Running head: MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING

Meeting the Needs of All Learners, Not Just the Struggling

A Critique of Brandon School District’s Accelerated Math Program using Blankstein’s Six

Principles

Jenny Gieselman

Oakland University
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 2

Abstract

This critique reviewed the elementary accelerated math program for Brandon Schools. The

initiative began in the fall of 2015 and the program was fully implemented this fall, 2016. The

six principles of highly effective schools from Blankstein’s book, Failure is Not an Option was

used for this analysis. There were many strengths found in the program including: ensuring

achievement for all students, collaborative teaching, using data based decision making, and

building sustainable leadership capacity. While there were a couple areas for improvement,

there were still some positive findings when looking at mission, vision, values and goals and

gaining active engagement from family and community.

MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 3

Introduction

Currently in the Brandon School District, located in Northern Oakland County, there is a

total student population of about 2,900 students K-12. About 35% of the total population are

considered economically disadvantaged, and both of the elementary schools qualify for Title

One funding.

The dynamics have brought focus to the at-risk population at the elementary levels for

many years, and continues to be an important aspect of the elementary schools.

Interventionists are in place along with intervention programs. Coaches push in to classrooms

to help implement guided reading and math groups, and assist with meeting the needs of

struggling students, while working with and alongside the classroom teachers.

One group that has not been a major focus in the Brandon School District is the high-

achieving learners. In the fall of 2015 the superintendent in the Brandon School District

brought a group of stakeholders together to discuss meeting the needs of the high-achieving

learners in the district. The purpose was to review how the Brandon School District challenged

high-achieving students to reach their personal best, identify gaps that were in the programing

to improve the effectiveness in challenging high-achieving students, and to make

recommendations for adjustments to programming. Ultimately this led to the accelerated

math program in the Brandon School District, beginning in 4th grade with entry points up until

8th grade.
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 4

Principle 1: Common Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals

“Ideally, it will be the leadership team that leads the development of this foundational

pillar” (Blankstein, 2013, p. 84). The foundational pillar referring to that of the mission, vision,

values, and goals (MVVG). Brandon Schools initiative for high-achieving students stemmed

from just that, a committee composed of stakeholders: parents, administrators, teachers, and

students. In the first meeting stakeholders were told why they were there and given the data

that drove the initiative. We then were asked to record our thoughts on two ideas: strengths

and needs for improvement in this area, from there a discussion ensued. Blankstein actually

suggested collecting the views of each stakeholder as one of the ways to evaluate what already

exists (Blankstein, 2013). While we didn’t evaluate an existing mission we did evaluate what we

were doing at the time to make sure our high-achieving students were achieving to the best of

their abilities.

One strength of this committee, and I credit our superintendent for this, is the fact that

we continuously have goals toward the committee mission of meeting the needs of all high-

achieving learners. Every meeting has begun with reporting the progress being made towards

the mission. Blankstein refers to goals as short-term minitargets that strive for the grand target

(Blankstein, 2013) this is exactly what has been happening with this committee. We meet with

enough regularity that the momentum has continued throughout last year and into this school

year to ensure goals are being met and we are making progress toward the mission.

By the end of the second meeting we had a goal focusing on math to support the overall

mission of reaching our high-achieving learners. The committee that formed was based on the

information that came out of the strengths and needs for improvement. It was brought up by
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 5

the upper grade teachers, parents, and students that there were very few entry points for our

students to enter advanced math classes before high school, leading to small numbers in our

STEM program and Advanced Math Classes. Our leader saw this as something we could change

in the near future and from there the accelerated math initiative was formed, one of our first of

many minitargets. The committee was made up of administrators and teachers that had many

brainstorming sessions ultimately coming up with the plan for accelerated math in the 2016-17

school year starting as early as 4th grade. Based on the feedback from the stakeholders our

smaller committee came up with a goal of 25% or more of our students will enter Algebra I by

eighth grade within the next four years. It has been wonderful to see that all these minitargets

really are leading to our mission.

I see building a team in Principle I as a strength in the accelerated math initiative in our

district. While the mission didn’t start out necessarily being about math, our leader saw that as

an obtainable goal in the near future and other stake holders saw it as a need. It was a value

that all stakeholders seemed to share and is getting us closer to the overall mission of reaching

all high-achieving learners’ full potential in Brandon Schools.

