Explaining Effectiveness: An In-Depth Exploration Into Essential Components That Make a Difference

• In Event: Effective High Schools: Insight From the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools

Abstract

In the second paper from our case study work, we focus in depth on one of the components we found was being enacted differently at our higher and lower VA added schools: Personalized Learning Connections. Personalized Learning Connections, as discussed briefly above, is defined as the degree to which students possess a sense of belonging to the school as a whole, as well as a meaningful, positive connection with at least one adult in the school (Lee, Bryk, & Smith, 1993; McLaughlin, 1994; Lee & Smith, 1999). Our review of the research showed that at effective schools, efforts to build strong connections and meaningful relationships are authentic, relevant and responsive to students’ needs and interests (Wynne, 1980; Newmann, 1981; Fredericks, Blumenfield, & Paris, 2004).
At the two high VA schools, the majority of administrators, teachers, and students reported that between 80 and 95% of students had a strong connection to at least one adult in the school. Both schools had implemented deliberate structures to promote strong connections between adults and students. One school practiced “looping,” wherein students were assigned to the same assistant principal and guidance counselor for all four of their high school years. At the other school, participants described school-wide efforts to learn more about students in the bottom performance quartile, such as calling the parents of these students and “checking in” with students who seemed sleepy or depressed. All adults at both schools were encouraged to address all students by name and administrators were visible at lunch and passing time.
In contrast, there was less consensus at the lower VA schools about how many students had a strong connection to the school. At one school, informants estimated that between 60 to 98% felt a strong connection with at least one adult; informants from the other school reported less than 50%. We found no deliberate efforts or formal structures at either school to promote strong personalized learning connections between adults and students. While the schools had assistant principals and guidance counselors that worked together, they reported being largely focused on the student in crisis.

Significance
To conclude, our work on high school effectiveness is important for three reasons. First, the overwhelming majority of research on effective schools and school reform is limited to elementary schools. Secondary schools are larger, organizationally more complex, and politically more complicated with multiple administrative layers and subject-based teachers and other specialists that often create natural divisions amongst staff (Cuban, 1984; Grossman, Wineburg, & Woolworth, 2001; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001), making the process of change more difficult in secondary schools. Second, national and international comparisons of student achievement indicate that, despite progress in elementary grades, underperformance in high school is a persistent problem (Rampey, Dion, & Donahue, 2009). There are extraordinary economic and educational consequences for students who are neither college nor workforce ready. Third, as prior research suggests, the relative importance of non-school factors, such as family background, decreases as students progress through school (Entwisle, Alexander, & Olson, 2000; Fryer & Levitt, 2002).

Authors

• Stacey A. Rutledge, Florida State University

• Lora A. Cohen-Vogel, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• LaTara D. Osborne-Lampkin, Florida State University- Regional Educational Laboratory-Southeast

• Ronnie Roberts, Florida State University