Cincinnati Public Schools is moving professional development out of the lecture halls and into the classrooms.
With its innovative use of Instructional Support Teams, CPS focuses on giving principals and teachers advanced training that can be put to use seamlessly in the classrooms. Powered by an emphasis on classroom data that monitors students’ progress, the teams work in the schools four days a week coaching and modeling best practices, aiming to give teachers the specific guidance they need to impact and raise student achievement.
CPS’ Instructional Support Teams (ISTs) moved into prominence starting in August 2006, with the launch of the district’s five-year strategic plan, Building Futures. Use of the Instructional Support Teams as the district’s main source of professional development is a strategy under the plan’s Goal No. 3, with ties to Goals 1, 6 and 7.
In the 2006-07 school year, there now are seven Instructional Support Teams, with five to seven members each. They work in all schools, expanding the concept from the initial two teams in 1999-2000 that worked only in a few schools. The teams’ new design is the product of collaboration among CPS and the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, the Mayerson Academy and the Hamilton County Educational Service Center (HCESC). The teams consist mainly of lead teachers and principals from CPS, with Mayerson and HCESC also providing members.
Coaching forms each team’s core work. Team members work closely with teachers and principals in such areas as lesson planning, re-teaching, and classroom and school leadership, often stepping up to lead a class and model the best way to get across a concept.
“Coaching is the hot thing today in education. It’s everywhere, but we haven’t heard of anyone doing it the same way as CPS,“ said Kathleen Ware, Mayerson Academy’s president and a former associate superintendent at CPS. “This is an unique, systemic approach — putting content teachers, principals and specialists into teams and assigning them to schools.”
Another key IST strength is the heightened use of student data as a tool to track progress and determine where focus is needed. For example, study of last year’s data showed students were performing poorly on extended-response questions on state achievement tests. These questions ask students to read a story or prompt, then write a short essay addressing specific points. Data from the 2005-06 school year showed 15 percent of CPS students skipped the extended-response questions, and, of those who did attempt to answer, an alarming 75 percent turned in work that earned no points.
Data from this year’s benchmark testing show dramatic improvement, after the teams worked with teachers on better ways to help students understand what makes a strong extended response: Only 4 percent of students ignored the questions; and students’ work improved enough that only 22 percent wrote answers that earned zeros.
“No one else is using data the way we are doing it,” said William Myles, CPS’ administrative officer for school improvement who oversees the ISTs. “That’s the strongest part of the teams. We are able to identify where help is needed and put interventions in place, whether it’s high absenteeism at a school, or a grade level that’s not doing well meeting an academic standard.”
A final ingredient critical to the success of the Instructional Support Teams, Myles and Ware agree, is providing the teams with their own professional development. The teams began the school year with training focused on becoming successful coaches. And, the teams spend every Friday, all day, together at Mayerson in professional development.