REDESIGNING LOW-PERFORMING SCHOOLS

WHEREAS, there are schools in which student achievement is extremely and consistently low and where the environment of the school is so dysfunctional that it should be identified for urgent remedial action; and

WHEREAS, either as a result of court rulings, state legislative or administrative actions or district administrative fiat, schools are being targeted for "disestablishment," "reconstitution" or "redesign"¾ all leading to radical changes in staffing and programs; and

WHEREAS, the new Title I regulations require that school districts take "corrective action" to improve schools that do not demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" toward bringing all Title I students up to the state's proficient and advanced performance standards within an appropriate time frame; and

WHEREAS, there is a growing body of knowledge from research and from the accumulated experience of our own locals on what makes some schools more effective than others, and this knowledge enables us to identify factors associated with low-performing schools; and

WHEREAS, this research and experience tell us, among other things, that schools are most likely to be successful when there is a rigorous curriculum tied to high external standards, assessments that monitor students' progress toward the standards, effective leadership, and professional development that ensures teachers' knowledge of and skill in teaching their subjects in such challenging school environments; and

WHEREAS, the AFT believes that support and remedies must be provided to low-performing schools and that it is the unions responsibility to participate in the development of workable solutions:

RESOLVED, that the AFT establish a special task force to make recommendations:

• to help our locals to identify characteristics common to schools with low student performance as compared to similar schools that perform well; and
• to help our locals develop practical designs and a range of approaches to improve low- performing schools, both with strategies aimed at early intervention and with strategies to respond to the situation of schools whose efforts to improve have repeatedly failed.