A Case Study in Accountability, District Monitoring, and School Improvement 297office administrators and few administrators reported attending staff development regularly.
Staff complained vigorously about the teacher turnover rate; however, the district did not
analyze its staff turnover, nor identify any areas for improvement.
Urban Districts Across New Jersey
By comparing River City’s data with the information collected from the remaining low-
performing, mostly urban districts, we were able to establish that the majority of the pilot
districts lacked an adequate curriculum aligned to state learning outcomes or standards.
Curriculum audits pointed to the use of outdated texts, inadequate curriculum materials, and
in some cases, unused materials purchased by the district (NJDOE, n.d.b). According to the
NJDOE, only 46% of districts reviewed and approved the curriculum annually. Fifteen
percent of districts reported implementing and monitoring the curriculum while 40% indicated
they included benchmarks and assessments in the teaching process. Similarly, only 40%
reported that content was integrated across the 9 content areas in the core curriculum and 40%
stated that both vertical and horizontal articulation occurred through curriculum mapping.
Finally, 47% reported having a systematic approach to key curriculum and developmental
transition points between, for example, elementary to middle school, focused on student
strengths and needs, student work, and planned interventions to accommodate transition.
Further exacerbating these dilemmas, a pattern of inadequate professional development
for developing capacity was evident at both the building and district level. Typically, district
professional development was short-term and often unrelated to goals for improving student
achievement. There was also limited evidence throughout that districts’ capacity-building
efforts were embedded and ongoing.
Moreover, there was little coaching and mentoring for teachers hired from alternative
preparation programs. Second, providing sustained professional development for mentor
teachers was reported in only 47% of the districts. Districts adjusted mentoring plans based on
student work in novice teacher classrooms 53% of the time, and reviewed, evaluated, and
revised mentoring plans or activities in just 60% of the districts.
Twelve of the Districts scored less than 50% of the possible 120 points in the Instruction
and Program DPR with 7 scoring below 50% in Personnel. Table 1 demonstrates that a clear
focus on teaching and learning, curriculum, assessment, professional development, and hiring
practices was largely absent. With these data supported by multiple school visits, interviews,
and document analysis, we suspect that other low-performing public schools are likely to
exhibit a similar pattern.
Implications
In this investigation, our research provided an important touchstone for understanding the
River City School District dynamics. First, it provided a conceptual framework for decoding
the various behaviors and district actions. Second, it allowed us to determine that although
River City and her sister districts claimed alignment to the NJCCCS, this was simply not the
case. Third, classroom observations established that texts were frequently outdated, or, if a
curriculum scope and sequence was available, it often remained in a drawer. Fourth, there was
little or no evidence of either vertical or horizontal articulation.