TOPHAT I Boosts Achievement in Indiana
In 1999, Dr. Ilene Block of the Indiana Department of Education began calling administrators from high-poverty, low-achieving “corporations” (a.k.a. school districts) in the Hoosier state, posing a frank question: “How would you like to improve your test scores?” Seven corporations took Block up on her offer to participate in the Teaching Optimization Producing Higher Achievement Trends (TOPHAT) consortium.
The key idea underlying TOPHAT was a simple one: good instruction is the key to higher student performance. From day one, TOPHAT focused on improving what goes on in the classroom. “I told them (TOPHAT participants), ‘If you’re here to raise your test scores, please leave,” said Dr. Block. “But if you’re here to improve instruction … and by the way, your test scores will improve … please stay.’”
Unique structure
TOPHAT, a bold experiment in state-provided support for low-performing schools, had four key elements:
- Long-term intervention to provide ongoing, connected professional development for school teams
- A train-the-trainer model, providing school leadership teams with knowledge and skills to take back to the classroom
- Pooled state resources that provide more robust professional development than each school would otherwise be able to afford individually
- A state supported, and McREL trained, cadre of highly skilled professionals to provide schools and corporations with coaching and mentoring between formal professional development sessions
Ray of hope
Prior to joining TOPHAT, participants reported that they felt demoralized and overwhelmed by their students’ low performances. Teachers and administrators knew they needed to improve instruction, but didn’t know where to begin. Low-performing schools often find themselves feeling a sense of urgency but bombarded with information overload or gripped by “paralysis by analysis,” leaving them unsure of where to direct their energy.
Four and a half years later, during TOPHAT’s final session this June in Indianapolis, participants said their schools had changed dramatically. “I would use the word ‘hope,’” said Linda Schulze, a teacher from Cannelton City Schools. “TOPHAT was support when we were really struggling. When you believe you can make the changes you need to make, you start to take the actions you need to take.”
Focused, comprehensive intervention
McREL consultants Diane Paynter, Salle Quackenboss, and Jane Doty understand that low-performing schools need to undertake complex, comprehensive improvement efforts. Yet, schools can’t solve a bevy of complex challenges all at once. Rather, they need to select a focus and keep it simple. “[They] helped us focus on the one or two biggest things that we needed to do,” observed Tammy Gregory, a teacher from Switzerland County Elementary School.
Some of these simple, but powerful strategies included vocabulary instruction and Classroom Instruction that Works. Participants returned to their classrooms and schools, applied what they had learned in these trainings, and saw immediate results in student learning and achievement. Those “quick wins” encouraged school staff members to follow up on their early successes with expanded improvement efforts.
Eventually, TOPHAT participants developed the capacity to use research-based strategies in a comprehensive effort to address a wide array of school issues, including algebraic thinking, data-driven decision making, early literacy instruction, leadership, professional learning communities, and designing standards-based classrooms.
Mentors make a difference
TOPHAT participants also learned to rely on their mentors between McREL-provided professional development sessions. Mentors, who each work with a handful of schools, made connections between schools’ needs and McREL’s research-based guidance. At the same time, they served as “critical friends,” providing local sites with friendly, yet unwavering accountability.
[Our mentor] was very sympathetic,” noted Cynthia Griffith of Switzerland County Elementary School. “She knew what we were going through. But she always came back to us and said, ‘So what are you going to do [to improve]? She never let us off the hook.”
Results
All seven districts in TOPHAT have seen steady gains in student achievement — some of them dramatic. Knox, for example, has experienced double-digit growth in all subject areas and all grade levels on the statewide achievement test.
More importantly, participants say their schools have developed the capacity to continue to grow as professionals, look at the data and ask hard questions, and use research to search for answers. “TOPHAT has prepared us for the expectations of No Child Left Behind,” said Knox Superintendent Allen Bourff. “But we are focused on more than just AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). We’re focused on maintaining our growth and doing the right things for our students.”