Boston Public Schools (BPS)
Professional Development and School Support
Since 1999 ERS has helped the Boston Public Schools define and create a professional development strategy that aligns professional development activities with the BPS’s goals for improving instruction and Whole School Change. ERS has worked closely with BPS’s partner in reform, the Boston Plan for Excellence.
Project Goals, Analysis, and Outcomes
Former BPS Superintendent Thomas Payzant’s plans for standards-based instruction and Whole School Change necessitated a coherent professional development strategy with objectives linked to overall system instructional goals. ERS’s conducted an in-depth analysis of the district’s professional development spending. Finding that the majority of funds were spent on fragmented courses and programs, ERS and the Boston Plan for Excellence published a joint report recommending:
- Better integration of professional development with the Superintendent’s goals and standard-based reform
- More accountability for the quality and focus of professional development
- Better utilization and coordination of central departments for Curriculum and Instruction, Leadership Development, and the Lead Teacher Program
- Consolidation of professional development funding sources.
To see the joint report, click here.
ERS performed a repeat analysis in 2001 which showed resources being used in much more focused, integrated ways to support the district wide professional development strategy. An additional Professional Development audit, performed by Rachel Curtis, Associate Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, using the ERS coding scheme, has resulted in recommendations to invest in principal capacity and create accountability around resource management.
School-Level Resource Use
Project Goals and Analysis
With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ERS
has worked collaboratively with the Boston Public Schools in a study of
small, high-performing high schools, analyzing their economics, organization,
district support, and strategies for increased student achievement. This
study involves:
- An in-depth analysis of school and district reform
practices that help create equitable, excellent, personalized high schools. These
practices include:
- The allocation of resources (levels, practices, flexibility)
- The contractual, legal issues, and regulatory issues
- The equitable distribution of students and programs
- High school case studies that focus on organization and resource use as well as on how system structures and practices help or hinder effective resource use.
Preliminary Results
Based on the Boston case studies, ERS has identified important ways that small high schools effectively use resources to improve instruction and performance:
- High performing schools use resource flexibly to develop teacher quality through hiring, performance evaluations and up to 25% more teacher time for PD and other opportunities
- With more flexibility, high performing schools increase student time by as much as 30%, incorporating support and enrichment activities rather than devoting significantly more time to core academics.
- Lowest performing schools and the schools with limited flexibility have higher class sizes and higher teacher loads in both core academics and 9th grade, limiting teachers’ ability to understand and serve student academic, social and emotional needs
- All schools, especially those with less flexibility, could better utilize high-performance resource levers. Underutilized levers include:
- Human capital management
- Scheduling
- Differentiating support to allow all students to reach college readiness, with a special focus on the 9th grade
- Allocating resources to reduce class size and teacher load in high need areas and in schools with high need populations
Next Steps
Steps which BPS can take for a more strategic use of resources include:
- Supporting principals in the effective management of resources through professional development
- Promoting specific organizational models
- Negotiating changes in the teacher contract to maximize resources
- Creating accountability around the use of resources through planning, budgeting, and reporting structures
Combining this work with studies in several other cities, ERS is contributing to the national discussion on high school reform by shifting the resource discussion from "how much" to "how organized" and providing school leaders with tools to support the development of cost-effective school designs and systems that support them.