Edwatch by Julia Steiny: Progress in Oakland Beach
Providence Journal, Sunday, October 17, 2004

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According to Principal Richard D'Agostino, Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick has gone from being categorized as low-performing in 2002, moderate in 2003, to high-performing in 2004.

The school's performance on the state's standardized tests was already so improved last year, the commissioner of education used the school for his annual press conference for the release of the state's classifications list. Who knows where this year's press conference will be -- it's coming soon -- but surely making a repeat performance at Oakland Beach has crossed their minds.

Invariably, when I visit successful schools and ask how they achieved their gains, the first thing I hear is that three to five years ago, they "started looking seriously at the data."

What comes next is always different, because schools identify different problems and adopt solutions tailored for their population. But radical change is often spurred as well as directed by the available data. In the case of Oakland Beach, a SALT visiting committee not only analyzed the school's unfortunate data, but schmushed their faces in it. Some teachers left. That was five years ago.

As is also always the case, D'Agostino notes that no one program or initiative was the school's silver bullet, but a whole bunch of changes ranging from much work done on the school facility itself to a new math program. And they replaced 10 teachers who left in the shakeup with 10 who embraced the new agenda as a condition of hiring.

Perhaps most striking was how the faculty had united around one vision, one set of expectations for all children and a common language spoken from pre-K to 6th grade. Their approach to special education exemplified this cohesion. Jennifer Moskol, a special education resource teacher, says, "The SALT visit pushed us into making the inclusion model real, whereas it had been half-hearted a lot of the time. Where we used to be self-contained, now we're totally inclusion. Our expectations remain the same for all the children, but the methods we use with some are different." With the exception of a new classroom for autistic children, all special education students are members of regular classrooms.

To do this, overall class size was lowered by having each child with an Individual Education Plan count as two students. The once self-contained classrooms of ten children with IEPs were spread among the regular classrooms with the resource teacher roving between two and sometimes three classrooms, depending on the number of special education children. The teachers often co-teach lessons to all children, and both implement whatever extra support the resource teacher has designed for those who need help. The resource teacher works with children who do not have IEPs, but who clearly need some extra help.

With a resource teacher as well as a reading specialist available to the younger grades, reading problems are nipped earlier, reducing the need for special services later on.

Roseanne Bessicini, a second-grade teacher, says: "This is all about expectations. The special education kids are the same as the others, with the same expectations for behavior, for output. Those expectations change the special education child's attitude towards himself."

Some of the most dramatic academic gains were made by those children previously presumed to be less capable, when they had been concentrated in separate classrooms. And no, standards were not lowered, but raised, as evidenced by the excellent results.

Jean Friend, third-grade teacher, says, "I was amazed at how much the special education kids learn in a regular classroom."

Also five years ago, the Oakland Beach teachers received a reading excellence grant to revamp their literacy program. Teachers gave up several Saturdays and a week in the summer to be trained in techniques that essentially wiped out their years of past practice. Bessicini says: "That program put us all on the same page. So now we have a common language that we use from the first grade on through the sixth."

On the day of my visit, I observed both a third- and a sixth-grade classroom use what they called "anticipation guides" to work with non-fiction texts. The third graders were studying North American trees and the fifth grade was studying mummies, specifically one that was found in the Alps a few years ago. Both classes are asked to say three things that they already know about their subject. Friend, the third-grade teacher, says that this technique initially threw the kids a bit, because it felt like having a test before having the lesson. The children collect what they might already know about their subject and then when the reading and work is done, they go back and score their original thinking. If they were correct, what evidence proves it? If wrong, what are the correct facts? This technique helps children be conscious of building their own information and knowledge. They distinguish between a fact and an opinion and learn to tease details and evidence out of the text. Both lessons were lively, interactive and made the kids seem smart.

Indeed, the teachers generally got so revved about the art of teaching that two have become nationally board certified and no less than 11 are waiting to hear the results of their applications. Bessicini says, "Going through the process, it becomes part of you to view yourself differently. I ask myself what I could have done better. You're always reflecting on what you've done. And if you use assessment to drive instruction, your teaching will change all the time."

With the teachers so turned on to teaching, the kids began changing. Friend says, "You began to see the difference as the kids moved through the grade levels. Two years ago, a lot of kids were coming to us working below grade level. And now they're all pretty much coming on level."

Almost 50 percent of the students are eligible for subsidized lunch, so managing to keep students on grade level is no small feat.

Not once did the teachers express worry about repeating their performance in the future. Instead they enthused about honing their craft and getting more comfortable with the newer initiatives. They weren't overconfident, just intrigued by the challenges ahead.

Good work, Oakland Beach.

Julia Steiny is a former member of the Providence School Board; she now consults and writes for a number of education, government and private enterprises. She welcomes your questions and comments on education. She can be reached by e-mail at juliasteiny [at] cox.net or c/o Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, R.I. 02902.