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GLOBAL BEST PRACTICES FACILITATORS GUIDE

This concise, user-friendly guide provides a selection of recommended facilitation strategies for educators who are using Global Best Practices to inform their school-improvement work and action planning. It will help facilitators and school leaders design goal-driven activities for small- and large-group work sessions. While there are many ways to configure and organize a work session, the agenda described in this guide is designed for a full-faculty work session. But for schools that are completing the self-assessment in smaller groups or for shorter periods of time, the agenda will still provide a basic framework that can be modified as needed.

GLOBAL BEST PRACTICES

Global Best Practices: An Internationally Benchmarked Self-Assessment Tool for Secondary Learning is a practical, action-oriented resource for secondary schools. The tool grew out of a recognition that national borders no longer define the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that students need for success, and that New England’s high schools may need assistance reviewing learning standards, organizational structures, leadership models, teaching strategies, professional development, and student outcomes in relation to research on high-performing educational systems and research-based practices. Global Best Practices offers schools a practical, step-by-step process they can follow to assess their relative performance in critical areas and shape their school-improvement plans.

GLOBAL BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH SUMMARY

During the development of Global Best Practices, an abundance of research studies on effective secondary schooling, both in the United States and abroad, were consulted. In the effort to balance inclusiveness and focus, this summary presents two main types of research: [1] meta-analyses and comprehensive projects that distill useful findings from a wide range of existing research, and [2] focused investigations conducted by individuals or organizations that represent a coherent body of research in a particular area. Our hope is that this research summary will not only become an indispensable companion to the tool, but that it will serve to stimulate self-reflection and professional inquiry in secondary schools across New England.

 

 

HIGH LEVERAGE POLICY FRAMEWORK

Drawing from the fields of education policy, school redesign, organizational change, leadership development, and program evaluation, the High Leverage Policy Framework is a detailed exploration of education policy from rationale to development to implementation. By taking into account the larger social and political “ecosystem” in which policy is formed, written, and implemented, this tool provides policy makers and educators with a step-by-step framework they can use to identify and develop effective, high-impact policies in their states, districts, and schools. Using a common definition of high-leverage policy—i.e., policies that not only increase educational equity, aspirations, achievement, and attainment for all students, but that also generate positive change throughout the educational system—the High Leverage Policy Framework is a first step toward a more holistic view of education policy, leading the way for more thoughtful and sustainable guidelines for learning in the 21st century.

A MODEST INVITATION: HOW COLLEGES CAN HELP ADVANCE SECONDARY SCHOOL REFORM

Last fall, the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont formed an unprecedented collaboration committed to rethinking the traditional American high school on a regional scale to more effectively mirror the lives and learning needs of today’s students. Our partnership, the New England Secondary School Consortium, is dedicated to fostering forward-thinking innovations in the design and delivery of secondary learning across the Northeast. With funding from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we have spent the past year laying the groundwork for an ambitious schoolhouse-to-statehouse effort to create equitable, 21st-century systems of public secondary education in each of our member states. As we move into the next phase of our work, collaborating with New England’s higher education community will be one of our top priorities.