rethinking the allocation of teaching resources: some lessons

Rethinking the Allocation of TeachingResources: Some Lessons from High

Performing Schools

Karen Hawley MilesLinda Darling-Hammond

CPRE Research Report SeriesRR-38

Consortium for Policy Research in EducationUniversity of Pennsylvania

Graduate School of Education

© Copyright 1997 by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education

RETHINKING THE ALLOCATION OF TEACHING RESOURCES Hawley Miles and Darling-Hammond

CPRE Research Report Series, RR-38

Contents

Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Opportunities for Fundamental Reallocation of Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Study Methods and Analytic Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Study Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Barriers to Reallocating Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Developing the Knowledge and Capacity for New Teaching Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

End Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48


CPRE Research Report Series, RR-38 i

Biographies

Karen Hawley Miles is a nationally recognized and published student of strategic planning inpublic schools and of district and school resource allocation. Her focus is how to rethink the useof resources to improve instruction, She has spent the last seven years working with schooldistricts to rethink the use of resources and the organization of schools. She has worked to designschool change and planning process in several urban districts. She currently works with NewAmerican Schools Corporation in an effort to create and implement “break the mold” designs forpublic schools. She co-directed the recent study by Economic Policy Institute, Where Has theMoney Gone?, an analysis of the components of school spending over time. Prior to this sheworked at Bain and Company as a Strategy and Management consultant for hospitals andcorporations. She has a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and a Doctorate in Educationfor Harvard University, specializing in school organization, change and finance.

Linda Darling-Hammond is currently William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations ofEducation at Teachers College, Columbia University where she is also Co-Director of theNational Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST) and ExecutiveDirector of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. She is actively engagedin research, teaching, and policy work on issues of school restructuring, teacher education reform,and the enhancement of educational equity.

Acknowledgments

We thank the staff at the five schools we studied for sharing with us their successes andfrustrations. Special thanks to Patrick McNeeley, principal at Quebec Heights Elementary Schoolin Cincinnati; Mary Nash at the Mary Lyons School in Boston; Myra Whitney, principal ofDouglass Elementary School in Memphis; Paul Schwarz at Central Park East Secondary School;and Eric Nadelstern and Ruthellen Weiner at International High School.

We also thank Lori Chajet and Peter Robinson who helped collect much of the secondary schooldata as part of their research with the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, andTeaching.

Finally, this paper received support from the Consortium for Policy Research in Education(CPRE), Grant No. OERI-R308A60003 from the National Institute on Educational Governance,Finance, Policymaking and Management, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S.Department of Education.


CPRE Research Report Series, RR-38 ii


CPRE Research Report Series, RR-38 iii

Abstract

Although a great deal of debate surrounds the level and allocation of resources to public schools,very little of this discussion addresses how schools might organize teaching resources moreeffectively at the school level. This paper describes case studies of five high performing publicschools that have organized professional resources in innovative ways. The study sought to detailalternative ways of deploying instructional resources in order to provide concrete alternatives totraditional organization of teachers and to quantify objectively the ways in which these schoolsuse resources differently depending on their instructional goals and strategies. Although theschools studied looked very different from one another, they shared five principles of resourceallocation which are outlined in this paper. The paper develops a framework for re-examining theuse of resources and a methodology which may be used to measure the extent to which schoolsuse their resources in focused ways to support teaching and learning.


CPRE Research Report Series, RR-38 1

Introduction

hile school reform proposals

W vary in their details, all call fordramatically improvingstudent achievement. Plans to

accomplish that goal typically includeimplementing a high standards curriculumprogram, instructional strategies that createmore time for individual attention forstudents, and increasing time for school wideteacher planning and learning. In an era ofbelt-tightening and rising student enrollment,finding the resources to do this will requireschools to reexamine the use of every dollar. Much publicity has surrounded efforts toredirect dollars from administrative oroperational functions back into theclassrooms. At the same time, little attentionhas been given to rethinking the use ofexisting instructional resources— instructors,support professionals andtechnology—schools' most important andexpensive resources.

Reform after reform initiative has faded awaywith little effect on the basic organization ofschools. The typical school hasapproximately one teacher for every 18students and one adult for every ninestudents (NCES, 1994). Despite theapparent potential for individual attentionand planning time for teachers, class sizes arewell over 25 for most students most of time,teacher student loads exceed 120 in mostsecondary schools and teacher planning timeis fragmented and uncoordinated. AsSeymour Sarason (1982) has written:

The fact is that one of the major factorsmaximizing the gulf between educationalgoals and accomplishments has been theway resources have been defined...Thereis a universe of alternatives one can

consider and if we do not confront thatuniverse, it is largely because we arecommitted to a way of defining whoshould be in the classroom...One teacherto one classroom is not an end in itself,but one means of providing more timefor individual students when needed (pp.275, 284).

The Consortium for Policy Research inEducation and the National Center forRestructuring Education, Schools, andTeaching hope to contribute to thisdiscussion of alternative ways of organizinginstructional resources by describing in detailhow a few schools have broken withtradition and improved student achievementsignificantly. Case studies of five schoolsillustrate possibilities and highlight theconditions which appear to facilitate or limitthis kind of resource restructuring.

This paper has five sections. The firstsection outlines a framework for thinkingabout opportunities to re-examine the use ofresources. Section two describes themethodology used to select and analyzeinnovative schools. Section threesummarizes the findings by describing eachsample school in detail, then comparing themto each other and to traditional schools. Thefinal two sections summarize the barriers thatexist to reorganizing resources and the waysteachers say they are learning to teach moreeffectively in new school designs.



Opportunities forFundamental Reallocation ofResources

Finding resources to create more individualtime for students and increase professionaltime for teachers without prohibitivelyraising costs demands rethinking the existingorganization of resources. This paperfocuses on the use and assignment ofteaching staff, one of the most under-explored and complex areas of potentialresource reallocation. Researchers andobservers have commented on the strikingsimilarity, across districts and over time, inthe organization of schools and distributionof resources, despite increases in funding andchanges in school expectations. Nationally, the number of pupils per teacherdropped from 26 in 1960 to 17.6 in 1992(NCES, 1994). On the surface, it wouldseem that this investment could have createdschools which provide a very different levelof individual attention to students andperhaps more time for teachers than waspossible in the public schools attended bymost of today’s parents. But, for moststudents and teachers, very little haschanged. Because most of the teachingresources have been added outside theregular classroom, the average count of 18students for every teacher is far from thedaily reality most educators and studentsface. Class size ranges between 24 and 28for most students; teachers see more than120 students daily in most secondaryschools; and teacher planning time is sparse,fragmented, and uncoordinated.

A recent analysis of staffing and spendingpatterns from 1967 to 1991 in nine differentdistricts across the country shows that only asmall portion of new teaching staff went to

reduce class sizes for regular educationstudents. Virtually all of the increase in staffper pupil went to provide small classes to thegrowing number of students in specialprograms, and to improve teacher workingconditions by adding a modest amount oftime to free teachers from instruction duringthe school day (Miles, 1997a and 1997b;Rothstein and Miles, 1995).

Even as schools have added instructionalstaff to provide new services, staff newprograms, and create planning time forteachers, the portion of resources devoted toclassroom teaching has declined. Since1950, the proportion of school staff who areclassified as teachers has dropped from 70percent to 53 percent, of whom only aboutthree-fourths are regularly engaged inclassroom teaching (National Commission onTeaching and America's Future, 1996). Thenumber of both non-teaching professionalstaff and non-teaching support staff hasgrown substantially. By contrast, 60 to 80percent of education staff in most Europeancountries are classroom teachers, allowingfor much greater flexibility in the use ofteacher time, including much greater time forcollaborative planning and professionaldevelopment (OECD, 1995).

Analysis of the allocation of teachingresources in the Boston Public Schoolsidentifies six educational and managementpractices that explain the difference betweenthe apparently rich potential and reality inU.S. schools (Miles, 1995). These practicesinclude:

• separate, specialized programs for smallsubsets of students and teachers;

• instruction-free time for teachers spreadthroughout the student day;


3CPRE Research Report Series, RR-38 3

• formula driven student assignment; teachers may be used and students may be

• fragmented high school schedules and programs generally using a pull-out model incurriculum; which students leave the regular classroom

• large high schools; and instruction in small groups. In Boston in

• inflexible teacher work day and job working outside the regular classroomdefinition. represented over 40 percent of the teaching

While the relative impact of these practiceson the use of teaching resources differs tosome extent in each district, the practices are Currently, most school districts providestrikingly consistent across districts and over teachers with short periods of time free fromtime. These practices are so widespread that instruction by using other classroom teachersTyack (1994) describes them as the to give instruction at these times. At the“grammar of schooling.” Sarason (1982) elementary level, teachers typically have adubbed this constancy in school organization 45-minute duty-free period four or five times“school regularities.” This set of six a week which is typically covered bypractices forms the basis of our conceptual specialists in art, music or physicalframework for understanding and quantifying education. In 1991, this represented ninethe use of teaching resources in both percent of Boston's elementary teachingtraditional and untraditional schools. A brief resources. At the secondary level, a teacherdescription of each practice and their relative might teach five of seven instructionalimpact on the use of teaching resources periods. Other teachers cover instructionprovides the foundation for much of the during the 30 percent of the student'sremaining discussion. instructional day when the teacher is not

Specialized Programs. In most schooldistricts, a significant portion of teacherswork outside the regular classroom withspecial populations of students in separateprograms such as special education, Title 1compensatory education, bilingual education,remedial education or gifted education. Thisnumber has increased significantly in recentyears. The Economic Policy Institute foundthat programs for special student populationshave absorbed 58 percent of the new dollarsdevoted to education from 1967 to 1991(Rothstein and Miles, 1995). Many of theseprograms operate under federal, state, Formula Driven Student Assignment. district, and sometimes collective bargaining Following the factory model of efficiencyregulations that restrict the ways in which and standardization, the process of American

grouped. Most districts operate these

for all or part of the day for remedial

1991, teachers in specialized programs

force.1

Instruction-Free Time for Teachers.

teaching. Generally, teachers spend one ofthese periods planning and the othercovering non-instructional duties, rangingfrom hall or cafeteria duty to coordination ofin-school programs. Although secondaryteachers have more preparation time thanelementary teachers (about five hours perweek as opposed to three), the short,fragmented blocks of non-instructional timedo not allow substantive planning andcollaboration. These activities require longerblocks of uninterrupted time that iscoordinated with other teachers.



schooling has been broken into small, approach to schooling is its impact onspecialized pieces through which students student loads. In 1991, the majority ofare expected to move at an even rate. Boston's middle and high schools scheduledUnder this model, districts use formulas to students for seven 45-minute periods a day. assign students to classrooms in a Each teacher worked with 125 to 150regularized fashion by pupil age, subject and students per day, with five classes of 25program. Much has been written regarding students in middle school and classes of 30 inthe educational shortcomings of this high school. Reducing teaching loadsfactory-like model (Darling-Hammond, without dramatically increasing costs1996, 1997). Furthermore, these formulas demands rethinking curriculum andare costly due to the uneven allocation of scheduling to lengthen the duration of classesteachers over grades, small programs and with each teacher. That is, instead of sevenundersubscribed subjects which contribute to 45-minute courses per day, students andunplanned differences in class size unrelated teachers might have four classes a day, eachto educational strategies. lasting over an hour. This can be

Using formulas to allocate students to traditionally separate subjects, or byclassrooms by age can create huge variation segmenting the school year into learningin elementary class sizes. For example, the institutes and allowing smaller groups ofelementary class sizes of the Boston Public students to work intensively with teachers inSchools are capped at 28 students. When fewer subjects, much as is done in collegesthe 29th student enrolls in a school with only and universities (Carroll, 1994).one class in that grade, a new teacher mustbe added, and the average class size fallsdramatically from 28 to 14.5. In 1991,regular elementary class sizes in Boston's645 elementary classes varied from 15 to 31. Class size differences of 8 or 9 students fromone grade to another in the same schoolwere not unusual. The more separateprograms and subjects a school has, and themore constrained it is by age grading ortracking practices, the more often this kindof unplanned variation in allocation ofresources occurs.

