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The Teachers' Story

The Principal's Story

The Leadership Community's Story

The District Office Story

Overview

Boston Public Schools (BPS) is one of the oldest school systems in the nation, dating back to 1635. The system maintains an enrollment of over 57,000 students in 145 schools, of which 86% are minority, 20% are in special education programs, and 73% are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. The school system faces many of the same challenges as other large urban districts in the United States, but with sustained and impressive leadership at the district and school levels along with unified staff dedication to common goals, positive changes are being made.

The Boston school system's motto is "Focus on Children." To make this motto a reality, the district leadership team and community organizations came together to create a comprehensive Boston Plan for Excellence that is used in every school in the district. The plan is a tangible map that outlines specific goals and objectives at each faculty and student level, complete with benchmarks and implementation strategies to ensure that staff work together to achieve their own successes and address difficulties. Staff at every level of the system understand the importance of their role in this plan, and they are able to see where their own specific job fits in and how it contributes to the success of students.

The common unifying vision of the plan is comprised of "six essentials" that guide daily actions:

Use effective instructional practices and create a collaborative school climate to improve student learning
Examine student work and data to drive instruction and professional development
Invest in professional development to improve instruction
Share leadership to sustain instructional improvement
Focus resources to support instructional improvement and improved student learning
Partner with families and the community to support student learning.

As is practice in all district projects, each element has indicators and measurements that are tracked so staff in all schools as well as the district office know precisely how they are meeting the essentials in the plan, and which ones need continued work. While BPS clearly has work to accomplish to improve student learning, the continued increase in positive student learning indicators motivates staff to stick to the vision and implementation of the improvement plan.

Of special note: The Broad Foundation announced on Sept. 19, 2006 that Boston Public Schools is the winner of the 2006 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the largest education prize in the country. Boston has been a finalist for The Broad Prize for the past four years, and this year's top honor brings the district's five-year winnings to $1 million.

Boston School District Web site

The Teacher's Story in Boston

After many years of building trust and maintaining a focus on the district vision, a culture of respect and professionalism has developed in the Boston Public Schools. Many teachers feel there are opportunities to get involved in the leadership and decisionmaking processes around student learning, and indeed, to develop leadership roles themselves. Boston teachers believe in the passion and motivation of their peers and they see themselves surrounded by dedicated people who are willing to reflect on their practice. This reflection and the lifelong learning that is part of the culture in Boston create the ability to make a real impact on student learning. Teachers understand that setbacks are inevitable, but the trust they are building with each other helps them work through problems as a team.

Lorraine Theroux: Teacher, Manning Elementary School

Lorraine is encouraged by principal Casel Walker to make the most of each minute she is in the classroom. She teaches science but every day she finds creative ways to ensure that her science curriculum also helps students learn other subjects like literacy and math. Lorraine values the strong leadership role the principal has taken because teachers no longer feel compartmentalized in their teaching. Instead, teaching efforts are collaborative across subjects and grade levels. Lorraine has always felt the deepest respect from her peers, and her input concerning instructional and school leadership issues is always taken seriously.

Keith Magni: Teacher, Boston Arts Academy

Keith serves on the school leadership team at Boston Arts Academy and although the school is very much in a development phase, he sees a commitment to improvement from the entire staff. The school leadership team has given him an opportunity to do a tremendous amount of growing himself, along side the principal and the other leadership staff. He feels personally connected to the continuous improvement of the school and he values the sense of ownership in building the school. Sometimes Keith struggles with the very lofty goals set for the students, yet he and his fellow teachers strive to provide an interesting, applicable, rigorous and fun curriculum for the kids so that they believe they are achieving something for themselves and their future, rather than simply completing an assignment. Keith feels that as long as his students can be motivated, they can achieve anything.

The Principal's Story in Boston

Principals in the Boston Public School system know that the superintendent and district leadership ask for an incredible amount of effort and commitment from them. This challenge is embraced through a clear understanding of expectations and a support structure that allows principals to meet with district personnel. In addition, most principals have used some model of teacher and staff leadership teams within their school to share expertise, leadership and responsibility with everyone in the building. These school leadership teams serve many purposes: professional problem solving, distributing leadership and school improvement implementation as well as creating a team atmosphere where everyone is a part of the increased learning in the school. The principal and the school staff work together toward the same goals - and district vision - of improving every student's academic chances for a productive life.

