The knowledge-based society in which students engage demands; more complex, well-rounded and globally aware participants. The goal of education is to develop capable students, adequately prepared to participate in a highly technical world. A high-quality education opens the proverbial doors to the future. Increasing access to the promise of the “American Dream;” allowing students to change the trajectory of their lives and the lives of their progeny. It is the ambition of educators to provide learners with a solid foundation for academic success – a high quality, rigorous educational experience.
The Educational Excellence Framework, EEF (Figure 1) provides a shared point of reference and common language to shape and review school policies, operational processes and instructional practices in order to increase student achievement throughout Broward County Public Schools. The framework presented enables academic institutions throughout the district to develop unique responses to technical and adaptive challenges according to indigenous circumstances.
Scholarly research and practice have shaped the approach to student success and informed the proposed concept rendering articulating how schools operate within the framework. Working in partnership, the Florida Principal Leadership Standards (FPLS), the Florida State Standards (FSS), and the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices (FEAPS) broadly drive academic achievement. If the underlying goal of education is to assist all students in reaching their highest academic potential, we must place student achievement at the heart of our framework. All subsequent actions and steps must be planned, developed, implemented and monitored accordingly, to accelerate student success.
The Educational Excellence Framework utilizes the foundational elements as vehicles driving student access to high quality instruction, highly effective educators and dynamic school leadership focused on making learning attainable for all students. Carefully steering instructional leaders around roadblocks and instructional “accidents” leading to undesirable outcomes. The above-mentioned three foundational elements: FPLS, FSS, and FEAPS provide also a roadmap with clearly communicated directions and identifiable checkpoints to student achievement. Additionally, eight identified extension areas serve as markers within each of the foundational elements essential to reaching the destination of student success.
Leadership is the enabler of improvement, orchestrating the various conditions, such as professional capability, community engagement, and quality instruction that must work together if sustainable improvement in student outcomes is the goal.
The Relationship between FPLS, FEAPS and FSS and
The Impact on Student Achievement
Florida Principal Leadership Standards
Leadership is the enabler of improvement, orchestrating the various conditions, such as professional capability, community engagement, and quality instruction that must work together if sustainable improvement in student outcomes (Robinson, 2018) is the goal. The Florida Principal Leadership Standards serve as core expectations for effective school administrators. Revised in 2011 the four domains of the FPLS; Student Achievement, Instructional Leadership, Organizational Leadership and Professional and Ethical Behavior, represent skills and knowledge needed to operate effective schools across the state. Further disaggregated into ten standards based on contemporary research on multi-dimensional school leadership (www.fldoe.org, n.d.), the FPLS collectively create the litmus test used to evaluate instructional leadership, form the foundation for professional development systems, school leadership preparation programs, and educator certification requirements (www.fldoe.org, n.d.).
Moreover, within the context of the EEF the FPLS are a metaphorical representation of the external and internal setting in which the journey to student achievement takes place. The four domains of the Florida Principal Leadership Standards give rise to the environment school leaders use to drive decision-making whilst moving students to their destination of academic achievement. Principals using educators as vehicles, plant the seeds to produce an environment focused on (Domain 1. Standards 1-2) student learning results as identified by state adopted academic standards evidenced by student performance and growth on state wide and district-determined assessments. School leaders through their actions set learning as a priority, cultivating a system and sowing a climate focused on student success, setting high expectations for learning, and supporting student engagement while building capacity within the instructional faculty to close the achievement gap among student subgroups.
Furthermore, Instructional Leadership (Domain 2. Standards 3-5) through a common language of instruction enacts the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices, using data analysis to inform instructional design and planning. Communicating throughout the organization the relationship between academic standards, effective instruction, and student performance. Likewise, leaders use high quality formative and interim measurement tools aligned with state and district standards to assess growth and performance throughout the year. Additionally, effective school leaders recruit, retain and develop an effective and diverse faculty and staff; evaluating, monitoring, and providing timely feedback on the effectiveness of instruction. Doing so allows school leaders to identify instructional proficiency requirements and provide professional development needed to accelerate growth in a safe learning environment for the population served, positively affecting learning for a diverse population.
Equally important to the definition of the environment is organizational leadership (Domain 3. Standards 6-9), in which principals sow into educational leaders, reaping supportive relationships between school leaders, parents, community stakeholders, and business leaders deeply rooted in bi-lateral communication while maximizing human and capital resources within the context of school achievement. As school leaders work diligently to create, the most favorable conditions and an optimal setting environment for the journey to student achievement to occur, it is imperative leadership maintain Ethical and Professional Behavior (Domain 4. Standard 10). Demonstrating resiliency by staying focused on the school vision and reacting constructively to the barriers to student success.
Florida State Standards
The Florida State Standards are essential to the EEF. The FSS reflect the expectations of what students should know and be able to demonstrate at the conclusion of each grade level. Moreover, the FSS fuel student achievement driving classroom instruction, providing clear and consistent guidelines. Focusing on critical and analytical thinking while delivering content that is more rigorous.
Florida Educator Accomplished Practices
The Florida Educator Accomplished Practices serve as a guideline for educators on the expectation of instructional quality and what they are expected to know. There are six Educator Accomplished Practices built on top of three foundational principals or essential elements focused on: setting high expectations for students, demonstrating comprehensive knowledge of subject matter and the standards of the profession (www.fldoe.org, n.d.). Each effective educator applies the foundational principles through six accomplished practices: Instructional Design and Lesson Planning, The Learning Environment, Instructional Delivery and Facilitation, Assessment, Continuous Professional Improvement and Professional Responsibility and Ethical Conduct.