Fragmented High School Schedules and larger enrollments create economies of scaleCurriculum. Curriculum and scheduling by distributing administrative and operatingtraditions limit time available for individual costs and offering a more diverse curriculumattention and teacher planning. The cost-effectively. However, existing researchproblems of age grading are compounded by suggests that high schools have created moretracking, program schedules, and teacher and internal specialization and depart-subject specialization. Perhaps the most mentalization than can be scientificallyunfortunate effect of this fragmented justified (Lee, Bryk and Smith, 1993).

accomplished either by combining

Large High Schools. The averageenrollment of secondary schools nationally isnearly twice that of elementary schools(NCES, 1994, Table 95). Schools get largeras students progress through the system. Boston high schools average more than1,000 students, nearly three times the size ofthe city's elementary schools and twice thatof the average middle school. Compre-hensive high schools in New York Cityaverage over 2,000 students, and some arewell over 3,000 students. The conventionaljustification for this size difference is that



Studies have found that larger schools do not The use of part-time teachers is explicitlyincrease average achievement but they do forbidden if they substitute for potentiallead to increased alienation and detachment full-time positions. Choosing two part-timeamong students and teachers, higher dropout teachers costs less than one full-time teacherrates, and larger numbers of administrative because part-time teachers do not earnstaff, thereby deflecting resources from benefits. While the regulation intends toclassroom instruction. Furthermore, beyond discourage management from substitutingabout 400 students, gains in achievement lower-cost and potentially lower-qualitythat could be attributed to curriculum teachers for dedicated full-timers, it limits thediversity disappear increasingly and become most effective use of resources. One way todeclines in achievement due to excessive create common planning time for groups oftracking and depersonalization (For reviews, teachers during the school day is to schedulesee Lee, Bryk and Smith, 1993; Darling- coverage by specialist teachers by hiring aHammond, 1997). These findings suggest larger number of part-time teachers. that schools need to find ways of creating Limiting part-time staff makes this strategymore personal learning environments without more difficult. Also, rigid definitions of theadding significantly to admin-istrative costs work-day and work hours exclude from theor substantially reducing students' access to teaching force potentially talented individualscritical programmatic offerings. who cannot or choose not to work during

Inflexible Teacher Work Day and JobDefinition. In Boston, the union contractspecifies the required hours of work, fromstarting time in the morning to ending time inthe afternoon. This contract provisionmakes it difficult to stagger starting times tomake the best use of staff time or to meetstudent needs. For example, one high schoolwanted to change the work hours of itsguidance staff so they would start later in theday and end the day after 4:30 to enablestudents to meet with guidance counselorswhen it did not conflict with theircoursework. However, the contract forbidssuch changes in work hours and the requestwas disallowed. The contract also stipulatesthe way teachers can be assigned over theday, requiring that planning time be spreadover the day and forbidding a teacher toteach more than three periods in a row. Thismakes it difficult to combine instruction-freeperiods for teachers to create longer blocksof time.

typical school hours.

In summary, this analysis of traditionalallocation of teaching resources highlightssix practices that offer opportunities forrealigning teaching resources to providemore individualized attention and moreeffective time for teacher planning (Miles,1995). Changing any one of these practicesmay not free enough resources tosignificantly alter group sizes or planningtime. Many current patterns of teacherallocation have evolved as incrementalresponses to teaching conditions andtraditions, so it follows that smalladjustments may not break this cycle. Forexample, without changing the seven to eightperiod schedule for secondary schools, it isdifficult to conceive of a humane schedulethat consolidates teacher planning time inone spot during the day. Similarly,eliminating one category of pull-outprograms is unlikely to allow significantreductions in class size. It is only byconsidering these practices together that the



full range of alternatives becomes possible. ways of matching the daily schedule toThese opportunities include: learning requirements.

• Reduction of specialized programs and • Creation of more usable commoncreation of more generalized roles for planning and professional developmentteachers. Schools rethinking resources time for teachers. Traditional schoolscould consider how remedial, special have not designed non-instructional timeeducation, Title 1 and bilingual education to enable significant joint curriculum orresources might work together to professional development. Schoolssupport an integrated plan to benefit rethinking their use of teaching resourcesthese students in the regular education could consider ways of creating longersetting. periods of time for teachers to plan and

• More flexible student grouping targetedto individual student needs. Traditional • Creative definition of staffing roles andschools assign teachers and students to work day. Traditional schools use full-classrooms using formulas and time teaching staff all working the sameclassifications of students such as age,program (special education, bilingual,Title 1) and ability. Group sizes stayconstant over the day regardless oflesson and skill level. Schools lookingfor better ways of matching resourcesand student needs could consider newways of assigning students to groupsbased on educational strategies.

• Structures that enable personalrelationships. The traditional largesecondary school with its fragmentedschedules and heavy student loads makesit difficult for students and teachers toknow one another. To address theseissues, schools could consider ways ofrestructuring schedules and grouping toreduce teacher loads and create smallercontained teacher-student groups.

• Longer and more varied blocks ofinstructional time. Traditional schoolshave created inflexible, fragmented dailyschedules. Schools could consider waysof more effectively matching resources toteaching and student needs for better

develop curriculum together.

hours. While some schools useinstructional aides to support teachers,most schools do not have systematicstrategies for using aides or othernon-certified teachers to supportinstruction. Schools looking to matchresources to student and staff needscould consider the use of part-timepositions and varied job schedules.

Recent surveys suggest that public schoolsengaging in a comprehensive reallocation ofresources are quite rare (Rettig and Canady,1993).

Study Methods and AnalyticFramework

Because alternative models of organizingschools are so rare, we sought to identifyand describe in detail five schools which usedteaching resources very differently togenerate high student achievement. Thissection outlines the methods used to selectthe five case study sites, the data collectionprocess and the analytic framework.



Sample Schools

To create a sample of schools that couldoffer insight into the possibilities andchallenges involved in rethinking theallocation of instructional resources in publicschools, we sought a balance of elementaryand secondary schools each of which:

• Has engaged in a significant rethinking ofresources touching on at least four of theresource principles listed above.

• Uses no significant extra resourcesbeyond the school district’s average perpupil, except start-up or training grants.

• Serves a diverse student population interms of income, ability and percent ofbilingual and special needs students.

• Has used a new organization model forat least two years.

• Has strong evidence that the changeshave improved student performance.

Experts involved in national reform networkswere surveyed to identify such schools. Thefive schools selected represent differenteducational strategies and organizations.Three of the schools are model schoolsstarted from scratch, which had considerableflexibility in hiring their staff and designingtheir programs. The other two schoolsrestructured existing programs and staff. The sample includes the three elementaryschools and two secondary schools describedbelow.

Quebec Heights Elementary School inCincinnati, Ohio had, at the time of thestudy, 500 students in grades K-6, with 15percent classified as having special education

needs and 70 percent eligible for Title 1. Quebec Heights eliminated age andprogram-based instructional grouping andassigned students to smaller, multi-aged,heterogeneous groups that remain togetherfor three years. The school created readinggroups of eight or fewer students. Teachershave common planning time each day andteachers pursue professional development inthe school's priority areas during the schoolday. Cohort analysis of student performancedata shows that special education and regulareducation students have improved faster thanthe Cincinnati average.

Douglass Elementary School in Memphis,Tennessee had 475 students with 17 percentclassified as special education and 88 percentqualifying for Title 1 support. At the time ofthe study, the school was in its third year ofimplementing the “Success for All” programwhich restructured school resources to allow90 minutes a day of reading and dailyindividual tutoring for first and secondgraders not meeting grade-level standards. The Douglass school was working tointegrate its special education students andteachers fully into the regular classroom. After the second year of implementing theprogram, the percent of second graders (theonly students with two years of the newmodel) scoring at or above the median inlanguage arts increased from 17 percent to59 percent. In addition, the school'sevaluation of special education integrationshowed these students continuing toprogress academically and socially.

Mary C. Lyons Model Elementary School inBoston, Massachusetts had 90 students ingrades K-5: sixty of whom were classified asregular education and 30 had severeemotional disturbances previously requiringplacement in highly restrictive settings. Over



80 percent of students qualified for Title 1. elective courses such as foreign languageThe Mary Lyons School fully integrated all instruction. Central Park East has beenspecial education students to create class nationally heralded for its consistentlysizes of 15 or fewer students for all classes, exceptional graduation and college admissioneach having a teacher and instructional rates relative to the rest of New York Cityassistant. Lyons redefined the school day to schools. Each year since its inception inextend school hours from 7:00 a.m. to 5:15 1985, more than 90 percent of Central Parkp.m. Lyons School is the only elementary East students have graduated and more thanschool studied that used outside contractors 90 percent have been accepted to college.to provide instruction, and used a variety ofstaffing arrangements, including International High in New York, New York isparaprofessionals, teacher interns, part-time an alternative school serving 475 recentworkers, and staggered shifts. The school immigrant students in grades 9 through 12. was one of 15 (out of 115) Boston schools Only students who have been in the Unitedto be over-subscribed by every race for States fewer than four years and who scorespecial education and regular education slots below the 20th percentile on an Englishthree years in a row. Standardized language proficiency exam are admitted. Atachievement test scores showed that both the time of the study, over 75 percent of thespecial education and regular education students were eligible for free or reducedstudents improved faster than the Boston price lunch. International offers a high schoolaverage and that 100 percent of the students curriculum that integrates all state-mandatedwere reading on grade level. subject matter in an interdisciplinary

Central Park East Secondary School in New heterogeneous groups. Teachers work withYork, New York served 450 students in no more than 75 students a term and spendgrades 7 through 12, approximately 25 70 or more minutes with them each day. percent of whom qualified for special The teachers have nearly six hours eacheducation and 60 percent for free or reduced week of common planning and professionalprice lunch. All students are integrated in development time. All staff members lead aheterogeneous classrooms. The school small advisory group that meets weekly torestructured the typical daily secondary discuss issues of personal, academic, andschedule to create two-hour blocks of social growth. Despite its high riskinstructional time for the humanities and population, the school's dropout rate wasmath/science. Teachers had more than seven less than 1 percent in 1993-94 as comparedhours each week of common planning time in to the citywide rate of 30 percent. In 1993,addition to their daily individual preparation both the graduation rate and collegeperiods. To reduce academic group sizes, acceptance rates exceeded 95 percent. Central Park East allocates nearly all its These rates have exceeded 90 percentpositions for teaching, rather than hiring annually for more than a decade.guidance counselors and other administrative International High has won numerousstaff. All professional staff members lead 10 national and local awards honoring itsto 12 student advisory groups that meet achievements (IHS, 1995; Darling-three hours a week. The school hires some Hammond, Ancess, and Falk, 1995).part-time teachers on a consulting basis for

curriculum taught in multi-aged



Table 1 summarizes the resource allocationstrategies used by the five sample schools. Each school implemented multiple strategiesfor allocating teachers and teaching time tobetter match student needs and create moreplanning time. Only the three new modelschools having alternative status—Lyons,Central Park East and International—createddifferentiated teaching roles by contractingwith other providers for teaching or byrestructuring some teaching positions. Thehigh schools reallocated non-teachingprofessional positions in order to have moreclassroom teachers.

Data Collection

To understand the resource allocationpractices of each of the five schools, wecollected information about schoolexpenditures, staffing and studentscheduling. District level budget and staffinginformation allowed comparisons of thesample schools with more traditionalschools. This analysis focused on resourcesproviding the school’s academic programand support services. The costs of operatinga school include: provision and support ofthe academic program; administration andsupport services; provision and maintenanceof the physical plant; and auxiliary servicessuch as food, transportation, and security. Comparison of physical plant and auxiliaryservice costs across the sample schooldistricts was not feasible within the scope ofthis work.

