posi-tion by position basis. In New York, recent contractnegotiations have allowed for teams of teachers, in-cluding principals and union representatives, to se-lect their new colleagues in the growing number ofschools that have a distinctive missions. With therecent creation of over 100 new small schools in thecity joining the substantial number of longer stand-ing alternative schools, this provision paves the wayfor widespread use of new staffing models.

Finally, teacher contracts, dis-trict policies and state regulationsoften define class size maximumsby program, grade level, and some-times subject. State guidelinesspecify the size of classroom for stu-dents at each level of special edu-cation classification. Schools candepart from these regulations if par-ents, teachers and special educationprofessionals agree to an individualeducation plan that educates thestudent in a larger, more inclusivesetting. Designs like that used at theMary C. Lyons school require in-tense communication with students

and parents to create understanding of the new ap-proach and strategies to insure appropriate addi-tional support for the students. They also demandthat state and district officials work with schools toallow educationally sound designs.

District student and teacher assignment policiescan frustrate attempts to use teachers differently. Inthe sample districts, schools moving students frommore restrictive special education settings into theregular classroom sometimes faced a potential lossof teachers because special education staff were al-located based upon the number of students requir-

Finding individuals with

the subject and peda-

gogical knowledge to

combine these subjects

effectively is obviously

critical to successful

interdisciplinary instruc-

tion.


55

ing separate education. If schools integrate studentsback into the regular classroom and resources aretherefore reduced, the regular teacher in whose classthe special education student now spends most ofhis time receives no extra resources and no reducedstudent load. In these cases, schools can find thatregular education classrooms grow more unruly andcrowded while the case loads of special educationteachers decline. Over time, schools should findways of shifting resources back into the classroomwithout losing special education expertise. To re-spond to this problem, Boston has adjusted its staff-ing formula to allow schools to use the resourcesfor special needs students in inclusive settings.

ConclusionAlthough these five high performing schools

look very different from one another, they have allredesigned the way they allocateteaching resources to meet studentneeds and to create the time teach-ers need to implement a new visionof schooling. They demonstratehow schools can reallocate resourcesto implement new designs. Theframework presented here aims toprovide researchers and prac-titioners with a way to examine sys-tematically the possibilities for re-allocation and to measure their im-pact. Changing school organiza-tions to better fit an instructionalvision will require schools to con-front long traditions and a host ofstate, district, and union policiesand practices that conflict with many of the changesoutlined here. These barriers can loom large. But,the biggest constraint may be lack of vision aboutthe concrete changes in school organization that cancreate a more professional organization and improvestudent achievement. This paper aims to providesome clear, detailed examples schools might use todevelop such a vision, including goals for studentachievement along with educational strategies andan organization to accomplish these goals.

The variety of models presented here suggeststhat resource reallocation and the design of an in-structional vision and strategy are intertwined.There is little rationale for restructuring resourceswithout an underlying educational design. At thesame time, none of these models could have accom-plished their goals without making changes in theuse of resources. As these models and others aretested against evidence of improved student perfor-mance, one could imagine states and districts work-ing with schools to adopt proven designs, througha conscious process of changing resource allocations,practices, and regulations at each level. As part ofthe process of choosing an appropriate design,schools might undertake a comprehensive reviewof how their practices, resources, knowledge andskills would need to change to implement a newmodel. Principles of resource allocation and indi-cators of their use could form the basis for tools

which help schools and districts un-derstand their progress. Districtscould then organize their work tosupport these plans and developstrategies for helping schools makechanges. This would includechanges in state and district poli-cies that may produce obstacles toalternative forms of organization.

The schools studied here haveonly touched the surface of oppor-tunities for rethinking the wayschool resources are used; theyhave largely worked within exist-ing salary structures and have notmuch explored the use of tech-

nology in the classroom. Nevertheless, they fore-shadow the many ways schools may rethink exist-ing resources to create more personalized educationfor students and more professional responsibilityand growth for teachers.

Changing school organi-

zations to better fit an

instructional vision will

require schools to con-

front long traditions and

a host of state, district,

and union policies and

practices that conflict

with many of the

changes outlined here.


56

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NOTE: We thank the staff at the five schools we studied for sharing with us their successes and frustra-tions. Special thanks to Patrick McNeeley, principal at Quebec Heights Elementary School in Cincinnati,Mary Nash at the Mary C. Lyons Model Elementary School in Boston, Myra Whitney, principal ofDouglass Elementary School in Memphis, Paul Schwarz at Central Park East Secondary School, andEric Nadelstern and Ruth Ellen Weiner at International High School. We also thank Lori Chajet andPeter Robinson who helped collect much of the secondary school data as part of their research with theNational Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching.

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