Peer Review of a School: Elements of Effectiveness

The State Department of Education is conducting a pilot program through which schools in the state would be evaluated based on a peer review process. Under this program, a small group of teachers and principals from an outside district (the peer review group) would visit and observe classrooms, interview teachers, inspect the curriculum and assessment systems, survey the overall school environment and administration, and examine educational outcomes including academic achievement. The peer review group would issue a report to the school state superintendent on their findings. Should the pilot prove successful, this review process would be used to supplement test-based information such as the API (Academic Performance Index) for the state accountability system.The purpose of this pilot program is to explore and develop rubrics for evaluation that might be used by peer review groups.

You volunteer to be part of a peer review team, and have been assigned to review a well-researched school that serves predominantly English learners. The school turns out to be quite famous, having been part of a school reform project headed by Claude Goldenberg, a eminent professor of education at Cal State Los Angeles. In fact, in advance of the visit, the school sends you a documentary film made about the school and the model it has used to improve its performance. (This video is available as goldenberg.mov on CD).

During a meeting called by your team leader in preparation for the school visit, you are asked to prepare guidelines for data collection -- a set of questions and issues to be addressed at the visit. The following categories are suggested:

1. The main elements of effective schools for language minority students, based on the research literature, to be used as a reference point for the observations (note: refer to the readings below).
2. Which of these elements, based on the video, do you expect to see during this site visit?
3. Questions to ask the teachers in the interviews, targetted at getting information with respect to the elements of effective schools.
4. Things to anticipate and watch for when you observe the classrooms, targetted at getting information with respect to the elements of effective schools.
5. Questions to ask the principal in the interviews, targetted at getting information with respect to the elements of effective schools.
6. Things to anticipate and watch for in the environment school as a whole, targetted at getting information with respect to the elements of effective schools.
7. Any other aspects of the school that you would want to focus your observations on.

In your response, please make sure to refer to the August and Hakuta report's synthesis of effective schools, as well as the framework used in the report by Berman, Minicucci and McLaughlin as they describe specific "effective" schools.

To get additional ideas for this case, you might want to also view the video on International High School which is also on CD.

Resources

August, D. & Hakuta, K. (1998). Educating Language-Minority Children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Chapter 7: Studies of School and Classroom Effectiveness.

Berman, P., Minicucci, C., McLaughlin, B., Nelson, B. & Woodworth, K School Reform and Student Diversity:  Case Studies of Exemplary Practices for LEP Students.

Note: This case was prepared by Kenji Hakuta.

This page last updated March 3, 2003