Table 1Resource Reallocation Strategies Used by Sample Sites

Strategy Lyons Quebec Douglass Inter- CPESSnational

Reduction of SpecializedPrograms

• • • •

More flexible studentgrouping

• • • • •

Structures to create morepersonal environments

• • • • •

Longer and varied blocksof instructional time

• • • • •

More common planningtime

• • • • •

Creative definition ofstaffing roles and workday

• • •



• = Sample school implements strategy

Researchers conducted interviews with Choosing measures that accurately portrayadministrators and teachers and examined what is happening in the more fluidlywritten materials available at each school to organized sample schools yet still allowunderstand how the school had reorganized comparison to traditional schools creates aand how this reorganization was linked to tension between finding easily understood,educational purposes. Where possible, easily calculated measures and developingresearchers observed staff or team meetings measures which provide meaningfuland classes. description. The subtleties can be seen in the

Although not a focus of this paper, principle, “reduction of specialized programsresearchers also conducted interviews to create more individual time for all.” In aexploring the challenges and benefits of the traditional school, regular class size is aschools' efforts to reorganize. These useful gauge of how much access a studentinterviews detailed contractual, regulatory or might have to individual attention from thepolicy barriers or supports to changing the teacher. But, regular class size does notallocation of resources. Interviewers also reflect the regular-education student'sasked teachers to highlight the changes that experience in some innovative schoolsposed the most significant learning because it does not describe the way thesechallenges and the professional development schools organize by subject and over thevehicles they found most useful in helping course of the day. For example, the regularthem acquire new knowledge and skills. class sizes of 24 at Quebec Heights school

Analytic Framework

Each of the schools used different strategiesto implement the common principles ofresource allocation. This study createdmeasures to allow comparison of resourceallocation patterns between the modelsstudied and traditional schools. Thisrequired two steps: developing usefulmeasures; and creating meaningful traditionalschool comparisons.

The measures were developed byhypothesizing the quantifiable impact eachresource allocation principle might have onresources, then testing this impact by severalindices. The indices aim to be descriptive ofwhat is happening in both traditional andnontraditional schools, easy to understand,and replicable.

attempt to measure the impact of the

distorts student experience because allstudents spend 90 minutes a day in groups ofeight for reading. In order to capture thisadditional individual time for all students, ameasure of average instructional group size,is used instead of regular class size. Thismeasure demands greater descriptiveknowledge of a school, but it reflects studentexperience more accurately.

Table 2 summarizes the measures used foreach resource allocation principle.Application of the first principle, reductionof specialized programs to create moreindividual time for all in heterogeneousinstructional groups, should lead to smalleraverage size of instructional groups for allregular education students and to more evendistribution of resources between regular andspecial program students. Three measureswere used to assess the differences betweeninnovative schools and traditional schools.



Students per teacher. This number includesall teachers and students from all programs inthe school. At the school level, our sampleschools had roughly similar numbers ofstudents per teacher. However, a school canreduce its functional student to teacher ratioby converting typical non-teaching slots toteaching roles. For example, Central ParkEast School has converted its guidancecounselor, assistant principal, and librarianpositions to teachers, providing smallerratios of students to teachers than atraditional school with the same studentpopulation. The index of students perteacher indicates only the opportunity tocreate small, flexible instructional groups. Itdoes not reflect the actual size of the groupsin which most students spend time.

Weight average group size. This measurecalculates the weight average size of theinstructional group which a regulareducation student experiences over the dayfor academic subjects. It incorporates the in targeted group sizes represents thetime spent in different group sizes over the extent to which a school has minimizedday for typical students. For example, if random variation in class size. Instudents in a classroom of 24 spent 90 traditional schools, where no group sizeminutes a day (25 percent of their school day target existed other than thenot including lunch) in reading groups of contractually defined class sizeeight, then the weight average group size maximums, we measured how manywould be 20 (.75 times 24 plus .25 times 8). students were in classes which wereIn a traditional school, the average group within five percent of the average size. size and the regular class size would be the More flexible student grouping alsosame. This measure may offer a clearer allows teachers to create smaller groupssense of how much access to individual for target subject areas. attention most students have.

Percent of teachers in regular educationinstructional groups. This figure divides thenumber of teachers who work with regulareducation students (including classroomteachers, subject specialists and otherteachers who work all day instructing groupsthat include regular education students) by

the total number of teachers in the school.The figure gives a sense of how much aschool has concentrated its resources on coreclassroom functions as opposed to special orpullout programs.

The second principle, more flexible studentgrouping by school professionals, shouldallow educators to create instructionalgroupings that more closely matchinstructional needs. As described above,strict formulas that mandate the size ofgroups and classrooms can create situationswhere the size of groups varies for noeducational reason. When teachers cancreate their own groups using criteria linkedto educational strategies, they can reducethese unplanned variations and create astrategy that maximizes the use of limitedresources. The two measures of thisprinciple include:

• Percent of regular education students

• Average size of instructional groups infocus area measures how schoolsfocused resources to create moreindividualized attention in some subjects. If some regular education students spenttime in much smaller instructionalgroups, this would be reflected in the



average by calculating the percent of The extent to which sample schools createdstudents receiving such support. longer and more varied blocks of

Four aspects of the third principle,structures to support more personalrelationships between teachers and students,lend themselves to measurement. Student load is a primary indicator of anacademic teacher's opportunity to invest timein building relationships with each student.

Percent of professionals who serve as how different our sample schools were ininstructors or advisors to regularly applying the fifth principle of creating morescheduled groups of students in an ongoing useful common planning time for teachers.fashion is an indicator of a school’s effort tomaximize personal relationships. Anassistant principal who worked withoccasional discipline problems or a guidancecounselor meeting once with each of 200students to ensure compliance withgraduation requirements would not beincluded. Although these singular contactswith students can be important, they do notaim to build long term, personal relationshipsbetween school professionals and students.

Average size of teacher and student teamsor clusters provides a third measure of theopportunity to create a more personaleducational environment. For this measure,student-teacher teams had to be self-managi-ng and self-contained. This means thatvirtually all instruction occurs within thecluster and that the cluster has primaryresponsibility for curriculum, grouping,discipline, and evaluation of its students.

Number of years teachers and students stay two cases, no traditional school in the districttogether measures a strategy schools use to served the same mix of students as ourcreate personal relationships by keeping sample sites. The Lyons elementary school inteachers and students together for longer Boston draws a large percentage of itsthan the typical year. population from special education students

instructional time, the fourth principle, ismeasured by the average scheduled length ofinstructional period for academic subjects insecondary schools. In some of the schoolsstudied, teachers regularly vary the length ofinstruction from the schedule to suit theparticular lesson. These variations were notcalculated.

Finally, two measures are used to understand

Number of minutes of common planningtime is defined as time which is shared withother teachers who are part of the sameinstructional team.

Length of the longest planning period is asecond important indicator of the usefulnessof the planning time. For some kinds ofplanning and development, teachers needtime periods longer than the typical 40 to 50minutes.

We compare each innovative school with atypical school in the same district serving asimilar student population. Meaningfulcomparisons must include an adjustment forthe mix of students eligible for specialservices because schools typically receiveadditional resources to serve these students. Adjusted for student mix, the sample schoolsused the same or fewer resources on anongoing basis than traditional schools. In

typically served by private schools.



Table 2Measuring Resource Allocation Patterns

Staff Allocation

Resource Allocation Expected Impact on School MeasurePrinciples Resources

Reduction of specialized • Smaller sized regular • Students per teacherprograms to create more education instructional • Average size of regularindividual time for all groups ed instructional groups

• More even distribution • % teachers in regof resources between instructional groupsregular and specialprogram students

More flexible student • Smaller instructional • % students in targetgrouping by school groups in focus areas regular ed size groupsprofessionals • Less unplanned • Average size of group in

variation in class sizes focus area

Structures to support more • Lower teacher student • Teacher student loadspersonal relationships loads per day

• More adults involved in • % adults instructors/

• Smaller teams of • Size of teacher/student

• Multi-year relationships • Length of student/

instruction advisors

teachers and students clusters

between students and teacher relationshipteachers

Longer and more varied • Longer instructional • Average length ofblocks of instructional time periods for academic instructional period for

subjects academic subjects

More common planning time • More minutes of • Common planning

• Longer periods of time Length of longestcommon planning minutes/week

for planning planning period•

Creative definition of staffing • Use of part-time or • Not applicableroles and work day contract staff

• Use of interns or

• Staggered work

paraprofessionals forinstruction

schedules



A hypothetical comparison was created for practices that allow her to provide someLyons based on the assumption that these individual or small-group instruction tostudents were served in separate, self- students throughout the day. Such variationscontained classrooms of four students each, in grouping strategies are not incorporatedthe smallest existing class size. Social into this measurement scheme unless theservices and other support staff were entire school uses the strategy. Theassumed to be the same level as the Lyons existence of planning and development timeSchool. does not guarantee that it is used to improve

The International School in New York City schools voluntarily find common planningserves a unique population of limited- time outside the school day. These measuresEnglish-proficiency students who speak are intended to be used in conjunction with amore than 40 different languages. descriptive understanding of the way aTraditional schools serve such students school has organized to match teachingthrough many distinct bilingual programs and resources to student needs and to provideESL courses that are offered separately from opportunity for teacher growth.the rest of the high school curriculum, buttraditional schools do not require suchservices for 100 percent of their studentpopulation. To create a comparison to theInternational School, we used the New YorkCity Board of Education staffing formula todetermine the number of teachers the schoolwould have been allocated and assumed theadditional resources that would have beenused outside the regular program to provideremedial support to students throughbilingual programs and ESL courses. Thisgenerous assumption about universal ESLservices to limited-English-proficientstudents does not hold true in any of NewYork's traditional schools, but it does offer abest-case scenario for allocating resources ina traditional model.

These calculations are intended to provokediscussion and to provide an objective wayof comparing innovative and traditionalschools. Obviously, other factors contributeto the opportunity for individual attentionand the creation of teacher planning timewhich these measures do not incorporate. For example, a teacher in a class of 24students may use sophisticated grouping

teaching quality. Further, teachers in many

Study Findings

The findings for elementary and secondaryschools are discussed separately in thissection because they have such differentorganizational structures. With theirrelatively small teaching loads andself-contained multi-subject classrooms,elementary schools allow more flexible,individual instruction than secondaryschools. But their simple structures,providing limited teacher time free frominstruction, do not offer the sameopportunities for freeing time and resourcesas secondary schools. Because of theelementary school’s simpler daily schedules,reducing the use of pull-out programs forspecial education, language arts and Title 1instruction is a primary lever for creatingsmaller groups for all. In contrast,traditional secondary schools, with theirfragmented daily schedules, large teachingloads, and larger amounts of non-teachingtime offer more ways to reconfigureresources.



Elementary Schools

Table 3 presents the resource allocationmeasures for the three high-performingsample elementary schools. In the threeurban districts studied, the traditional schoolsserved regular education students inage-graded, self-contained classrooms. About 75 percent of the teachers workedwith regular education students, the other 25percent worked with Title 1 and specialeducation students outside the regularclassroom. Because all of these schools arein urban areas, with high concentrations ofstudents living in poverty, even thetraditional schools were using at least someof their Title 1 teachers as regular classroomteachers. Thus, their regular education classsizes averaged between 19 and 22. Classcomposition and class size stayed the sameall day, for all subjects, except when studentswere pulled out for special education or Title1 instruction. The elementary classroomteacher instructed all subjects exceptspecialties like art, music, and gym whichwere taught by specialists during theclassroom teacher's free period. Teachershad 45 minutes three to five times a weekfree from instruction plus short lunchperiods. These instruction-free times werenot coordinated with other teachers in anysystematic way.

Reduction of Specialized Programs

In departing from the traditionalorganization, the sample schools increasedthe percentage of teachers who worked withall students regardless of program. As Table3 shows, the percent of teachers workingwith heterogeneous groups of students in theregular education program ranged from 28to 77 percent in the traditional comparisonschools and from 91 to 100 percent in the

restructured schools. Those teaching specialeducation students in substantially separateclassrooms at Quebec Heights were the onlyteachers not working with heterogeneousgroups of students.

