The Bruce Randolph Story: School Reform That Works

School reform is working at Denver's Bruce Randolph Middle School. In the 2005-06 school year, the school's seventh and eighth graders more than doubled their reading, writing, and math CSAP scores following two years of "unsatisfactory" ratings on the state's school report cards.

The Bruce Randolph Story is one of hope, high expectations, and hard work. It is a story of changing student achievement by changing how a school works.

A year ago, Bruce Randolph Middle School was in crisis. The school serves primarily low-income students - more than 93 percent qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Teachers felt isolated and ineffective, gang violence overshadowed learning, and the school was a step away from being closed and converted to a charter school by the state.

Cole Middle School in Denver had already met this fate in 2004. Thus, the state "takeover" of Bruce Randolph was not just an idle threat. Fortunately, for the students, families, and staff at Bruce Randolph, change was just ahead.

Morey Middle School principal Kristin Waters and Teacher-Literacy Coach Chrisanne Lahue had helped lift that school's state ranking from low to high in three years. Waters and Lahue decided they could help Bruce Randolph in the same way -- using best practices promoted by the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning -- common vision, clear and universal expectations, careful planning and evaluation of teaching goals, a supportive professional development environment.

The two developed a plan they called Challenge 2010, looking ahead to the anticipated graduation of the first group of Randolph students who would be educated with it. Waters and Lahue then went to Bruce Randolph and formed a new leadership team that includes Taylor Betz, Math-Science Teacher and Coach; Literacy Teacher and Coach Jennifer Swinehart; and Assistant Principal Cesar Cedillo. Lahue, Betz, and Swinehart are Denver Classroom Teachers Association members.

One year later, all staff members, including administrators, teachers, clerical staff, and custodians, plus parents and students are clear about academic and behavioral expectations. Educational best practices are faithfully implemented, grounded in a rigorous curriculum. Teachers are continually working on their practice, using student assessment data to focus their teaching on their students' needs. The students themselves are aware of their own learning and can articulate what they know and what they need to work on. And not only have the constant discipline problems stopped, but the students actually confess that they look forward to coming to school.

And while the 2006 CSAP scores have not yet been released, internal tests and assessments show remarkable growth among the seventh and eighth grade students. During the school year, average reading and writing scores soared:

• Seventh graders' average reading scores more than doubled from an average of 9.47 to 21.27 (out of 30), and their writing test scores rose from 1.51 to 2.95 (out of 4);
• Eighth graders' average reading scores shot up from 10.18 to 23.53 (out of 30), and their writing test scores increased from 1.94 to a 3.13 (out of 4).

Turning the school around in a year took nothing less than a complete sea change in the way schools are typically run, according to Bruce Randolph's leadership team. It meant radically changing the school climate, teaching, and learning by adopting and following these principles:

Common Vision and Commitment: Everyone at Bruce Randolph was "on the same page" -- the staff's common vision was to "focus like a laser beam on student achievement," with every person in the school committed to implementing the reform plan, including principals, teachers, clerical staff, custodians, parents, students, and the community.

Leadership with an Empowering Operating Philosophy: School leaders empowered teachers to maximize student achievement through a two-pronged approach. First, the principal removed administrative barriers and time-wasting minutia to free up teacher time. Second, the leadership team provided meaningful professional development and coaching that directly related to teacher and student needs and created a supportive, collegial environment.

Consistent and Defined Expectations: Well-defined academic, procedural, and behavioral expectations were adopted school wide. These included class starting and ending procedures, work format, and misbehavior consequences. The consistency served to take the guesswork out of school for students, allowing them to focus on learning.

Rigorous Curriculum with High Minimum Standards: Bruce Randolph adopted a fully developed, data-driven program on every level. First, the team added reading comprehension and writing components to a curriculum they felt was lacking. Then, student assessment became the key factor in determining teaching strategy.

Teachers started school by administering a series of tests to form a baseline data for students, and throughout the year, students took unit pre- and post-tests and quarterly exams, and completed graded assignments and projects. Students never did another assignment without first getting feedback on what they already did. This data was distributed to students and parents in weekly progress reports and provided a roadmap for teachers creating lesson plans to meet students' needs.

Active Student Involvement in Learning: Teachers helped students take on responsibility for their own learning through quarterly, individual goal-setting meetings. Teacher and student reviewed previous goals and progress, identified academic strengths to capitalize on, focused on areas for improvement, determined tools and strategies to use, and used concrete examples so the student had a clear understanding of what "proficient" work would look like.

As part of CEA's Teaching and Learning Initiative, our Association commissioned a report to document the successes achieved by the dedicated teachers, administrators, and students at Bruce Randolph last year. The full report is available at coloradoea.org.

The Legislature's passage of House Bill 1040 also helped Bruce Randolph. Sponsored by two Denver legislators -- Rep. Rosemary Marshall and Sen. Peter Groff -- the bill rejected the practice mandated by previous law of automatically converting regular public schools to charter schools if they had a series of "unsatisfactory" ratings on the Colorado School Accountability Reports (school report cards).

The new law requires the State Board of Education to review the operations of a school with "unsatisfactory" ratings that is on a school improvement plan required by law. The State Board will determine if the school shall continue to operate under the improvement plan for a longer period of time or be converted to a charter school. The law also requires the school to accomplish a minimum of three changes; these may include replacing the curriculum; replacing a majority of the faculty; changing the grade levels of the school; adding new training for teachers; increasing the length of the school day or the school year; or adding student achievement measures besides CSAP.

CEA lobbyists worked to pass HB 1040 because our Association and others believe that the automatic conversion to a charter -- what happened to Cole Middle School -- is too rigid and school districts need the flexibility to help their schools address teaching and learning needs in other ways. Governor Owens signed HB 1040 into law in April 2006.

Full CEA report