High-Leverage Factors for Organizing High Schools and Classrooms for Latino Students’ Educational Success

• In Event: Organizing High Schools and Classrooms for Latina/o Student Educational Success: College-Going Cultures/Resources and Instructional Scaffolding

Abstract

Objective
The purpose is to present a model based on results of a program of research of Schools Organized for the Latina/o Educational Success. The model identifies high leverage factors affecting the academic performance of Latina/o students: the school’s mission, which is pursued by its professional community by developing a college-going culture, emphasizing instructional scaffolding, and operating a College Lab.

Perspective
This work was guided by a theoretical framework linking school organization to classroom contexts and instructional interactions. This framework associates two elements of school organizations – normative social structures and resources, with 3 aspects of instructional interactions – culture, collaboration, and code-breaking– that scaffold Latina/o students’ involvement in academically challenging work, resulting in engagement that influences educational performance.

Methods
We employed a “critical case” study design because critical cases that are “most likely” to produce findings that confirm emerging theoretical explanations can reveal the limitations of those explanations and contribute to theory building (Flyvbjerg, 2001). We selected a high school in California, as the study site for two years, which has been engaged in innovations to improve educational outcomes for Latina/o students and has some documented success (100% of seniors admitted to universities, 61% to 4 year universities; 98% Latino; 86% first in family to be college graduates; 36% ELs; 85% free/reduced lunch).

Data sources for this paper include: administrator, staff, parent, and student interviews/focus groups; observation of school events; school-wide survey; school documents; video-recorded lessons of focal teachers (72 hours). Data were collected and analyzed at both classroom and school levels to identify high leverage factors.

Results
Four factors exerted the greatest “leverage” in promoting academic success of Latina/o students. First, the school’s mission, to “prepare underachieving students to thrive at four-year universities,” is reflected in and reinforced by its goal and values and is clear, coherent, and pervasive. Second, the mission is served by the school’s professional community of teachers, College Lab staff, and administrators, which possessed substantial human capital, was shaped by hiring practices that selected teachers from elite teacher education institutions, and was influenced by instructional leadership. Third, the professional community’s, students’, and parents’ actions were shaped by the mission and fueled by capital in three domains that exert different amounts of leverage in serving the school’s mission: a) college going culture, which emphasizes student comportment to succeed in college; b) instructional scaffolding, which aims to raise the academic knowledge and skills of students’ preparation for college; and College Lab, which provides students and families with knowledge and strategies for gaining admission to college and obtaining financial aid. Tensions that arise in school organization and instructional interactions to support Latina/o student success included: home vs. school culture and instructional scaffold vs. academic challenge.

Significance
This study makes a significant contribution by documenting how particular aspects of the organization of a high school contribute to academic success of Latina/o students as defined by the school’s mission. The “high leverage” factors go beyond curriculum and pedagogy and include the school’s culture, its professional community, and College Lab.

Authors

• Betty Achinstein, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Rodney T. Ogawa, University of California - Santa Cruz