Each elementary school used different leversfor realigning instructional resources tobetter match student needs. The specifics ofeach school's strategy depended upon itseach educational goals and purposes. Quebec Heights used multi-age grouping todesign a school structure which respondedmore effectively to the diversity in studentskill levels. Table 4 shows how the QuebecHeights strategy reduced specialization inthree ways. First, they assigned students tomulti-age clusters, called “families,” eachcontaining three or four teachers and 75 to85 students. The families span threegrades—either primary (grades 1-3) orintermediate (grades 4-6)—and remaintogether for three years. Each student has ahomeroom teacher who has primaryresponsibility for an average class of 22students for the full year, but students maywork with any instructor within the familyduring the day. Instead of varying thecurriculum by age level, all students in thefamily study the same basic curriculumduring the year, but at their owndevelopmental levels. Under this approach,some first graders may study topicstraditionally included in the third gradecurriculum. To allow this more flexibleapproach to content coverage, the Cincinnatischool district developed promotionstandards for the end of grades three and six,as well as yearly promotion standards for thecritical skill levels students are expected toattain each year.



Table 3High Performing vs. Traditional Elementary Schools

Resource Allocation School Measure Quebec Douglass LyonsPrinciples Heights

Avg. Trad. Avg. Trad. Avg. Trad.

Reduction of Students per 15 15 16 16 11 7specialized programs teacher

Average size of 19 21 26 22 13 19regular edinstructional group

% of teachers in 91 77 95 76 100 28regular edinstructionalgroups

More flexible student % students in 100 65 100 60 NA NAgrouping by school target sizeprofessionals instructional

groupings

Average size of 7 21 20 22 6 19instructional groupin reading

Structures to support Student loads for 22 21 24 19 13 19more personal primary classroomrelationships teachers

Length of time 3 1 1 1 1 1students stay with years year year year year yearteacher

More common Common planning 325 100 135 0 405 45planning time for minutes/weekteachers

Length of longest 45 45 45 45 105 45planning period



Table 4Quebec Heights Elementary School

Resource Allocation Model Components Changes in TeacherPrinciples Allocation

Reduction of specialized • Multi-age, hetero- • No grade level teachersprograms geneous groups for all • Title 1 instructors used

subjects schoolwide, concentrate

• Special Ed resourcein grades K-3

teacher works with allstudents in primaryteam

More flexible student • Daily regrouping of • Title 1 instructors rotategrouping by school students based on to reduce the size of allprofessionals lesson, skills groups for reading

• 90 minutes per day ofreading instruction ingroups of 8 or smaller

Structures to support • Multi-age clusters ofrelationships students in grades K-3

and 4-6 remain togetherfor 3 years

More common planning time • Teachers have 50 • 5 specialists coverfor teachers minutes daily common instruction

• Whole school has 20 specialists

planning time with their Average regular groupcluster size rises to provide

minutes common time Elementary school daydaily 20 minutes shorter than

•

•

secondary school to addplanning time

Creative definition of staffing • Trained instructional • Instructional assistantsroles and work day assistants provide do not play general role

reading instruction in in all classes but rotatesmall groups throughout to create small readingthe day groups in grades 1-3



A second way that Quebec Heights reduced resources must follow instructional goals. specialization was eliminating separate Title Prior to implementing Success for All,1 programs and using these resources to Douglass used the dollars for regularreduce the size of reading groups for all classroom teachers and class sizes averagedstudents. The third way of reducing 17 across the school. As Principal Myraspecialization was fully integrating special Whitney commented: “We had slowlyeducation students and resource teachers reduced all class sizes over the years with nointo the families. In the primary grades, the plan for how anything in the classroomspecial education resource teacher works as would change. It wasn't working. Ourone of four teachers in a team responsible students were still at the bottom in reading.”for a group of 85 regular and special To implement Success for All, Douglasseducation students. raised class sizes for all other subjects to

The Douglass Elementary School in provide targeted one-to-one tutoringMemphis used its Title 1 budget as the assistance so students would be reading byprimary lever for rethinking resources to third grade. In addition to raising class sizesimprove student performance (Table 5). for other subjects, Douglass redirectedBecause 97 percent of its students qualify for resources to the early grades from grades 3Title 1 assistance, Douglass has long been through 6. The decision to reallocatefree to use Title 1 dollars across the school. resources away from some students andThis approximately $250,000 dollars per teachers to focus on others can produceyear represents nearly 20 percent of the tension. Douglass's use of a proven modelschool budget. Unlike any other school in with clearly stated staffing requirementsthis sample, Douglass restructured resources minimized this friction. As one teacher said,using an existing model for improving “Everything is specified by Success for All;student performance, the Success for All we didn't consider quarreling with it becauseprogram. Following this model, Douglass research shows this works.”uses Title 1 funds to hire reading teacherswho work one-on-one as tutors to students Douglass also used Success for All as awho do not meet reading standards in the catalyst for including special educationfirst and second grades. These Title 1 teachers and students in the regularfunded teachers, plus all special education classroom. By the third year of the program,teachers, combine with regular classroom special education students and teachers fromteachers to reduce the size of instructional previously self-contained classrooms andgroups from 24 to about 17 for 90 minutes resource rooms spent most of their time inof daily reading for all students. However, heterogeneous groups. During the daily 90class sizes remain at 24 for the rest of the minutes of Success for All reading time,day. special needs students worked in

The Douglass example provides a clear skill levels. Assigning special educationillustration of why simple measures of class teachers to reading groups which includedsize do not provide enough information students from all programs further reducedabout the level of individual attention a the size of reading groups for all students.school is organized to provide, and of how Special education teachers team-taught with

reduce group sizes for reading and to

heterogeneous groups based on their reading



Table 5Douglass Elementary

Resource Allocation Model Components Changes in TeacherPrinciples Allocation and Use of Time

Reduction of specialized • All Title 1 resources • Special educationprograms devoted to reading resource room teachers

• All special education

instruction for all team teach hetero-students using Success geneous groupsfor All model

resource room studentsintegrated intoheterogeneous classes

More flexible student • All students in groups of Regular class sizesgrouping by school 18 to 23 for reading and raised from 16 to 24 toprofessionals language arts 90 free Success for All

• All first grade students Wide Title 1 teacher forminutes per day facilitator and School

reading below grade tutoringlevel receive 1 to 1 Title 1 resourcestutoring for 20 minutes focused on early gradesper day

•

•

Structures to supportrelationships

More common planning time • Common planning time Specialists scheduled tofor teachers by grade level three allow common planning

• Monthly half day Substitutes regularlytimes weekly time for each grade

meeting between scheduled to coverspecial ed and regular planninged teams

•

•

Creative definition of staffingroles and work day



regular education teachers for most of the problems and learn solutions, whether theyrest of the day. Cooperative learning plays a be academic or social. The teaching staff arelarge role in Success for All classrooms and hired to have the attitudes, skills andmakes the integration of special education expertise to meet a broad range of academic,students easier. Special education teachers social and behavioral needs. They workspend approximately one-quarter of their closely as a team to analyze the effectivenesstime either performing individual assessments of their instructional efforts on an ongoingor working with regular education and basis.special education students who need targetedhelp outside the regular classroom. In addition to the total integration of special

While Quebec Heights redesigned traditional resources at Lyons supported this design,age-grading practices and Douglass including Title 1 funds and funds traditionalrethought its use of Title 1 resources, the schools would use for subject specialists. AMary Lyons School (Table 6) used the typical Boston elementary school has fourreallocation of special education dollars as a subject specialists (usually art, music,redesign lever. By including special physical education and computer education)education students, each previously educated who supplement instruction and coverin a private setting at a cost of over $30,000 planning time for classroom teachers. per year, with regular education students, Having only 90 students, Lyons could notLyons created a unique, individualized support these specialists. Instead, Lyonsenvironment for students and teachers. Mary pooled these dollars to pay for art and musicLyons is open to all students from 7:15 a.m. on a contract basis and for part of theto 5:00 p.m. Each classroom from afterschool program.kindergarten to grade 5 has no more than 15students, and was staffed by a teacher, a In summary, each of the three elementaryteacher intern, and an afterschool teacher. - schools pooled its resources from specialAcademic teachers had close to two hours programs to support its core design. Thecommon planning time each day. sample schools used these funds in two

The Lyons School paired six classroom Heights and Douglass schools increasedteachers with six teaching interns, each pair regular education class sizes and redirectedto work with 10 regular education students funds in order to reduce reading group sizes. and five emotionally disturbed students. Lyons used funds freed from eliminatingThree classroom teachers had regular separate programs to lower teacher studenteducation certification and the other three ratios dramatically, moving from a traditionalhad special education certification. This Boston class size of 19 students to oneunusual integration of special education teacher and one highly trained teachingstudents and teachers was not financially intern for 13 students. In both approaches,driven, but guided by a belief that schools staff organization depended on themust meet children's needs at their level of educational strategies the schools haddevelopment, both academically and adopted. The organization of resources andemotionally. The Lyons staff aims to give educational goals in these schools were students confidence in their ability to solve

education students, virtually all teaching

distinctly different ways. The Quebec



Table 6Mary Lyons Model Elementary School

Resource Allocation Model Components Changes in TeacherPrinciples Allocation and Use of Time

Reduction of specialized • All students and • No separate Title 1programs teachers in programs

heterogeneous • No separate specialclassrooms of 15 with education groupsone teacher and one • Pooling of subjectteaching assistant specialist resources

More flexible student • School team determinesgrouping by school classroom assignmentprofessionals

Structures to support • Support Services team • Teams volunteer onerelationships composed of all hour to meet each week

professionals workingwith each group ofstudents meets weeklyto review individualstudent progress

More common planning time • Common planning time Afterschool stafffor teachers 1 ½ hours per day plus provided by outside

• 45 minutes per week of planning time for

common lunch for all contractor work fromteachers 12:00 to 5:30 to cover

student support team academic teachers asmeetings for each well as afterschoolclassroom program

•

Creative definition of staffing • Extended hours from • Paraprofessionals workroles and work day 7:15 to 5:00 p.m. daily staggered shifts to

• Use of outside cover before school

• Use of teaching interns to 1 p.m., half for schoolcontractors program; half work 7:00

as instructional aides • hours

• earning $18,000

Substitute teachinginterns paid $10,000stipend for traditionalparaprofessionals

Afterschool programprovided by outsidecontractor



inextricably intertwined; the organization control in creating class size groupings byenabled the schools to implement new combining age and program so that 100teaching strategies and curriculum. percent of students were in targeted class

More Flexible Student Grouping

Perhaps the most striking difference betweenthe sample elementary schools and traditionalschools is the strategic, proactive wayteachers adapted instructional grouping tostudent needs. In traditional schools,administrators assign students to year-longprograms and classrooms; these groupingsremain constant across the day and subject. Teachers in the sample schools used theirknowledge of student needs, rather than astudent's program classification or age, toassign each student to a regular homeroomclassroom and to manage their instructionthroughout the day. In addition, theDouglass and Quebec Heights schoolscreated significantly smaller instructionalgroups for reading.

Traditional schools must accept variations inclass sizes driven purely by swings inenrollment. Boston's school choice planenabled Lyons to cap the number of studentsby grade through the student assignmentprocess. Teachers could control group sizesmore closely because Douglass and QuebecHeights draw from a pool of students fromtwo or three grades. For example, thenumber of students in each age group atDouglass varied from 45 in grade 6 to 73 ingrade 1. If Douglass had used age-basedgrading, class sizes in the first and secondgrade would have been 24 and 26respectively, with class sizes declining asstudents moved toward sixth grade. Instead,the Douglass staff combined grades to createsmaller groups of 23 in the first three gradesand groups of 26 in the intermediate grades. In this way, sample schools exerted more

sizes rather than the 60 to 65 percent whowould have been in targeted sizes undertraditional age grouping.

In the sample schools, regular educationreading groups were significantly smallerthan in traditional schools. Quebec Heightsand Lyons organized staff to allow groups ofseven and six, respectively. Quebec Heightscreated these small instructional groups bysystematically rotating Title 1 teachers andinstructional assistants through regularclassrooms so each classroom had threeinstructors for 90 minutes of reading timeeach day. These reading groupings changedas often as daily. The primary classroomteacher at Quebec Heights determined dailythe composition of the groups and content oflessons based on consultation with the expertreading teachers and review of students'progress in specific areas. Some lessonsgrouped students based on needed furtherskill development, others grouped studentsheterogeneously to discuss reading content.