While we had so many strengths and were able to move swiftly, because of our

common mission, goals, and values, after critiquing I realize that we never formally wrote a

mission and vision. While the mission has been clear to all on the committee we fall short on

making our mission clear to all stakeholders in our district. As far as a vision goes we

incorporated the mission of reaching all high-achieving learners into our district vision of

“Brandon 2025.” After examining our website, I have realized that Brandon 2025 reads more

like a series of SMART goals, and actually doesn’t necessarily align with the district vision
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 6

statement on our website. While this doesn’t make our goals any less clear it may be beneficial

for our district to recreate a formal mission and vision statement that incorporates all the

beliefs of the various committees in our district, including that of the high-achieving learners.

Failure is Not an Option would be a great resource for initiating alignment between all our

committee missions and SMART goals and our district mission and vision.

Principle 2: Ensuring Achievement for All Students – Systems for Prevention and Intervention

Brandon Schools as a whole has many interventions for the academically at-risk children

in our school district, but where our superintendent realized we were falling short was with our

high-achieving population, this was the reason our committee was formed. Blankstein states,

“Making the achievement gaps an agenda item and publishing them for the stakeholder

community to review ads focus to the staff’s efforts” (Blankstein, 2013, p. 135). This was done

the first night our committee got together. The data that was shared ranged from elementary

to secondary level and focused on the top 25%. What was brought to our attention was that

only 13% of our students were in the 75th percentile on the ACT (25 or better) and only 5% were

in the top 90th percentile (28 or better). This was surprising to all stakeholders in the room and

it was clear there was room for improvement.

“Ensuring achievement for all students means having an overarching strategy that

encompasses the majority of learners” (Blankstein, 2013, p. 128). After looking at the essential

components, the accelerated math initiative did seem to incorporate the following

components:

Ensuring the pedagogy is engaging and relevant, this is being done for the high-achieving

students across many grade levels in the area of math. We closely looked at the curriculum
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 7

across grade levels to ensure a curriculum that will keep the high-achieving math students

engaged, while continuing to meet standards. From 4th grade and beyond there is a plan in

place for these learners.

Having an improvement Plan for all students, RTI is already in place for those struggling and

now there is a plan in place for those that are high-achieving in the area of math.

Having systems for quickly identifying those in need, for our high-achieving students we have

relied heavily on NWEA data and teacher surveys for all students, to ensure their needs are

being met. We also used data from our unit assessments to help guide in decision making.

Providing a continuum of support and targeted strategies for low achievers, while none of the

students we are targeting are considered “low achievers” we do have a plan in place for those

who might struggle with our accelerated math program. One of the plans is that teachers will

utilize myself, the math coach, to work along with the teacher to provide intervention and

differentiation within their accelerated classroom.

Publishing results on closing the achievement gap & Using data based decision making for

continuous improvement, this was done for us in our meetings and we continue to look at the

data on a regular basis. Our district offers us many data points to use, which gives us a bigger

picture of the students. We consider all data from NWEA and MStep, unit assessments, and

teacher observations, all have been considered valuable data in the process.

While principle 2 did seem to focus mostly on the low achieving student population, I

would argue, after looking at the components that our accelerated math initiative does work

towards “Ensuring achievement for ALL students” (Blankstein, 2013, p. 111).

Principle 3: Collaborative Teaming Focused on Teaching and Learning

MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 8

In my opinion, this has been a weak area for Brandon in recent years, yet probably one

of the most important principles to student and teacher success. Budget cuts and a limited

amount of time make it difficult to collaborate. While there has been time devoted to

professional learning the days are few and far between, and may not even apply to what a

person is currently teaching or doing. Blankstein says that high-achieving schools support

regular meetings of teachers who share responsibility for assessing needs and developing

solutions that address all students’ learning (Blankstein, 2013). I don’t believe we have been

committed to doing this, and to be honest was a worry of mine, especially since we have

multiple teachers teaching accelerated math. Without time to collaborate how can we trouble

shoot, plan, and make sure our program is consistent?

I was thrilled when I was told by the principal of the school that is housing the

accelerated math program that all of our half days this year will be devoted to the accelerated

math teachers and math coach to meet. This is the first time in a while that I can remember

our professional learning days focused on teacher collaboration and curriculum planning

(Blankstein, 2013). This was the missing piece to our initiative and our needs are going to be

met. So, while principle 3 has been an area where our district has fallen short they are making

strides to becoming more collaborative by allowing the accelerated math team to meet

throughout the year to make way for some collaborative teaming.

