Uncovering the “Secrets” of High Poverty, High Success Schools

By:Douglas B Reeves

What are the secrets of high poverty, high success schools?  After more than a decade of research into the subject, the most pervasive finding is this: There are no secrets.   From the original 90/90/90 research of more than a decade ago (Reeves, 2004) to more recent analyses of high-poverty, high-minority schools where more than 90 percent of students meet academic standards (Chenoweth, 2007; Leader & Stern, 2008), the conclusions are consistent with research from previous decades.  There is no question that economic deprivation clearly has an adverse impact on student achievement, as the effects of poverty, poor housing, inadequate medical care and many other factors are reflected in lower achievement by poor students.

Nevertheless case studies of successful high poverty schools demonstrate time and again that effective teaching and leadership also have a profound and positive impact on student learning.  The “secrets” of these successful schools are never to be found in proprietary programs (Haycock, 1999).  Rather, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests the consistent themes that emerge repeatedly.  These themes come down to teaching and leadership variables that cannot be sold by vendors nor purchased by schools.  They can, however, be practiced and implemented by committed leaders.  This article summarizes some of these key ideas.

The 90/90/90 Findings
In the original 90/90/90 studies, I observed common characteristics among schools where more than 90 percent of the students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, 90 percent of the students were members of ethnic minorities and more than 90 percent of the students were meeting or exceeding state standards.  This methodology is similar to best practices research widely used in business, nonprofit organizations, and education.  While there is never a “silver bullet,” with a single variable leading to a singular effect in student achievement, the cumulative impact certainly appears to give students a greater opportunity for success, even when their demographic characteristics are not associated with high academic achievement.

Our research on the 90/90/90 Schools included both site visits and analyses of accountability data. The site visits allowed us to conduct a categorical analysis of instructional practices. In the same manner that the authors of In Search Of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982) identified the common practices of excellent organizations, we sought to identify the extent to which there was a common set of behaviors exhibited by the leaders and teachers in schools with high achievement, high minority enrollment, and high poverty levels. As a result, we found five characteristics that were common to all 90/90/90 Schools. These characteristics were:

• A focus on academic achievement
• Clear curriculum choices
• Frequent assessment of student progress and multiple opportunities for improvement
• An emphasis on nonfiction writing
• Collaborative scoring of student work

Focus on Academic Achievement
After visiting all of the 90/90/90 Schools, we noticed profound differences between the assessment and instructional practices of these schools and those of low-achieving schools. First and most importantly, the 90/90/90 Schools had a laser-like focus on student achievement. The most casual observer could not walk down a hallway without seeing charts, graphs, and tables that displayed student achievement information, as well as data about the continuous improvement students had made. The data were on display not only in principals’ offices, but also throughout the schools. In addition, we saw school trophy cases full of exemplary academic work, including clear, concise essays, wonderful science projects, terrific social studies papers, and outstanding mathematics papers. In short, the 90/90/90 Schools made it clear to the most casual observer that academic performance was highly prized.

Frequent Assessment of Student Progress with Multiple Opportunities for Improvement
Many of the high-poverty schools included students whose skills were significantly below grade level in academic achievement as they entered the school. The consistent message of the 90/90/90 Schools is that the penalty for poor performance is not a low grade followed by a forced march to the next unit. Rather, student performance that is less than proficient is followed by multiple opportunities to improve performance. Most of these schools conducted weekly assessments of student progress. It is important to note that these assessments were not district or state tests, but was assessments constructed and administered by classroom teachers. The consequence of students performing badly was not an admonishment to “Wait until next year” but rather the promise that “You can do better next week.”

Written Responses in Performance Assessments
By far the most common characteristic of the 90/90/90 Schools was their emphasis on requiring written responses in performance assessments. While many schools with similar demographic characteristics employed frequent assessment techniques, many of the less successful schools chose to emphasize oral student responses rather than written responses. The use of written responses appears to help teachers obtain better diagnostic information about students, and certainly helps students demonstrate the thinking process that they employed to find a correct (or even an incorrect) responses to academic challenges. Only with a written response from students can teachers create the strategies to improve performance.

The benefits of such an emphasis on writing appear to be twofold. First, students process information in a much clearer way when they are required to write an answer. They “write to think” and, thus, gain the opportunity to clarify their own thought processes. Second, teachers have the opportunity to gain rich and complex diagnostic information about why students respond to an academic challenge the way they do. In contrast to the binary feedback (right/wrong) provided by most assessments and worksheets, the use of performance assessments that require written responses allows teachers to diagnose obstacles to student learning. By assessing student writing, teachers can discern whether the challenges faced by a student are the result of vocabulary issues, misunderstood directions, reasoning errors, or a host of other causes that are rarely revealed by typical tests.