Quebec Heights' grouping strategy forreading involved two tradeoffs. First, inorder to staff reading groups adequately,instructional assistants from the intermediatelevel were allocated to primary gradeteachers. Second, the reading teachers wereno longer responsible for a homeroom classof students as they would be under a moretraditional school organization. Thisconcentration of resources on reading meantthat homeroom class sizes, on average, hadone more student than the traditional model.

Lyons used the classroom teachers andteaching interns to create reading groups ofsix students. At Douglass, all students spent



90 minutes per day in reading groups of 15to 17, a decrease from the average class sizeof 24 for other subjects, in comparison toaverage class sizes of 22 at traditionalschools. The composition of these readinggroups varied each day and over the courseof the year depending on the teachers'assessment of student needs. Every sixweeks, a team including the teachers, readingspecialists, and the Success for All facilitatorassigned students to skill-based, cross-gradereading groups based on formal assessments. Group assignments were based on skill level,as opposed to a more static assignment ofaptitude, and students moved on once theydemonstrated these skills. Students did notmove together through groupings; eachgroup included a range of ages. Studentswho did not master skills by set timesreceived one-on-one tutoring 20 minuteseach day from one of the three readingspecialists. At Douglass, about 15 percent offirst and second grade students receivedtutoring at any time, but which studentsreceived tutoring varied over the year,depending on who needed extra assistance inparticular skill areas.

Continuous assessment and regrouping ofstudents required significant time and jointeffort. The full time instructional facilitatorspecified in the Success For All model helpedteachers to conduct assessments, analyze andact on them. The facilitator received in-depth training in using Success For Allreading assessment tools, and worked with adistrict Success For All expert. By pullingthis facilitator from the classroom, Douglassonce again traded general regular educationclass sizes for strategic use of resources insupport of their school design. In this case,the facilitator enabled a more carefulmatching of instruction to student needs, andmore effective use of joint planning time.

Structures to Support More PersonalRelationships

The two secondary schools in the samplewere moving closer to the more personalorganization that already exists in elementaryschools—small schools and closer, moresustained relationships between teacher andstudent. Even so, the Quebec Heights andLyons elementary schools went further. TheQuebec Heights' family structure aimed tostrengthen relationships between teachersand students. Teachers worked three yearswith the same family of 85 students andusually kept the same homeroom class. Thismeant that some teachers received as few asnine new students each year. As anintermediate teacher stated, “It's hard tooverestimate how much time this saves us. We get started quickly in the new schoolyear, students know the rules and boundariesand I know what they can do.”

The Lyons School's small size of 80 to 90students and intense staffing ratios created ahighly personalized environment for allstudents. Still, the staff found the need tocreate a weekly time to discuss as a teameach student's progress. All theprofessionals working with each group ofstudents—the classroom teacher, theclassroom intern, a special educationevaluation specialist, the afterschool director,and social worker—met together to identifyproblems, discuss possible strategies, andshare success and frustration.

More Common Planning Time

Constrained by teachers union contracts andthe already limited time available for teacher



planning at the elementary level, only theLyons School dramatically increasedcommon planning time for teachers (Table3). Douglass and Quebec Heights increasedtheir common planning time for teachers byusing the conventional method of schedulingspecialists to allow common meeting time forsmall groups of teachers. But, because thesame individual covers the subject specialtyfor the entire school over the course of theday, it is difficult to schedule commonplanning time for even small groups ofteachers. The staff at Quebec Heights choseto increase their average class sizes to createanother specialist position, resulting in oneextra 45-minute planning period per week,and allowing daily planning time. QuebecHeights also had the advantage of 20minutes at the end of each school day duethe district’s shorter elementary school day.

Lyons’ academic teachers shared one hourand 45 minutes of common time each day: a30-minute lunch period followed by one hourand 15 minutes. During this teacher planningtime, students had a half hour for lunch andrecess and received instruction from theirinstructional interns and afterschool teachers. In addition, teachers met voluntarily for 45minutes each week in the student supportteam meetings described above. In total, theLyons’ school teachers shared 405 minutesof planning time each week, in stark contrastto the one common period per week in atraditional school.

Creative Definition of Staff Roles andWork Day

The Lyons School was able to create somuch more planning time because it departedfrom the traditional use of specialists andredefined teaching roles throughout the day. In a traditional school, only the classroomteacher or subject specialist assumesresponsibility for classroom instruction. TheLyons School has two instructors in eachclassroom: a master teacher and a highlytrained and supervised instructional assistanttrainee. In contrast to often poorly trainedpara-professionals, the Lyons trainees werecollege educated students working on theirmaster’s degrees in special education atWheelock University. Lyons negotiated withthe Boston Teachers Union to convert theirparaprofessional slots to create the newinstructional assistant trainee position. TheWheelock graduate students receive $10,000annual stipends and participate in intensivecoursework over holidays and summer. AWheelock faculty member comes every twoweeks to observe and discuss the trainee'spractice with the master teacher. Thetrainee's $10,000 stipend is significantly lessthan the $18,000 in salary and benefits for aparaprofessional. The savings allowed theMary Lyons School to assign an instructionalassistant trainee to each teacher. Whereverpossible, the new instructional assistantswere recruited from existing paraprofessionalstaff. While the trainee position representeda short-term cut in pay, it led to fullcertification as a special education teacher.

In addition, Lyons used contracted teacherswho worked hours different from the regularacademic teachers to cover school wideplanning time. The afterschool teachersoverlapped the regular school day by onehour, during which they managed the



classroom with the instructional assistant secretaries, 10 school-based servicestrainee. This overlap provided a chance for specialists (social workers, psychologists,afterschool teachers to make the transition etc.), 17 security guards, 22 non-teachingfrom the regular academic day with someone school aides (in addition to 14who had been with the students all day. The classroom-based paraprofessionals), andeight afterschool teachers, who worked three librarians. In the restructured schools,under a contract with the Bay Cove, a just over 25 percent of the staff hadnonprofit organization specialized in non-teaching assignments, and most of thesebehavior management and brought a wide taught at least part-time (Darling-Hammond,range of experience working with 1997).emotionally disturbed as well as giftedstudents. Although the principal did not hire The traditional high school had onethese teachers, she worked closely with Bay instructional staff person for every 14.7Cove to specify their qualities and students, and New York City staffingqualifications. The contract was contingent allocations would reduce the student load toon the hiring of exceptional teachers. 13 for a student population like that of

Secondary Schools

The traditional high school, with itsdepartmentalized instruction and fragmentedschool day, offers more opportunities forrethinking resource allocation than doelementary schools. The high school weused for comparison purposes was a typicalcomprehensive high school in New YorkCity, serving about 3,300 students, havingapproximately the same proportion of specialneeds and Title 1 students as Central ParkEast Secondary School, and using traditionalstaffing and scheduling practices.

As Table 7 shows, the two sample highschools looked different from the traditionalhigh school on virtually every dimensionmeasured. Our analysis focused on the useof instructional staff, but it is worth notingthat the traditional high school had manymore non-instructional staff than the tworestructured schools. Not includingcustodial and food service workers, morethan 40 percent of the total staff hadnon-teaching assignments, including oneprincipal, nine assistant principals, 13

International High School. But, because2

fewer than two-thirds of these instructionalstaff members taught full-time, there was oneclassroom teacher for every 24 students andclass sizes averaged about 33. These specialeducation, bilingual education, English-as-a-Second- Language and Title 1 programswere administered separately and had smallerclass sizes and unconnected curriculum. Bycontrast, all students at Central Park EastSecondary and International High Schoolshad class sizes of 18 and 25, respectively,and their teachers had more planning andprofessional development time.

The typical traditional high school studentattended school from 8:05 a.m. to 2:13 p.m.,participating in seven different classes withseven different teachers and one lunchperiod. Each class was 42 minutes longregardless of lesson or activities, thecurriculum of each unrelated to any other. Teachers taught five instructional periods aday and had two periods free from



Table 7High Performing vs. Traditional Secondary School

Resource Allocation School Measure Central Park International TraditionalPrinciples East

Reduction of Students per 10.2 10.2 14.7/13*specialized programs instructional staff

member

Students per full- 13.3 15.8 23.6time teacher

Average size of 18 25 33.4regularinstructionalgroup

% teachers in 89 100 70regularinstructionalgroup

More flexible student % students in 100 100 60grouping target size

grouping

Average size of 15 12 29advisory group (homeroom)

Structures to support Student loads per 36 75 167relationships term

% professional 100 100 65staff serving asinstructors/advisors

Longer and more Average length of 120 minutes 70 minutes 42 minutesvaried blocks of instructionalinstructional time period

More common Common 450 minutes 350 minutes 0 minutesplanning time planning minutes/

week

Length of longest 120 minutes 140 minutes 42 minutesplanning period

* A traditional high school that had a 100% limited English Proficiency Pupil population like that atInternational would receive additional staff to reduce its student/teacher ratio for those students to13:1.



instruction. Each year one-third of the staff At the time of the study, all Central Parkhad a building assignment (such as cafeteria East students took academic subjects induty or hall duty) for one of these periods. heterogeneous groups averaging 18 in size.These assignments were rotated so that, on (Table 8). Students in Divisions I and IIaverage, a teacher had one such assignment (grades 7 through 10) took two two-hourevery three years. Excluding these special academic courses each day: humanities andduties, teachers routinely saw about 167 math/science. All full-time teachers in thesestudents per day. The two sample high grades, with the exception of two specialschools began with resources roughly similar education resource room teachers, taughtto the traditional school but ended with one of the two interdisciplinary courses. Thedramatically smaller group sizes and teacher resource room teachers helped students withloads. Teachers at Central Park East taught their regular classroom work, thereby36 students and those at International 75 reinforcing rather than fragmenting students'students within a given term. This was learning. In the Senior Institute (grades 11accomplished by reducing specialization, and 12), the school reduced its need forreorganizing student groups and teaching specialization by arranging advancedstructures, and redefining the school course-taking opportunities for students atschedule. The different ways the two local colleges. All students took at least twoschools accomplished this reflected their college courses during their last two years ofinstructional purposes and philosophy. high school, along with undertaking an

Reduced Specialization

Central Park East Secondary School reducedspecialization in a host of ways to createsmaller teacher-student loads and to focusresources on academic subjects. CentralPark East follows the principles embraced bythe Coalition of Essential Schools, one ofwhich is that “less is more.” Instead ofaiming for broad coverage of content,Central Park East has organized itscurriculum around five “Habits ofMind”—the abilities to weigh evidence, totake varying viewpoints into account, to seeconnections and relationships, to speculateabout possibilities, and to assess value. These shared goals are reinforced in everycourse through the comprehensive portfolioassessment system. The school concentratesits resources on a common core curriculumin grades 7 through 10, and uses a variety ofother resources to expand curriculumoptions in the upper grades.

internship with a local business orcommunity organization.

Electives and language instruction wereprovided at Central Park East throughoutside contracts for hours of servicesperformed. There was no tracking, noseparate Title 1 program, and no separatebilingual program. There were no guidancecounselors; instead, teacher roles includedcounseling and advising. There were noattendance officers, deans of discipline,assistant principals, supervisors ordepartment heads, or other positions todeflect resources away from teaching intraditional high schools.