I feel fortunate that the group I am working with happens to be collaborative. “A

collaborative school culture, professionals are fully committed to and focused on helping

students learn by becoming active learners themselves” (Blankstein, 2013, p. 147). I have seen
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 9

this commitment, they have even requested lab classrooms this year, they want to learn. Most

of all they recognize their crucial role in this process (Blankstein, 2013).

While the collaboration process is still fresh when it comes to working with the teachers

I see that we have many aspects of principle 3 in place. We have a collaborative team, we have

a plan in place for collaboration, all teachers are looking forward to the collaboration and

planning time we are being given. So, while principle 3 could have been a weak aspect for us I

am energized by the fact that our principal saw a need for collaboration and is making an effort

to make it happen.

Principle 4: Data-Based Decision Making for Continuous Improvement

As stated earlier data drove the district’s decision to implement the accelerated math

program in Brandon Schools. While the hard data was what brought the committee to the

table, it was our interactions and review of soft data as well that catapulted the accelerated

math initiative so quickly. The climate was built for trust in our committee meetings and it

worked. We were able to turn information into knowledge, it was a social process that

ultimately led to a plan (Blankstein, 2013).

Without reviewing the hard data, we would have never come to the essence of what

has been getting in the way of reaching all learners, especially our top 25%. Through the

socialization process, based around hard data and rich topics we were able to discover there

was a breakdown in math, starting in middle school. This is when we uncovered more data and

discovered that we only had 25 total students in Algebra I in 8th grade, this was not enough if

we were trying to reach our top 25%. We had data-literate people on our committee that were

thinking about the purpose of the data, and ultimately led us to a plan (Blankstein, 2013).
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 10

While the Common Core Standards for math may not be considered data, it became a

data tool for us as we examined where our accelerated entry points would begin. We looked

closely across grade levels to find the years with the biggest overlap. It was here that we

discovered 4th grade might be the best year to have our first entry point. We would have never

discovered the overlap between 3rd, 4th, and 5th had we not examined the standards closely.

The examination of the standards may not have happened had the need not been so evident

from our data, we were not reaching all our high-achieving math learners.

Once narrowing down our entry points we then had to look back at the hard data to

decide who was going to be eligible. We started out with anyone 50 th percentile or higher on

the NWEA in math. After examining all the children that would qualify we knew that wouldn’t

be enough. It was then that we came up with a survey for 3 rd and 4th grade teachers to help

them with their decision, and ultimately would be the determining factor for who was eligible

for accelerated math in the 4th and 5th grades. The survey took into account their summative

assessments throughout the units, but equally as important, it also took into account teacher

observations and formative assessments. Hard data couldn’t be used alone, there are so many

other factors when considering a student for any program. It was because of our collaborative

culture of capable staff that allowed us to have the dialogue to come to the realization that

hard data wasn’t enough when making decisions about children (Blankstein, 2013). We truly

did have all students in mind when making these decisions.

I am grateful to the work that went into the data collection before our committee even

met. It was well chosen and relevant to the committee. It was already disaggregated based on

the needs our administration was seeing, and ultimately was the reason our committee was
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 11

formed. It made digging deeper into the data an easier process for us, ultimately allowing us

the ability to come up with an improvement plan, based around accelerated learning

(Blankstein, 2013).

While the accelerated math program is in place we realize we will have to continuously

evaluate whether or not it is working and make changes as necessary. The unit assessments

from math, NWEA, and Mstep will all prove to be valuable. However, checking in with the

teachers, parents and students will be just as valued. What principle 4 has brought to my

attention is to see success with data you ultimately need a combination of hard data, soft data,

and collaboration. I believe principle 4 was a strong suit in the accelerated math initiative in

Brandon Schools, and keeping the important pieces of data in mind for the future will help

make it successful.

Principle 5 – Gaining Active Engagement From Family and Community

“Where wide disparities exist in patterns of student achievement, relations between

school, family, and community can be strained” (Blankstein, p.189, 2013). This quote stood out

to me, because I believe Brandon could possibly be at these crossroads. We do have wide

disparities, which we uncovered when our committee started looking at the data. One big

complaint at the parent meeting was that they were not aware of all the opportunities their

children were able to participate in to accelerate their learning. Ultimately this was our

responsibility to inform parents and we fell short.