Casel Walker: Principal, Manning Elementary School

Casel Walker "grew up" in Boston Public Schools, starting her career as a language pathologist. She is now in her eleventh year at Manning Elementary and is part of the superintendent's leadership team. Walker emphasizes integrity with her staff as well as an understanding of what she can and cannot live with and what she can and cannot change as key elements of success for a school leader. For example, she can change student learning but she cannot change what a student's home life is like. She stresses that while a lot of stumbling occurs along the way of learning to be a good principal, the keys to school success are clarity about expectations, allowing for mistakes, using evaluation for growth, and protecting teachers as they grow. She also feels that her role as the principal is a supporting one. She notes, "Sometimes I'm the most important person, sometimes I'm the least."

Nicole Bahnam: Principal, Boston Community Leadership Academy

Superintendent Thomas Payzant took a risk with Principal Nicole Bahnam. He allowed her to restructure the school to create small learning communities while using outside evaluation tools to drastically change and improve the way Boston Community Leadership Academy was run. The school was in desperate need of a turnaround and during her first two years it was difficult and painful at times to make the needed changes. But Nicole found the strength and support from the district to implement these changes so by the end of the second year, she had a staff that was completely committed to her vision. While much work remains to be done in developing the staff and creating a cohesive team, a foundation has been established that provides a sense of respect at all staff levels. Nicole enlisted the community to help her through the difficult process of securing pilot school status in Boston. Indeed, to fill her classrooms the first year of pilot school status, she recruited the 9th grade class by selling her ideas to parents and students in the community.

The Leadership Community's Story in Boston

The leadership community in Boston has developed a coordinated, homegrown effort to improve the quality of district and school leadership in order to better serve the students. The community has successfully branched out and tapped into resources around the country to bring grant dollars otherwise unavailable to the district, specifically for the ongoing improvement of the professional development infrastructure in Boston Public Schools. The citywide efforts have largely focused on teacher and principal professional development goals that continue to make a huge impact in schools.

Ellen Guiney: Director, Boston Plan for Excellence

Ellen has been working for many years to try to broaden the conception of what the district is. She works tirelessly to increase involvement from the community and higher education institutions while also making sure the teachers' unions and school boards have a seat at the decision-making table. The Boston Plan for Excellence is a citywide campaign to recruit and train teachers and leaders specifically for the needs of Boston. The Plan aims to engage participants in professional development opportunities provided within and outside the school district. This development program re-enforces the importance of instructional leadership in the teacher and especially the principal's role in supporting instructional excellence.

Rachel Curtis: Director of School Leadership Institute.

Rachel created the Boston School Leadership Institute, which exists to "grow their own" and develop the next generation of leadership. The program consists of three parts: (1) exploring the content of instructional leadership; (2) a fellowship program directed by a high-performing principal; and (3) and new principal support network provided by principal mentors. Rachel understands the importance of building institutional consistency and coherence among school and district leaders, and the principals' program strives to make this a collaborative effort involving the different leadership generations. The program has expanded to grow principals from aspiring teachers and assistant principals, which helps foster consistency and stability.

The District Office Story in Boston

The district office in Boston Public Schools places incredible importance on efforts to implement a consistent message and vision in schools while creating lasting sustainability for this vision. The first (and monumental) task is to get everyone in the district "facing the same direction" and believing in the same goals. The district hopes that by encouraging leadership development at all levels, staff will grow together and take leadership responsibility for the changes and success in the district and in their schools. The district has undertaken a tremendous investment in the development of staff both in the district and from partnering organizations in the community. The district realizes that its teachers and leaders are its greatest resource - their success is crucial to ensuring the success of students.

Sid Smith: Director of Curriculum and Instruction

Sid Smith worked in Boston's alternative schools for several years and eventually left BPS altogether to be the director of New American Schools. He returned to Boston, however, when Thomas Payzant became superintendent in 1995. Mr. Smith emphasizes standards as the lynchpin of success for a large urban system like Boston. He stresses the importance of data to inform decisions, but cautions against using data in an incomplete way that leads to inappropriate student learning assumptions. Mr. Smith says the key is to use data to drive information but not processes. This strategy enables the district to promote a consistent message, which is critical to long-term, sustainable improvement, and to target professional development and assessments towards maintaining the district's vision.

Chris Coxon: Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Learning

Mr. Coxon expresses his confidence in Boston in that everyone is faced in the right direction, whether they're just looking, walking or running. He values the stability of the Boston framework across all levels and says that autonomy and collaboration have led to this condition. He highlights teacher leadership, benchmarking innovations, and instructional leadership among principals as key elements of Boston's success.