International High School organized itsresources to follow its mission of educatingrecent immigrants and its educationalphilosophy, which includes the followingprinciples:



Table 8Central Park East Secondary School

Principles Model Components Changes in TeacherAllocation and

Use of Time

Reduction of specialized • All students in multi- • No ability groupingprograms aged heterogeneous • All special education

groups of 18 student mainstreamed• No separate Title 1

• No bilingual/ESL

• One language teacher

• Electives contracted out

programs

program

coordinates languagecourses taught oncontract

More flexible grouping • Two academic courses • Core teachers in grades

• Senior Institute students teach fewer courses

per day (Math/Science 7-10 teach one of twoand Humanities) in interdisciplinary coursesgrades 7-10 • Senior Institute teachers

(grades 11-12) take and spend more hourscollege courses, supporting theirinternships, and work advisee’s work onone-on-one with portfolios, collegeadvisors in addition to courses and internshipsregular courses

Structures to support more • Advisory groups of 12- • Administrative andpersonal relationships 15 students support functions are

• Teacher load of 36 incorporated into

• Divisions of 75 students librarian, discipline,students each teacher role (guidance,

comprising 2 “houses” curriculum development,of 36-38 students that supervision)are stable for two years • Teachers stay with

same students for twoyears



Table 8Central Park East Secondary School

(continued)

Principles Model Components Changes in TeacherAllocation and Use of Time

Longer and more varied • Classes are one to two • Teachers teach fewerblocks of instructional time hours long classes for longer

• Regular periods for periods of timecounseling, advisement, • Teachers’ roles areand one-on-one tutoring varied: advisement andare built into teachers’ tutoring are part ofand students’ schedules normal role and

schedule

More common planning time • Weekly 2.5 hour • Weekly 2 ½ hourfor teachers common “curriculum community service

• Weekly senior Institute college courses off-

• Weekly 3.5 hours whole school planning time

planning time” per week project for studentsand bi-weekly 1.5 hour (grades 7-10)house meeting (grades • Senior Institute students7-10) do internships and take

staff meetings (1.5 campushours) • Two hours of whole

school staff meetings created by earlydismissal on Friday and1.5 more hours byvolunteering time afterschool

Creative definition of staffing • Teachers serve • Support staff functionsroles and work day advisory and counseling incorporated into

• roles teaching roleTeachers devote • Teachers volunteeradditional time after planning timeschool hours tocollective planning

• Language skills are most effectively support systems.learned in context and when embedded in • Attempts to group studentsa content area. homogeneously preclude the way in

• The most successful educational from each other).programs are those that emphasizerigorous standards coupled with effective • Carefully planned use of multiple learning

which adolescents learn best (that is,



contexts in addition to the classroom positions, translated into lower pupil loads(such as learning centers, career and more opportunity for individual studentinternship sites, field trips) facilitates attention than in the traditional high school. language acquisition and content area As Table 7 details, Central Park East hadmastery. one full-time teacher for every 13 students,

Clear school goals and consensus about 16 students, compared with one teacher forstrategies enhanced the ability of 24 students at the traditional secondaryInternational High School to design a school. Half of this difference came from thecoherent, carefully configured organization. sample schools' shifting of resources toAs Table 9 shows, International High School instructional functions. Both sample schoolsreorganized its programmatic resources operated with fewer administrators andaround 12 interdisciplinary themes. Six support staff than the traditional high school. self-managing instructional teams called In addition, the sample schools combined“clusters” were each responsible for the total most of their programmatic teachingeducational experience of about 75 students resources in one core academic program ineach trimester. Each team included four to which all students participated, rather thansix teachers plus guidance and using special program resources for add-onparaprofessional staff, and developed two remedial or special education programs. thematically-based courses of study (for Central Park East used 89 percent of itsexample, “Motion” and “Visibility”) which teaching resources in the core instructionalintegrated four subject areas (such as program while International used all its staffliterature, global studies, mathematics, and in the core program. In the traditional highphysics) for a 13-week course of study. school, roughly 70 percent of teachers workStudents chose one thematic course of study in regular instruction.three times a year. All teachers, regardless offunding source, are part of cross-functional Shifting more resources to regularteams responsible for delivering the core instruction allowed the two sample schoolscurriculum to a heterogeneous group of to create regular class sizes for academicstudents. The groups included students of all subjects that averaged 18 students at Centralnative languages, all grades, economic levels Park East and 25 at International, comparedand ability levels. International High to an average regular education group size ofintegrated English-as-a-Second-Language 33 at the traditional high school. Thesetechniques in content-area courses while smaller class sizes were achieved in part byproviding students with opportunities to creating a broader role for professional staffdevelop their language skills with instructors in the restructured schools, rather than usingoutside the core curriculum and in learning a variety of specialists to performcontexts, such as internships outside the non-classroom functions. Staffschool. acknowledged this tradeoff in a set of

At International and Central Park East, this staff work” at Central Park East whichintegration of previously specialized includes the following statement: resources and investment of more resourcesin teaching, rather than nonteaching

and International had one teacher for every

“understandings that underlie professional



Table 9International High School

Principles Model Components Changes in TeacherAllocation and

Use of Time

Reduction of specialized • Students in • No age gradingprograms heterogeneous, multi- • No ability groups

aged groups of 23 to 25 • No separate Title 1students who stay programtogether all day • No separate bilingual

• All teachers work in

• Music, art and p.e.

program

interdisciplinary teams

provided by adjunctteachers

More flexible student • All subjects integrated • Daily schedule andgrouping into 12 interdisciplinary student grouping

courses determined by teacherteams

Structures to support more • Teacher-student loads • All professional staffpersonal relationships of 75 assigned advisory

• All students and teacher groups

• Students and teachers 6 that include

have weekly small • Teachers work in self-advisory groups managed teams of 4 to

in clusters of 75 for 13 counselorsto 26 weeks

Longer and more varied • Typical student day • All teachers teach twoblocks of instructional time consists of four 70 interdisciplinary

• Students and teachers extra period per day

minute courses per day, courses, 3 periods perwith two hour • daycommunity service or Teachers choose, a.m.internship each week or p.m. shift, some work

can choose a.m. or p.m.shift which start onehour apart



Table 9International High School

(continued)

Principles Model Components Changes in TeacherAllocation and Use of Time

More common planning time Teachers have 3 to 5 • Weekly 2 hour•hours of common community serviceplanning time per week projects and weekly 3

hour clubs period forstudents during whichteachers meet together

Creative definition of staffing • Electives and nativeroles and work day language instruction

• Staggered teacher work

contracted to outsideproviders

hours with twoalternative shifts

In return for smaller class sizes groups that averaged 18 and 25,(maximum 20) and smaller total student respectively.rolls, teachers will work with studentsfor a total of 22 hours a week in classes, Additional flexible grouping strategies wereadvisories or tutorials, conducting found in the Central Park East Seniorseminars, overseeing projects, giving Institute (grades 11 and 12), where teacherslectures, or advising and coaching and students focused substantial attention onindividual students (Central Park East preparing the graduation portfolio andSecondary School, 1991). applying to colleges. Time was allocated so

More Flexible Student Grouping

Reducing the number of programs, courses,and levels made it easier for the sampleschools to match the size of instructionalgroups to student needs. As Table 10 belowshows, 64 percent of all classes in thetraditional high school had 29 to 34 students,and 21 percent of classes were smaller than25. Class sizes were higher in regulareducation academic classes than in non-academic classes. In contrast, Central Park3

East and International placed all theirstudents in target size groups, creating

teachers could provide coaching andsupport for independent study. A typicalteacher taught two classes for a total ofabout 12 hours per week; spent four to fivehours a week supervising independentprojects; another four to five hours workingwith 12 advisees on academic and personalconcerns; and another three and one-halfhours per week providing one-on-one help tostudents. The schedule included class periodsvarying in length depending on their purpose. In addition to in-school courses, studentstook courses at local colleges and



Table 10Teacher Knowledge and Skill Areas

Principles Change to Traditional Knowledge of Skill Needed

Reduction of specialized • Integration of programs • New instructionalprograms - Special Education techniques to engage a

• Elimination of age needs of more diverse

• Combination of special education

- Title 1 wide range of learners - Bilingual • Diagnosing the learning

based grouping learners, especially

traditional subjects into studentsinterdisciplinary program • Assessing the progress

• New curriculum material

of wide range oflearners

More flexible grouping • Elimination of age and • Assessment of student

• grouping • Working in teams toprogram based progress

No tracking assess/assign students

Structures to support more • Creation of advisory • Child/adolescentpersonal relationships groups development

• Elimination of traditional • Functions of old roles

• Self managing teacher counselorsupport roles such as guidance

teams • Working in teams

Longer and more varied • Longer class periods New instructionalblocks of instructional time techniques

•

• New curriculum

completed internships in businesses and term and International teachers responsiblecommunity agencies, which freed time for for 72 to 75 students per term. (Ateachers to work and plan together. description of how these ratios were

Structures to Create PersonalRelationships

Each sample school created lower dailyteacher loads: Central Park East teacherswere responsible for about 36 students per

achieved is included in Appendix A.) Thesefigures compare with an average of 167students for each regular education teacherat the traditional high school. Both sampleschools used advisory groups as a keystrategy for maintaining ongoingrelationships with students. Each



professional staff member worked with a Because these two teachers worked togethergroup of 12 to 15 students and their families. as a team, they could vary the split of timeThe use of all professional staff, not just between them to accommodate daily lessonteachers, allowed advisory groups to be plans. In addition, one morning a weeksmaller than average class sizes. The students spent two and one-half hours in aadvisory group providing academic and community service project while theirpersonal support met for approximately four teachers engaged in curriculum planning. hours a week at Central Park East; Other course work, such as languageInternational's house groups met for about instruction, took place in smaller, usuallytwo hours each week. Teachers and one-hour blocks of time. In the Senioradvisors used the group time in a variety of Institute, classes varied from one to twoways: for individual study; to discuss health, hours on different days of the week;social and ethical issues; and for individual advisement sessions, internships, andand group advising and counseling. The independent work time were scheduled foradvisor served as the expert on the student longer blocks of time to allow students toand met with the family and other teachers to undertake extended research work withfacilitate communication regarding the adequate coaching. student's needs and progress. Advisorscoordinated parent conferences and the At International, students typically had fourpreparation of narrative assessments of courses, each of which met for 70 minutesstudent work. four times per week, a two-hour internship,

Through advisory groups, all professionals in cluster of four teachers controlled theirthe two restructured schools worked shared students' entire time schedule over theintensively and regularly with a group of 13-week cycle; they could vary class lengthstudents. At the traditional high school, only as needed for the students’ work.65 percent of the professional staff hadregularly scheduled contact with a continuinggroup of students. Guidance counselors andother support personnel worked intensivelywith some students, but they did so on areactive, usually sporadic basis which wasnot designed to create close, long termrelationships.

Longer and More Varied Blocks ofInstructional Time

In contrast to the traditional high school'sseven 42-minute periods each day, bothrestructured high schools created longerperiods and more flexible schedules. AtCentral Park East, students in grades 7through 10 had two two-hour blocks ofhumanities and math/science each day.

and an hour-long seminar each week. Each

More Common Planning Time

Both sample high schools created structuresthat demanded and allowed more commonplanning time. Including staff meetings,Central Park East teachers averaged sevenand one-half hours per week in scheduledcommon planning time. To create this time,Central Park East used four strategies:placing students in community service; usingteaching fellows to cover teacher planningtime; dismissing students early one day perweek; and meeting after school. Onemorning a week, students spent two andone-half hours in community serviceactivities, during which teachers met withothers in their disciplinary field to work oncurriculum and assessment issues. Teaching



fellows and other professionals providedclassroom coverage to create commonplanning time during the day. Teachers hadfrom one and one-half to three hours eachweek to meet with fellow house teachers andwith individual students. Special coveragewas arranged to deal with importantschoolwide issues. For example, math/science and humanities teachers had fourdays over the 1994-95 school year to createand evaluate their portfolio assessmentstrategies. Students were dismissed at 1:00p.m. on Fridays to create time for a two-hourstaff meeting. The students' hours wereadjusted over the rest of the week to makeup for this time. As stated in the BasicGovernance Plan of Central Park East, “thefull staff agrees to meet during hours whenthe students are not in attendance tocomplete necessary business.” In addition tothe Friday meetings, teachers attended aregularly scheduled Monday meeting from3:00 to 4:30 p.m.