Our administration reached out to a few families for their input on the topic of

accelerated learners. Blankstein points out one way to develop principle 5 is to “Provide forums

for parent discussions and mutual support around the various developmental isssues,” while I
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 12

do believe he was referring to a more social aspect of learning, I do think this committee was a

start to letting parents in Brandon know their word can make change and is valued (Blankstein,

p. 206, 2013). However, this is just a small pocket of our parent population. This is where

Brandon has room for improvement. The three principles to positive family relationships might

be a good place to start (Blankstein, p. 192, 2013).

Brandon would benefit from discussing the questions under “Getting Started”

(Blankstein, p. 205, 2013). It just so happens that under the Brandon 2025 vision one of the

SMART goals revolves around parent involvement. The goal happens to be our district focus this

year. This makes me hopeful that this weak area for Brandon is seen as a necessary area for

improvement. Our accelerated math initiative was a small step towards “Active engagement

from Family and Community’” but we certainly have more work to do in this area (Blankstein, p.

188, 2013).

Principle 6: Building Sustainable Leadership Capacity

In my seventeen years of teaching I have had five principals, this averages to about one

every five years. With this rate of change it does seem important to have sustainable

leadership. Through all these principals I have learned one thing, those that were the biggest

cheerleaders also saw the potential in the teachers that work for them, including me. One

opportunity given to me by a principal that saw a passion of mine, as an opportunity to build

capacity; quite possibly changed the course of my career, and ultimately led me to my role on

the accelerated math initiative. That principal asked me to share with the staff about a

workshop I was attending on math that I had become so passionate about (Blankstein, 2013).
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 13

The more I learned the more I shared. I organically fell into being known for my knowledge in

the area of math and math workshop.

This principal was building capacity. He tapped into our passions, encouraged us to

explore them, share back with others, and model. This never seemed intimidating because it

was what we loved to do. It became very collaborative. “Team members and colleagues were

running our staff meetings,” this truly was happening (Blankstein, p. 212, 2013). I will be

forever thankful to that administrator for allowing me to grow and step into leadership

naturally.

“Sustainable leadership capacity enables school cultures to thrive despite challenges,

including leadership transitions” (Blankstein, p. 208, 2013). After that principal there have been

more, but he paved the way and because of that path I have had the opportunity to continue

growing not only with my leadership skills, but also with my passion in the area of teaching

math. I tell this personal story, because I think it shows the opportunities I have had in Brandon

that started forming many years ago. They never ceased with a new administrator, but instead

continued to flourish.

As far as the accelerated math committee goes, the majority of us that worked together

to make decisions were not in administration. Instead, administration relied on our expertise,

knowledge of the curriculum, and knowledge of the students to lead in decision making. Not

only did they utilize us to help set up the accelerated math initiative, but also report out to

other stakeholders. I believe administration was distributing leadership (Blankstein, 2013).

“Distributed leadership means creating a culture of initiative and opportunity, in which teachers

of all kinds propose new direction” (Blankstein, p. 232, 2013). We had teachers from 3 rd – 9th
MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 14

grade on the committee and ultimately making decisions, which our administration entrusted

us with and ultimately set the stage so we could succeed. In my opinion principal 6 is another

strength in Brandon’s accelerated math initiative.

Conclusion

Critiquing the accelerated math program in Brandon Schools has been an extremely

reflective experience. The six principles given by Blankstein in Failure is Not an Option have

proven to be a wonderful instrument to evaluate this program. The review enabled me to find

many strengths, in not only the accelerated math initiative itself, but also with the leadership

that began the process. There was thoughtful consideration when bringing stakeholders

together, the data made it clear there was a need for the group, and the goals were clear. This

critique also allowed the opportunity to find areas for improvement. A vision and mission could

be written for the district to help incorporate all the initiatives and beliefs in the district; and

steps are already being made to make family and community a bigger part of the Brandon

School District. Ultimately incorporating all these principles will not only bring success to the

accelerated math program, but also to Brandon School District.

MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS, NOT JUST THE STRUGGLING 15

References

Blankstein, A.M. (2013). Failure is not an Option: 6 principles that advance student achievement

In highly effective schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.