Essential Principles about School-centered Strategies
The 1996 CPEC report estimated that 8.6 percent of underrepresented students statewide participated in the nine programs reviewed in that report.  CPEC also estimated that only 7.5 percent of California elementary and secondary schools were involved in these nine programs.  Regardless of how effective these programs might be or how much they might be expanded, they are only a part of the solution to increasing the numbers of college-prepared students.

Some of the programs included in this review combine student-centered and school-improvement strategies focused on specific schools.  In addition, the University has a broader role in preparing teachers for K-12, providing ongoing professional development and, through admissions requirements and collaborative work on standards, helping to put in place a rigorous, college-preparatory curriculum.

In our review of the professional development and school-centered strategies in various programs we identified four essential principles of effective practices in school-centered strategies:

1.  School-centered programs can provide staff development that helps teachers support students success in college-preparatory courses.
Getting more disadvantaged students to take the college-preparatory sequence is part of the solution.  However, too many students drop out of these classes or perform poorly.  Many more students could be successful if their teachers were adequately prepared to provide support.  What seems effective is a combination of high expectations, motivational support, and some specific skills that teachers can impart to students e.g. study skills, time management, test-taking strategies.

Many of the student-centered programs provide this type of professional development to K-12 teachers. Benefits thus accrue not only to students participating in the program but to other students as well.  High School Puente has made this a major thrust.  AVID provides extensive staff development for school teams that include teachers of core academic classes and counselors, as well as the teacher of the AVID elective class.  The strategies that support AVID students are reinforced by teachers in all curriculum areas. Other programs such as ACCESS have also provided staff development that helps teachers support less-prepared students in a college-preparatory curriculum.   

2.  School-centered programs can improve the quality of curriculum and teaching in core academic subjects.
A strong core academic curriculum and effective teaching are at the heart of effective schools.  The California Subject Matter Projects exemplify the high-quality professional development that is needed to assist K-12 schools in improving curriculum and teaching in all levels of K-12 education, including college-preparatory courses in high school.  Evaluation studies have demonstrated that the Subject Matter Projects are making a significant contribution to the professional development and pedagogical practice of K-12 teachers.

3.  School-centered strategies can help enhance the academic culture of K-12 schools.
One factor that seems to distinguish high-performing schools from low-performing schools is the existence of an academic school culture.  The features of an academic school culture include the morale of faculty, staff and students, and the image of the school in the community.  An academic culture is expressed in schools in recognizable ways such as respect for instructional time, homework policies, the proportion of students enrolled in college-preparatory courses, and acknowledgment of academic success along with athletic success of the school.

ACCESS is one example of a program that has helped develop an academic culture in low-performing schools.  The evaluation of this program shows impressive improvements in schools which initially had virtually none of the features of an academic school culture.   

4. Professional development programs can help improve the quality of teaching in low-performing schools.
Some programs such as ACCESS and others focus on improving the quality of teaching and learning in specific low-performing schools.  Other broad-scale professional development programs have been designed to assist teachers who work in the schools most likely to be low-performing.  As noted earlier, the Beginning Teacher Support and Assistance Program (BTSA) is a successful example of such a program.  New teachers are most often assigned to urban schools that are low-performing.  BTSA has helped to reduce the attrition of new teachers and thereby enhances the quality of teaching in many schools serving students from low-income families.

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