Fundamental Changes in Teaching and Learning

• In Event: How a City Learned to Improve Its Schools: Chicago's Story

Abstract

Largely through initiatives bubbling up from schools and their leaders, the most challenging improvement problem of all, teaching and learning, changed fundamentally. CPS transitioned from a district that held the capabilities of its students and the adults who worked with them in low regard, to one that held high expectations for both groups and pursued an equity agenda. In addition, while the challenges varied across schools, the mechanisms by which they improved were largely the same. Initially they were principal led, and they built themselves up with help from the outside—external allies and institutions, focused on their specific needs. Over time, and as Central Office itself transitioned from a failed bureaucracy to a central support serving a system of schools, it assisted local school development.

Author

• Sharon Greenberg, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
  Presenting Author