Transforming The High School Experience: The Practitioner's Guide to Small Learning Communities

As the demand for high school reform strengthens across America, educators are being compelled to find credible ways to improve student performance on high-stakes tests and to close the achievement gap between ethnic and socio-economic groups. Experience demonstrates that each step taken forward on the path towards high school reform, by the very nature of doing something different, creates additional opportunities and challenges in response to that action. It is this underlying butterfly effect that allows us to see that an alteration in one small thing can impact the much larger system in which it exists. In order to make a real difference in the way schools conduct business, stakeholders (administrators, teachers, students and parents) must arrive at solutions by challenging their own preconceived ideas surrounding the high school experience. Because the culture of each school is unique, no program can ethically prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution that promises to deliver comparable outcomes. The most worthwhile assistance schools can receive is to be given a framework that puts the change process in context and properly structures important questions so that stakeholders themselves can arrive at the answers that work best for their unique circumstances.

Within this guidebook, authors Blanchard and Harms present the Tripartite Transformation Model, a compilation of the nine major phases that educators must pass through in order to attain responsible, systemic reform in large high schools. Using this transformation model as a guide, the authors reveal why a certain degree of structure is needed to channel the chaos of change and accomplish the goals and objectives associated with effective small learning communities. Each chapter in the guidebook provides thought-provoking questions and worksheets to help schools navigate through the various phases of change and develop sustainable methods for achieving success at the district, site and cl