Florida Continuous Improvement Model
As educators, continue to educate a more diverse population ensuring a higher level of skill attainment for more students (Drago-Severson, 2009), it is important to note, the systems comprising the EEF work in tandem to navigate the harsh terrain of student achievement and accelerate student success. Based on the assumption that student and teacher success must be a continuous effort, Florida’s Continuous Improvement Model (FCIM) is a cyclical process designed to ensure strong school leadership, high expectations of student achievement, a broadly understood instructional focus, a safe and orderly school climate, and frequent measures of pupil achievement as a basis for evaluation and improvement. The five essential characteristics of effective schools as identified by the FCIM serves throughout the deployment of the EEF, as a feedback mechanism, informing educators of repairs required to the vehicles driving high quality instruction. In this regard, the FCIM is a variation of Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management Model, which enables schools to become more data driven, process oriented, in addition to customer and product focused on their route to increased student achievement. The FCIM is an on-going process in which evidence of the Plan, Do, Check, Act Model is ever-present in Educational Excellence Framework in all elements.
Student Achievement
Broward County Public Schools, utilizes the FPLS, FEAPS and the FSS as a framework to ensure learning and increase student achievement. These three foundational elements work concurrently to establish an environment where, learning over teaching, struggle over prescription, questions over answers, tension, over comfort, and capacities and needs over deficiencies are valued (Pianesi, 2013). Where students can develop the necessary skills and knowledge needed to engage in a global society. Academic success and student achievement is a journey embarked on by school leaders, educators, students and stakeholder. A continuous process set in the environment the Florida Principal Leadership Standards. Referring to figure one, The Florida Principal Leadership Standards are the first foundational element, as such, they create the climate and culture, necessary to make decisions necessary to execute learning and increase student growth. The four domains of the FPLS construct the foundational framework regarding student achievement, instructional leadership, organizational leadership and professional and ethical behavior of faculty and staff.
The remaining two elements likened to fuel and routes serve as navigational aids within the framework. To better illustrate this point, consider the following. Domain two of the FPLS implements the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices, the state’s standards for effective instructional practice, serving as navigational markers educators look to for direction on understanding the expectations for the quality of instruction and professional responsibility. The FEAPS also speaks to the FSS. The first practice, Instructional Design and Lesson Planning, ensures delivery of instruction aligned with state-adopted standards at the appropriate level of rigor to eager learners. As a tool of measurement school leaders use Marzano to evaluate the delivery of instruction and provide immediate and relevant feedback to instructors on the “route” and “fuel grade” used to drive student learning. As previously stated, it is important to note, all elements work concurrently, The FPLS is the scenery, the FSS fuel the vehicle, and FEAP serve as directions to your destination. All elements are moving in unison. Similarly, effective educators consistently use assessments from a variety of sources to measure and assess the instructional needs of their classroom, using the data to inform and drive the learning process as indicated in the FEAPS. It is within this context, educators add fuel (FSS) and fuel boosters (CARE) to their instructional vehicles, ensuring students are accelerating at their optimal speeds. The goal is to reach the destination of academic success while mitigating the occurrences of instructional “accidents.” The miscalculation of route time “FEAPS” given the fuel “FSS” provided for the journey. Effective educators often collaborate with others to identify how best to navigate the terrain, while also seeking preventative maintenance – Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) – on their instructional vehicles to ensure they are prepared for the journey.
Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) provide teachers with an opportunity to work together on improving their instructional practice. In a professional learning community, the most promising strategy for increasing and sustaining student achievement, “educators create an environment that fosters mutual cooperation, emotional support, and personal growth as they work together to achieve what they cannot accomplish alone” (DuFour and Eaker, 1998). As a result, educators are able to identify strategies, yielding the highest effect rate on the populations served. Within their PLCs, instructors use the Curriculum Assessment Remediation Enrichment Cycle (CARE) in the capacity of a fuel booster supporting the delivery of the FSS and ensuring schools reach the destination of Student Achievement. CARE is the representation of the four key areas of a complete education cycle (OSPA, n.d.). Focused and authentic PLCs actively utilizing the CARE Cycle to inform instructional planning, design, implementation, and monitoring are able to modify instructional practices as needed to ensure more students achieve proficiency. As educators take students on the journey to student achievement, the school leader’s function is to identify instructional proficiency needs and provide faculty development around the formation and growth of instructional practice while delivering the support needed to foster a community of collegial inquiry. The environmental framework does not change however; the scenery continues to evolve as the needs of the population evolves. The foundational elements are a structure guideline through which effective educators increase student achievement.
High schools face an unprecedented number of challenges, in preparing graduates for the variety of postsecondary experiences, academic institutions and employers demand as a right of participation in today’s knowledge-based economy (Educational Testing Service, n.d.). Referring back to Figure 1, Student Achievement is the outcome when all elements work in collaboration within a cohesive and responsive framework to create an environment conducive for student success The Educational Excellence Framework serves as the impetus for student achievement.
References
Drago-Severson, E. (2009). Leading adult learning: Supporting adult development in our schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
DuFour, R. (2004). What is a professional learning community? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6-11.
DuFour, Richard, & Eaker, 1998 Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. Retrieved from ETS Testing Services. https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/PIC-MISSION.pdf
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Florida Department of Education (n.d.). Florida educator accomplished practices. Retrieved from http://www.fldoe.org/teaching/professional-dev/the-fl-educator-accomplished-practices.stml/
Florida Department of Education (2011). 2011 Florida principal leadership standards cross-referenced to contemporary research and key leadership writing. Retrieved from http://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/7503/urlt/0071815-fpls2011-annotatedbib.pdf
Pianesi, A. (2013). The Class of the forking paths: Leadership and case-in-point. Pegasus, 24(1), 2-6.
Office of School Performance and Accountability. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/ospa/best_blueprints.asp?best_blueprint_id=1
Robinson, V. M. (2018). Reduce change to increase improvement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, a SAGE Publishing Company.