Characteristics of Successful Schools

CHAPTER THREE
How Do We Bring It All Together?

OVERVIEW

Building upon the characteristics of successful schools included in the first two sections of this guide, this section offers a sample process for putting the pieces of school reform together. After building an understanding of the characteristics of successful schools and after completing an assessment to determine current conditions, how does one proceed? The process offered here is based on a series of questions and is grounded in the work of Larry Lezotte and Barbara Jacoby in their Guide to the School Improvement Process Based on Effective Schools Research. It is further based on the work of Edy Holcomb in her book, Asking the Right Questions: Tools and Techniques for Teamwork(1997).

It is important to realize that school reform and these characteristics of successful schools are not linear. School improvement is messy and the results don't occur in "lock-step" or sequential order. Therefore, many in the learning community are challenged by efforts to improve schools. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has developed these characteristics and this sample process to build a common framework for helping schools improve the achievement of all students.

The process asks school teams to answer five questions related to the seven characteristics of successful schools. Several of the questions address more than one of the characteristics. For example, the question, How will we reach our target? addresses both academic standards and standards of the heart. In addition to providing high academic standards for all students, we are responsible for helping students become productive citizens. Since school reform is a circular process, the questions and the characteristics can guide a school throughout their school improvement efforts.

The remainder of this section will lay out the method for putting the characteristics of successful schools together. Using the seven characteristics and fitting them into the five question format helps create a process for school improvement efforts.

A Process for Creating and Sustaining a Successful School

The five questions Wisconsin's school improvement process is based on are:

1. Where are we now?
2. What is our target?
3. How will we get there?
4. How will we know we're on target? What will we do if we're not?
5. How will we continue to focus and sustain our school improvement efforts?

A process for answering these questions and access to local achievement and behavior data is available through the Wisconsin Information Network for Successful Schools (WINSS)website at dpi.wi.gov/sig/index.html.  WINSS is a web-based school improvement resource guide developed by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the North Central Regional Education Laboratory.

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For questions about this information, contact Molly A. Garner (608) 266-3983

Last updated on 4/2/2009 8:54:27 AM