External Scoring
Another striking characteristic of the 90/90/90 Schools was frequent external scoring of assessments. While many schools continue to rely upon the idiosyncratic judgment of individual teachers for a definition of “proficiency,” the high-achieving schools made it clear that no accident of geography or classroom assignment would determine expectations for students. Rather, these schools developed common assessment practices and reinforced those common practices through regular exchanges of student papers. One teacher would exchange papers with another teacher; principals would exchange papers with another school; and in one of the most powerful research findings, principals would take personal responsibility for evaluating student work.

When teachers exchange papers, it is imperative that they have a uniform basis on which to evaluate student work. The degree of agreement among teachers in their use of performance assessment scoring can be measured by “inter-rater reliability.” Reliability, when the term is applied to traditional tests, is a measure of consistency. In the case of measuring consistency in scoring, it is simply the percentage of teachers who score an identical piece of student work the same way. If, for example, ten teachers evaluate a piece of student work, and eight believe that the work is “proficient” and two believe that it is only “progressing,” then there is an 80 percent reliability rating for that test. This degree of reliability—80 percent—is the target at which teachers should aim as they jointly evaluate student work. It is very unusual (but not unheard of) for that level of agreement to be achieved the first time that teachers jointly score student work. More frequently, there are disagreements among teachers on the evaluation of student work. These disagreements usually stem from one of two causes. First, teachers frequently use implicit scoring criteria that are not part of the official scoring guide. Examples of implicit criteria include such statements as “He should have written in cursive” or “She knew that she should have included that character in her essay.” While these expectations may have been reasonable to these teachers, those criteria did not appear in the scoring guide. It is therefore not surprising that other teachers, who did not share those expectations, failed to penalize students down for these perceived failings. The second cause of teacher disagreement is the lack of clear specifications in the scoring guide itself.

Too frequently a disagreement among evaluators leads to an argument rather than to an exploration of how agreement can be achieved through a revision of the scoring guide. “If we change the definition of proficient from this to that, perhaps we could agree on how to mark this paper.” This is a much better basis for more meaningful discussion than, “Of course it’s proficient! Don’t you see?”

In sum, high poverty, high success schools have a focus on student achievement and a commitment to success that extends far beyond demographic determinism that characterizes so many schools.  Moreover, these schools are willing to be astonishingly flexible on matters of time, flexibility, and assessment – but they are equally inflexible on expectations and unremitting requirements for success of the children.  These findings are hardly unique or earthshaking.  In earlier decades Edmonds (1979), Goodlad (1984), and Levine and Lezotte (1990) have also concluded that teaching and leadership can have a positive impact in high-poverty schools, and that neither the country nor the teaching profession is aided by those who claim that we are impotent in the face of adverse economic circumstances of students.

Beyond No Child Left Behind
The implications of these findings and other studies with similar findings are important as Congress and the new Administration reconsiders the federal role in education.  For almost eight years, the federal government has focused on “effects-based” accountability:  good test scores reflect good schools; poor test scores reflect poor schools.  Unfortunately, this accountability methodology remains stunningly indifferent to the causes of improved student achievement.  It is as if the government chose to combat adolescent obesity only by weighing students, but failing to observe whether weight loss was due to diet and exercise, or eating disorders and drug abuse.  The lessons of high poverty, high success schools are not just for teachers and principals.  Policymakers at the highest level should draw the essential inference that accountability must be more than a litany of test scores.  The more we learn from these schools about the underlying causes of their long-term success, the greater their impact on achievement and equity will be.  Among the many legacies of No Child Left Behind in its present form, the worst will be the excuse by school leaders that they “don’t have time” for effective practices such as those used in the 90/90/90 schools, because they must focus on improvements in test scores.  In fact, the time that all of us have is nearly equal.  The only question is whether we consider the available research, and use that time wisely.

Chenoweth, K. (2007). It’s being done: Boston: Harvard Education Press.
Edmonds, R. (1979, September). Effective Schools for the Urban Poor. Educational Leadership 37(1), 15-24.
Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co
Haycock, K. (1999). Dispelling the myth: High-poverty schools exceeding expectations. Washington, DC: The Education Trust.
Leader, G. C. & Stern, A. F. (2008). Real leaders, real schools: Stories of success against enormous odds. Boston: Harvard Education Press.
Levine, D., Lezotte, L (1990), Unusually Effective Schools: A Review and Analysis of Research and Practice, Madison: NCESRD Publications.
Peters, T. J., & Waterman, Jr., R. H. (1982). In search of excellence: Lessons from America’s best-run companies. New York: Warner Books.
Reeves, D. B. (2004). Accountability in action: A blueprint for learning organizations (2nd ed). Englewood, CO: Advanced Learning Press
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Dr. Douglas Reeves is the founder of The Leadership and Learning Center.  He has worked with education, business, nonprofit, and government organizations throughout the world.  The author of more than 20 books and many articles on leadership and organizational effectiveness, he has twice been named to the Harvard University Distinguished Authors Series.  His monthly column on change leadership appears in Educational Leadership.  Dr. Reeves was named the Brock International Laureate for his contributions to education.  He also received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the Parents Choice Award for his writing for children and parents.

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