At International, teachers had two periods(140 minutes) each week to plan with theircluster while students participated in clubactivities or college courses. A half-day(about three hours) each week was set asidefor student club activities, during whichteachers planned together and engaged instaff-initiated professional development. Inaddition, teachers had a daily 70-minuteindividual planning period, that oftencoincided with other team members’planning time. These models offer starkcontrast to the traditional high school modelin which teachers had one or two 42 minuteperiods free from instruction—one oftendevoted to nonacademic duties and the otheran individual preparation period—instead oftime for working and planning with otherteachers.

Creative Definition of Staff Roles andWork Day

Central Park East and International mademany changes in the typical roles of teachersand organization of the teacher work day. Both sample schools focused teachingresources on core academic subjects bycontracting with outside providers forelective and non-academic subjects. CentralPark East also shifted resources away fromsupport functions by incorporatingcounseling and advising into the teachingrole, rather than hiring separate guidancecounselors.

Barriers to ReallocatingResources

Interviews, observations and documentanalysis at these five nontraditional schoolsindicate five sets of barriers to more flexibleallocation of teaching resources, especiallyefforts to transform long-standing, traditionalpractices. These barriers include: reluctanceto make difficult decisions required bychange; selection and retention ofknowledgeable, committed teachers; policies,regulations and contractual issues; policies,regulations, contracts and student grouping;and standardized testing.

Reluctance to Make DifficultDecisions Required by Change

Three of the schools studied—Lyons,Central Park East, and International—werenewly created schools. The designers ofthese schools hired teachers and otherprofessionals whose skills and dispositionsmatched the school design. Asking existingschools to overhaul their organization is avery different prospect. Teachers' efforts torethink the use of Title 1 funds at Quebec



Heights offers an illustration of the New York, where budget pressures have leddifficulties. Supporting small group sizes in to job uncertainty for many junior teachers. kindergarten through grade 3 reading Because seniority governed teacherrequired taking resources away from the assignments, senior teachers whose positionsintermediate grades and converting one were eliminated in one school could beteaching position to an instructional aide transferred to other schools. At Quebecposition. As the principal stated, “It's hard Heights this meant that outside teachersto ask teachers to assume leadership roles could bump less senior members of thewhen it impinges on long friendships...when school staff. A teacher unfamiliar with ortough personnel decisions need to be made, I uncomfortable with Quebec Heights’often end up having to make them....Of strategy could be assigned to the school. course, if I make them, I weaken the This could also happen in New York City,principle of teacher leadership. I often feel but the two sample schools there hadlike it's a vicious cycle.” Schools attempting negotiated control over selection and hiringto realign existing resources need to of their own staff, which gave them somerecognize the effort as a long-term process protection over who entered although thisof matching needs to current and future staff. did not necessarily protect junior staff whenDistricts may need to help schools provide cutbacks occurred.selected retraining and outplacement ifneeded. Teachers in schools that are working to

The process of rethinking staffing is how a few resisters can make movingsometimes easier when a particular staffing forward more difficult. Losing committedmodel is identified at the start. At Douglass, team members is also damaging. As onefor example, teachers were asked to commit Quebec Heights teacher explained, “It takesto implementing the Success for All model, at least a year just to understand what we areand the district provided an opportunity for trying to do, and we have built up suchteachers who did not choose the model to working relationships by then, when we losetransfer to a new school. Teachers were someone due to budget cuts, it really sets usgiven another opportunity to transfer after back.”six months of implementing the new model. It was somewhat easier to accomplish the The selection and recruitment of specialists,changes because the model specified instructional assistants, and teachers oftenparticular staffing requirements. became a sticking point for sample schools.

Selection and Retention ofKnowledgeable, CommittedTeachers

Selection and retention of teachers with thequalities and experience to match the schooldesigns is critical to their success. This isparticularly difficult in districts operatingunder financial stress, as in Cincinnati and

restructure their existing staffs described

Specialists and instructional assistants inthese schools required special training andplayed very specific roles. Some districtshave solved this problem by creatingalternative personnel tracks for speciallydesignated schools. Cincinnati has done thisfor Paidea and Montessori schools. InBoston, schools negotiate control over thehiring process on a position-by-positionbasis. Recent New York contract



negotiations have allowed teams (including in which teachers, rather than administrators,teachers, principals and union represent- develop curriculum and manage their ownatives) from the growing number of schools and students' time demand new workingthat have a distinctive purpose and mission conditions. to select their new colleagues. With therecent creation of over 100 new small Schools operating largely within existingschools joining the substantial number of contracts, such as Douglass and Quebeclonger-standing alternative schools in New Heights, are severely limited in creatingYork, this provision paves the way for required planning time. On the other hand,widespread use of new staffing models. Central Park East Secondary School's

Policies, Regulations, andContractual Issues

The sample schools directly challengedpolicies, regulations and teacher contractsrelated to the teacher work day and jobresponsibilities. Most of the schoolschanged the contractually-defined teacherwork day and contractual rules for suchmatters as seniority transfers. In breakingdown barriers between programs, agegroupings and subjects, the schools alsoconfronted staffing formulas, programadministration rules, and, sometimes, teacherlicensing categories. And, many of theseschools redefined teaching and non-teachingpositions to create new jobs which did not fitneatly into existing contractually-definedcategories.

Collective bargaining agreements in mostdistricts clearly define the teacher work day,outlining the hours teachers are required towork and limiting the number of requiredafternoon and evening meetings. Mostcontracts specify the number of minutesteachers must have free for lunch andplanning activities. Many contracts, like theBoston Teachers Union contract, also limitthe number of consecutive hours thatteachers can be involved in instruction,thereby making it more difficult to createconnecting blocks of planning time. Schools

governing policy explicitly recognizes thatstaff members may work longer hours,including afterschool meetings.

In broadening the scope of teaching jobs,schools can run into state, district andcollective bargaining restrictions. Usingteachers across programs, such as specialand regular education, can require waivers. For example, Lyons uses three specialeducation teachers and three regulareducation teachers to teach integratedclassrooms of special needs and regulareducation students. According to theBoston Teachers Union contract andMassachusetts state certification laws,neither group is certified to teach the otherstudents. Lyons negotiated waivers to bothsets of restrictions. The principal argued thatshe knew how to identify individuals with theexperience and disposition needed to handleboth special education and regular educationstudents. The principal developed a teamstructure to take advantage of a staff withvaried skills and knowledge, and aprofessional development plan for eachindividual teacher, as well as a professionaldevelopment plan for the entire school, sothe entire staff would develop a morebalanced set of skills.

Schools also run into certification problemsin moving to interdisciplinary instruction. Many collective bargaining agreements and



state regulations require teachers to be trained staff who, although short-term, maycertified in more than one subject to teach be more suitable for some kinds of positions. humanities or math/science in high schools. Finding individuals with the subject matterand pedagogical knowledge combining these Three of the sample schools received waiverssubjects effectively is critical to successful from collective bargaining agreements to useinterdisciplinary instruction. Certification in outside contractors for specific ofboth fields is one indicator of this ability, but instruction. Lyons contracted with a privateit is not the only means for developing company to provide its afterschool program. expertise in a second field. Central Park Central Park East used hourly instructors toEast uses an interdisciplinary approach in provide language instruction. Andgrades 7 through 10, and teachers plan in International used students from themath/science and humanities curriculum community college where International isteams. The curriculum teams provide the located as adjunct teachers for art, music anddisciplinary expertise necessary for physical education.expanding the teachers’ capacities so theycan handle the breadth required for the corecourses.

The sample schools created different jobpositions and used hiring arrangementsdifferent from anything envisioned by thecollective bargaining contracts in theirdistricts. For example, Lyons Elementaryand Central Park East Secondary createddifferent kinds of instructional assistantpositions. Lyons converted theparaprofessional position to a lower-costinstructional trainee position employinggraduate students enrolled in a specialeducation master’s program and who wantto become teachers. This arrangementallowed Lyons to hire more instructors withmore professional expertise. Central ParkEast hired teaching interns—usually graduatestudents who were preparing to becometeachers—who organized community serviceplacements, conducted seminars, tutoredstudents, and assisted in classrooms. Thiskind of change would represent a verysignificant departure if implemented on awide-scale basis: it would allow schools torethink qualifications and available resources,and to hire lower cost and more highly

Policies, Regulations, Contracts andStudent Grouping

Teacher contracts, district policies and stateregulations often define class size maximumsby program, grade level, and sometimessubject. State guidelines specify the size ofclassroom for students at each level ofspecial education classification. But ifparents, teachers and special educationprofessionals agree to an “individualeducation plan” that develops the student ina larger, more inclusive setting, then schoolscan depart from these regulations. Forexample, Lyons departs from state anddistrict regulations regarding class size bygrouping special education students(formerly placed in private schools wherestudent-teacher ratios were well below eight)in larger groups of 15, with significantprofessional support throughout the day. This departure requires schools to workclosely with students and parents to createunderstanding of the new approach and toinsure appropriate additional support for thestudents. It also demands that state anddistrict officials work with schools to alloweducationally sound designs.



District student and teacher assignment teachers. Quebec Heights lost two teachingpolicies can also frustrate attempts to use positions because it chose to designate itselfteachers differently. Schools in the sample a multi-age school.districts that moved students from morerestrictive special education settings into theregular classroom sometimes faced apotential loss of teachers because specialeducation staff were allocated based on thenumber of students requiring separateeducation. When schools attempted tointegrate students in the regular classroom,resources were reduced, and the regularteacher, in whose class the special educationstudent now spent most of his or her time,received no extra resources and no reducedstudent load. Regular education classroomsmay grow more unruly and crowded in thesecircumstances even while case loads ofspecial education teachers decline. Schoolsshould be able to find ways to shift resourcesinto the classroom without losing specialeducation expertise, but schools need timeand assistance to move in this direction. Torespond to this problem, Boston adjusted itsstaffing formula so schools could useresources for special needs students ininclusive settings.

Quebec Heights' experience in moving fromage grading provides another example ofhow collective bargaining rules combine withstudent assignment formulas to haveunintended consequences. The Cincinnatiteachers’ contract requires teaching positionsto be specified as either grade-level ormulti-age. The district determines thenumber of teachers to be assigned to aschool in two ways. For a grade-levelschool, the number of students in each gradeis divided by the target class size to producethe number of teachers to be assigned. For amulti-age school, however, the number ofstudents in each age group is divided by thetarget class size to determine the number of

Standardized Testing

District and state standardizing testingprograms are not typically considered aresource allocation issue, but testingprograms can pose problems for schools thatare changing the content and order ofinstruction, especially if the tests are content-specific and administered at each grade level. For example, Quebec Heights students musttake three different standardized tests, two ofwhich annually test content knowledge thatstudents in their multi-age program may notyet have covered. The pressure to performwell on these tests is so great that QuebecHeights has organized pull-out tutoringsessions to coach students in curriculum theyhave not yet studied. As one teacher said,“Besides the fact that none of these testsmatch what we are trying to teach ourstudents in any given year, we simply cannotalign our curriculum to address threedifferently conceived tests each year.”

The reconfigured curricula in the two samplesecondary schools are more performance-oriented and more challenging, but theirstudents must compete on New York State'sRegents Competency Tests, most of whichrequire memorization of large quantities ofinformation unlikely to be used again afterthe exam. Central Park East andInternational staff reported that drillingstudents to pass the state tests takes time andenergy away from the more productivelearning tasks the students engage in as theydevelop portfolios, projects, and researchpapers (Darling-Hammond, Ancess, andFalk, 1995). Teachers, too, find the exercisea waste of valuable time and intellectual



resources. formerly taught math in sequence to one

Developing the Knowledgeand Capacity for NewTeaching Roles

The new principles of resource allocationassigned teachers to play different roles thatrequired new skills and knowledge. Table 10highlights the skills needed to implement thenew principles. Teachers and leaders of thefive innovative sample schools stressed thefollowing skill areas most frequently:

• Developing or learning new curriculummaterial and approaches;

• Developing new instructional techniquesto engage a wider range of learners andto take advantage of longer blocks ofinstructional time;

• Diagnosing the learning needs of a morediverse group of learners (especiallyspecial education students);

• Assessing the progress of a wide range oflearners on a greater variety ofperformances;

• Working in teams; and

• Supervising a teaching intern or an aide.

