The 10-Step Solution

Here are 10 steps to help urban districts boost achievement in low-performing schools.

By Arthur E. Wise and Marsha Levine

Superintendents of big school districts are faced with a bonanza of Title I funds under the recently enacted "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001. They are trying to decide how to use the additional money to improve student achievement. Investing in well-qualified teachers is one core strategy. While there are no silver bullets, there are promising practices that have never been tried on a scale equal to the task of improving the flow and quality of teachers to urban schools. One such practice would be the introduction of "professional-development schools."

These are restructured and restaffed schools operated by districts and universities to prepare new teachers to work effectively in urban settings. Were they to become the norm for teacher preparation and staff development in a city, there is evidence to suggest that student achievement would increase, that new teachers would be more effective, and that those teachers would remain teaching in urban schools longer.

Currently, low-performing urban schools are experiencing the brunt of the teacher shortage. These schools are forced to hire unprepared and inexperienced "teachers," some of whom are the products of quickie alternative- certification programs. The results are predictable: Low-performing children remain low-performing. Sixty percent of the teachers are gone within three years. The schools are forced to replace them with new unprepared and inexperienced teachers. With this passing parade of teaching temps, the cycle...