According to estimates by principals nationwide, about 44 percent of American public-school students were behind grade level in a least one subject at the start of the 2023–24 school year. Despite myriad efforts to address the issue, many schools are still struggling to help their students catch up. However, as a new TNTP report highlights, performing below grade level need not always mean that students will remain behind grade level for the rest of their years in school. The report closely examines a small sample of schools where students are making rapid academic progress and reveals that certain practices are common across these “trajectory-changing” schools.
The report combined data from several sources to develop a better understanding of what goes on at these schools. The authors first looked at Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready data from 2017 to 2021, which confirmed that the majority of students who fall behind academically stay behind throughout their academic career. They then used the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), which combines state assessment data with National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data spanning the 2008–09 to 2018–19 school years, to identify trajectory-changing schools that have defied this trend, cross-checking these schools with more recent EDFacts data to confirm that their growth patterns withstood the pandemic. Schools were considered trajectory-changing if the average student was not yet on grade level in their initial tested grade and grew by at least 1.3 relative grade levels per year.
This process led to a list of about 1,300 schools, which comprised the top 5 percent of all schools in SEDA. The authors then chose seven for in-depth examination, selecting those whose demographic makeup broadly reflected that of trajectory-changing schools in general, and that represented a wide range of contexts in terms of both urbanicity and school type (e.g., traditional public, charter, etc.). From these seven schools, they collected a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, including academic classroom observations; teacher, student, and caregiver surveys; naturalistic classroom observations; student focus group responses; and caregiver interviews. They analyzed these data in combination to produce insights into how teachers and leaders in these trajectory-changing schools accelerate student learning and affect students’ and caregivers' experiences.
The report found three main commonalities in the sample schools’ practices: belonging, consistency, and coherence. Trajectory-changing schools cultivate belonging and design support structures for students to create a healthy emotional climate for learning. They also deliver consistently good teaching and grade-level content for their students in every classroom, with little variation in quality and a common understanding among teachers of what good instruction looks like. Finally, these schools develop coherent instructional programs—including curricula, materials, interventions, and assessments—that work together to advance the same goals.
While these findings are based on a wide range of data collected from teachers, students, and caregivers, much of the data consisted of self-reports, which are often considered less reliable than other, more objective data sources. It is also important to note that only seven schools were deeply examined for this report, and these seven targets were not randomly chosen, which means that the results are not widely generalizable. Furthermore, the study failed to include a comparison group, which makes it difficult to know for sure whether the practices highlighted in the report are truly what’s spurring student progress at these schools.
Nevertheless, the authors provide four strong recommendations, each with action items at the state, school system, school, and community levels. The first is to create a supportive ecosystem within schools. For policymakers, this means incentivizing the implementation of trajectory-changing practices, while school leaders and educators work to build stronger relationships and holistic knowledge of each student. The second is to look beyond the nine-month school year and begin centering decisions in the experiences of the “whole person” who will be in school through the age of eighteen. The third is to choose a narrow entry point by investing in just one focus area first, and then building on it bit by bit. And the final recommendation is to create ongoing, long-term processes of improvement that lead to sustained change.
Individually, these recommendations highlight effective approaches that policymakers and school leaders can take to help students catch up to grade level. But together, they capture a broader point about school improvement that many reformers have been making for years: the schools where students grow the most often approach change not through the introduction of specific initiatives or programs, but rather as a large-scale, systemic process that involves building strong schoolwide habits and reframing mindsets towards students and their academic progress.
Helping students to catch up when they begin behind grade level often feels like an impossible task, but the TNTP report demonstrates that this kind of change is possible. 1,300 schools across the country have found a way to do it, and others can, too.
SOURCE: “The Opportunity Makers: How a Diverse Group of Public Schools Helps Students Catch Up—and How Far More Can,” TNTP (September 25, 2024).