Similar lists of professional developmentpriorities can be found in many reformdocuments and district strategies. Teachersinterviewed for this study emphasized thetime and support needed to learn anddevelop new curriculum. Each of these fiveschools required teachers to learn and usenew curriculum and, in many cases, to designit. For example, at Quebec Heights, themulti-age elementary school, teachers who

grade level had to redesign their lessons toteach concepts to a wider ability range overthree grades. One teacher described theinitial transition as particularly difficult, “Atthe beginning of the year, I was given tentextbooks for each grade as though I shouldteach all three grades at once.” QuebecHeights’ multi-age structure requiredteachers to learn two more years ofcurriculum material and to employ differentinstructional techniques, such asco-operative learning. Quebec Heightsrestructured the schedule to provide 45minutes of planning time during school hourseach day, but this time has been used forcommon planning issues such as assigningstudents to groups and planning dailyschedules. Teachers at Quebec Heights hadto learn new curriculum material on theirown time, largely without assistance.

In contrast, Douglass devoted virtually alltheir freed planning and teaching resourcesto helping teachers learn the new curriculumassociated with Success for All. A full-timeprogram facilitator helped teachers determinewhich materials to use, then observed andcoached them in their implementation. Mostprofessional development days wereallocated to Success for All learning methodsand curriculum.

At International and Central Park East,teachers developed new curricula tointegrate subjects into thematic,activity-based, interdisciplinary courses. Teachers needed time to create thecurriculum and, in some cases, to developexpertise in new areas. The weekly commonplanning time and collective staffdevelopment time allowed teachers todevelop, adapt, and continually improve thisinterdisciplinary curriculum. But, most



curriculum development occurred through a development offerings. Others schoolscombination of overtime and grant support. actively built this “distributed expertise” as

Teachers in these sample schools were experts and external resources.developing the skills and knowledge theyneeded to implement new school designs as The principal at Lyons assembled a team inthey went along. Professional development which each individual contributed expertisein these schools looked very different from necessary to the Lyons’ inclusionary model. professional development in traditional Every staff member had a strong backgroundschools because creating a new school in developmental curriculum, but some hadincreased the need for new knowledge and added expertise in different areas—workingskills, and increased the opportunities for with high achievers, child development,teachers to learn from each other. As they bilingualism, or emotional and behavioralcreated a collaborative culture of learning for disorders. One teacher who had a strongtheir students, teachers began to build one business background helped the otherfor themselves. In these high-performing teachers to develop management skills (suchschools, professional learning happened in those needed for supervising instructionalways that varied depending on the school's assistants). context. These included: learning from eachother in team planning, curriculum Lyons had the luxury of hiring teachers todevelopment and teaching; formal create specific kinds of distributed expertisecoursework or in-service activities tied to the while Quebec Heights developed a plan toschool's strategy; principal and peer coaching build it. The Quebec Heights principaland evaluation; local or national networks of explained, “Each teacher must be a generalistschools attempting similar redesign; and as well as the most qualified in her area ofindividual professional reading and focus.” The school created a professionalclassroom research. development plan that prioritized areas for

Although the five sample schools shared money and creative scheduling, each yearsome common needs, the professional Quebec Heights sent one-quarter of its staffdevelopment requirements depended more to take courses during school hours in theiron their curriculum and instruction strategy individual areas of expertise. Buildingand the expertise of individuals school staff individual expertise complementedmembers. Teachers in the sample schools schoolwide professional development instressed the central importance of learning other areas (such as co-operative learning, offrom each other in team planning and team which all staff needed to becometeaching situations. Teams, however, still accomplished practitioners). needed to draw upon outside expertise in ahost of areas. Some schools had the For the Success For All model, Douglassopportunity to select a staff which included a created a full-time resident expertrange of skills and experience, then responsible for learning new techniques anddeveloped strategies for teachers to share curriculum and sharing them with the staff. their talents in different settings— Freed from daily teaching responsibilities,committees, teams, and professional this instructional facilitator acted as the

they went along, by using both in-house

internal expertise. By using substitute



school's catalyst and co-ordinator for and a host of state, district and union policiesbuilding skills. This model eased the quick and practices that conflict with many of theintroduction of new techniques and changes described here. These barriers cancurriculum, upon which the Success For All loom large, but the biggest constraint may bemodel relies, but did not preclude developing a limited vision of the changes in schoolother pockets of expertise across the school. organization that can create a moreFor example, a special grant supported some professional organization and improveDouglass teachers in creating an student achievement. interdisciplinary international summer schoolprogram. Participating staff shared this This paper aims to provide clear, detailedinformation with the entire school examples that schools might use to developthroughout the year in various forums, such a vision. A comprehensive visionfaculty meetings and demonstrations, and would include goals for student achievement,worked with other staff during the academic educational strategies and an organization toyear to develop small interdisciplinary units. accomplish these goals. The models

Central Park East and International used all reallocation and the design of anof these strategies. Staff were hired to instructional vision and strategy areensure distributed expertise on teams, and inextricably intertwined. Restructuringstaff-led professional development resources makes no sense without anencouraged individual faculty to take underlying educational design. For example,leadership in coaching one another in areas the actions of integrating all specialranging from curriculum and assessment education students as Lyons did, ordevelopment to pedagogy and strategies for increasing regular education class sizes asmeeting the needs of diverse learners. Douglass did, have no inherent merit without

Conclusion

These five high-performing schools lookvery different from one another, but theyhave all begun rethinking how they allocateteaching resources so they can meet studentneeds and create the time teachers need toimplement a new vision of schooling. Thesample schools demonstrated that schoolsconsidering new designs must also reexaminetheir use of resources. The frameworkpresented in this paper provides researchersand practitioners with a way ofsystematically examining possibilities ofreallocating teacher resources and ofmeasuring their impact. Changing schoolorganizations to fit an instructional visionrequires schools to confront long traditions

presented here suggest that resource

an accompanying educational strategy. Atthe same time, none of these models couldhave accomplished its goals withoutchanging its use of resources. As these andother models accumulate evidence ofimproved student performance, states anddistricts might work with schools to adoptproven designs in a conscious process ofchanging resource allocations andregulations. As part of the design selection,schools might undertake a comprehensivereview of how their practices, resources,knowledge and skills must change toimplement the new model. The principles ofeffective resource allocation and indicatorsof their use presented in this paper couldserve as tools to help schools and districtsunderstand their progress. Districts andstates could support the schools’



comprehensive plans and develop strategiesfor helping schools confront the obstacles(including state and district policies) they willface in making such basic changes.

The five high-performing schools studiedhere only touched the potential for rethinkingschool resources. The schools workedlargely within existing salary structures andhave not particularly explored the use oftechnology in the classroom. Nevertheless,they foreshadow the ways schools mustrethink existing resources in order to createmore personalized education for studentsand more professional responsibility andgrowth for teachers.



References

Carroll, J.M. (1994). Time for the Miles, K. H. (1995) Freeing resources forCopernican plan. Phi Delta Kappan, 76: improving schools: A case study of104-114. teacher allocation in Boston public

schools, Educational Evaluation andCentral Park East Secondary School (1991, Policy Analysis, 17: 476-493

August). Understandings that underlieprofessional staff work at CPESS. Miles, K. H. (1997a). Spending More at theUnpublished Manuscript. Edges: Understanding the Growth in

Public School Spending from 1967 toCentral Park East Secondary School (1990, 1991. UMI press.

May 7). Basic governance plan. Unpublished manuscript. Miles, K. H. (1997b). Finding the dollars to

pay for 21st century schools: TakingDarling-Hammond, L. (1997). The right to advantage of the times, School Business

learn: A blueprint for creating schools Affairs, June.that work. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Darling-Hammond, L. (1996). Restructuring (1994). The digest of educationschools for high performance. In Susan statistics. Washington, DC: Fuhrman and Jennifer O'Day (eds). Government Printing Office.Rewards and reform: Creatingeducational incentives that work. San National Commission on Teaching andFrancisco: Jossey Bass. America's Future (1996). What matters

most: Teaching for America's future.Darling-Hammond, L., Ancess, J., and Falk, NY: Author.

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Appendix A

How Restructured High Schools Reduce Student Loads

One of the presumably unchangeable aspects of time teachers and students spend togetherof secondary schooling is the large numbers in the context of each course. (This alsoof students teachers teach each day. This means that students take fewer courses:situation is due to specialization of functions usually three or four courses per term ratherand of subject matter teaching; hiring of than seven or eight.) As a consequence,large numbers of auxiliary personnel to Central Park East teachers work with aboutcoordinate, monitor, and supplement the 36 students a term and International teacherswork of teachers; and the use of short blocks work with about 75 students, rather than theof teaching time for each subject. 150 or more student load, common to

Schools like Central Park East SecondarySchool and International High School are The arithmetic of these staffing arrangementsable to reduce the numbers of students can be seen in the following chart whichteachers see each day, week, and year by begins with a common hypothetical base ofreducing specialization, hiring more staff 100 students and shows who teach and fewer staff who perform non- allocations of staff and time for a traditionalteaching functions, and expanding the length school and for Central Park East. If the

traditional urban high schools.

Traditional Model Central Park EastModel

Number of students 100 100

Number of staff 11 121

Number of classroom teachers 6.5 10.22

Number of students per teacher 15.3 10.2

Number of different sections per teacher 5 sections of 2 sections of 42 minutes each 120 minutes each

Number of minutes of teaching daily 210 minutes 240 minutes

Percent of school day taught by a single teacher 56 percent 64 percent

Because the Central Park East model requires fewer administrative staff, who are more expensive1

than teaching staff, it enables the hiring of somewhat more staff in total.

In the traditional model only about 58 percent of staff have full-time teaching responsibilities and only2

63 percent have any teaching responsibilities. In the Central Park East model, almost all staff haveteaching responsibilities.



traditional high school teacher taught in a An average class size of 17 to 18 means thatself-contained setting like and elementary Central Park East teachers teach 34 to 36teacher, he or she would work with 15.3 students daily, teaching only two long classesstudents daily. to separate groups of students, rather than

However, because the secondary teacher traditional high school.teaches only 56 percent of the day, andbecause students have to be covered underthe traditional model for 100 percent of theday, average class size nearly doubles toabout 29 students. Because each teacherteaches only one subject and students go toother teachers for other subjects, theteacher’s daily student load for a traditionalfive-period class load is 29 x 5 = 145. In atraditional school, many regular educationteachers carry heavier student loads becauseof smaller than average classes for specialprograms and because many teachers havepart-time administrative duties that removethem from the teaching pool.

Central Park East has more classroomteachers because it hires fewer non-teachingstaff, and almost all staff are teachers. With abase of 10.2 teachers for each 100 students,a teacher would carry a student load of 10pupils if he or she taught them all day long.Although teachers cover only 64 percent ofthe Central Park East school day, the rest ofthe students’ time is partially managed inways that do not require hiring additionalteachers. In addition to lunch, students areinvolved in internships, community serviceassignments, independent research, and atthe Senior Institute level, off-campus collegecourses. The increase in average class sizenecessary to cover teachers’ non-teachingtime is smaller, resulting in an average classsize of about 15. The average class size of 15is raised to about 17 or 18 because coursesdo not meet for a full 120 minutes per day:on some days the courses meet for only 90minutes to increase teachers’ planning time.

the five short classes teachers have in the



1. A similar analysis quantifies the impact of these practices in three other districts: Fall River,Massachusetts, Middletown, New York, and East Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Miles 1997a).

2. Because International High has a unique student population comprised of 90 percent Chapter 1eligible and 100 percent limited English proficient students, an analogous traditional school couldnot be found for comparison. Instead, we used the New York City staffing guidelines, as outlinedin the New York City publication Comparative Analysis of the Organization of High Schools,1992-93, to estimate staffing for students identified for special needs programs.

3. New York City Schools, Comparative Analysis of the Organization of High Schools, 1992-93,

pp. 82-92.

End Notes

rethinking the allocation of teaching resources: some lessons

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