Taos Charter School

“Our findings were surprising in their consistency,” the report concludes. The 44 higher-performing schools (those with average school-wide math and English test scores a full standard deviation above the mean) “create a shared, school-wide intense focus on the improvement of student outcomes,” it says. Those high-performing schools did things like “set measurable goals on standards based tests and benchmark tests across all proficiency levels, grades, and subjects”; create school missions that were “future oriented,” with curricula and instruction designed to prepare students to succeed in a rigorous high-school curriculum; include improvement of student outcomes “as part of the evaluation of the superintendent, the principal, and the teachers”; and communicate to parents and students “their responsibility as well for student learning, including parent contracts, turning in homework, attending class, and asking for help when needed.”

For full article, go to http://educationnext.org/the-middle-school-mess/