90/90/90: High Performance
In High Poverty Schools
Seminar in School Psychology II
Summer 2005
Marissa Reed
Bulk of research and information
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Reeves book, Chapter 19
Center for Performance Assessment
Four years of test data (1995-1998)
Elementary through high school
228 buildings, more than 130,000 students
Rural, suburban, and urban schools
Populations were mostly poor and/or minority
to largely Anglo and/or economically
disadvantaged
 Authors are not supporting a particular
program
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Common assumptions…
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90/90/90 Schools: What are they?
 Over 90% poverty
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Eligibility for free and reduced lunch as
surrogate for low-income families
 Over 90% minority
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Ethnic minorities
 Over 90% achieving at high proficiency levels
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Independently conducted tests of academic
achievement
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Common characteristics of
90/90/90 schools
 1. Focus on academic achievement
 2. Clear curriculum choices
 3. Frequent assessment of student progress
and multiple opportunities for improvement
 4. Written responses in performance
assessments
 5. Collaborative scoring of student work
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1. Focus on academic achievement
 Data everywhere in schools: charts, graphs,
and tables on student achievement and
continuous improvement
 School trophy cases displayed exemplary
academic work, including essays, projects,
and papers
 Shows that academic performance is highly
prized
 Emphasis on improvement
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Comprehensive accountability system: each
school was forced to identify five areas in
which they measured improvement
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2. Curriculum choices
 More time spent on the core subjects of
reading, writing, and math and less time on
other subjects
 Emphasis on these core skills in order to
improve student opportunities for success in
other academic endeavors later
 Schools outperformed their peer schools on
science tests as well
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Authors concluded that this showed that tests
in other subjects are tests of reading and
writing
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3. Frequent assessment of student progress
with multiple opportunities for improvement
 Student performance that was less than
proficient followed by multiple opportunities to
improve performance
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Versus penalty for poor performance=low
grade and forced march to the next unit
Versus no additional opportunities to succeed
if student does not “get it right the first time”
 Most schools conducted weekly assessments
of student progress
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Teacher constructed and administered, not
district or state tests
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4. Written responses in performance
assessments
 Schools required written responses in their
performance assessments
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Versus oral student responses
 Appears to help teachers obtain better
diagnostic information about students, and
helps students demonstrate the thinking
process they employed to find their response
to an academic challenge
 Allows teachers to create the strategies
necessary to improve performance for both
teacher and learner
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4. Written responses in performance
assessments (continued)
 High emphasis on informative writing
 Single scoring rubric used to evaluate every piece of
written work
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Book reports, lab reports, social studies reports,
analysis of sporting event, etc.
Message: this is the standard for good writing, and
there are no compromises on these expectations for
quality
 Benefits:
 Students process information in a much clearer way
when they are required to write an answer; “write and
think” and clarify their own thought processes
 Teachers gain rich and complex diagnostic information
about whey students are responding they way they are
 Vs. binary feedback (right or wrong)
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 Vocabulary issues? Misunderstood directions?
Reasoning errors? etc.
5. Collaborative scoring of student work
 So that “no accident of geography or classroom
assignment would determine expectations for
students”
 Common assessment practices developed, along
with regular exchanges of student papers
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Teachers and teachers
Principals and other schools
Principals evaluating student work also
 Target inter-rater reliability=.80
 Causes of disagreement:
 Implicit scoring criteria which are not a part of the
official scoring guide Reed, 2005
 Lack of clear specifications in the scoring guide itself
Other characteristics…
 Success without proprietary programs
 Use of similar techniques without externally
imposed methods of instruction
 Accountability report findings:
 Techniques are persistent
 Techniques are replicable
 Techniques are consistent (writing,
performance assessment, collaboration, and
focus on learning
 Keys to improved achievement=professional
practices of teachers and leaders, not the
economic, ethnic, or linguistic characteristics
of the students
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Nine characteristics that distinguished
schools with the greatest academic gains
 1. collaboration
 2. feedback
 3. schedule changes
 4. action research and mid-course corrections
 5. aligning teacher assignments with teacher
preparation
 6. constructive data analysis
 7. common assessments
 8. value of every adult in the system
 9. cross-disciplinary integration
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1. Collaboration
 Examination of student work
 Talking about what “proficiency” really means
 “very frequently and in some cases…every
day”
 Intentional focus on scoring student work
 Transmit other information usually talked
about in meetings in writing
 Professional development time devoted to
collaborative scoring
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2. Feedback
 Significantly more feedback provided to
students than the typical report card
 Mirror music and physical education teachers’
practices
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Precise and immediate
 Triage approach
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Traditional report cards provided to successful
and self-directed students, with weekly reports
for students who were struggling
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3. Schedule changes
 Elementary level:
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3 hours a day devoted to literacy (2 for reading
and 1 for writing)
 Secondary level:
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Double periods of English and mathematics
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4. Action research and mid-course
corrections
 School accountability plans dynamic and
flexible
 Change of goals and strategies that were not
effective and start new ones that held
promise, even during the school year
 Share what works with other teachers
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Word wall example
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5. Aligning teacher assignments with
teacher preparation
 Reassign teachers to different grades within
the same school if their preparation is better
suited to a different grade level
 Idea that teachers whose undergraduate
backgrounds fail to match the standards are
not bad people nor are they unprofessional
educators
 Find a job that best meets the teacher’s
abilities and backgrounds, not seek to “fix”
the person
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6. Constructive data analysis
 An intensive focus on student data from
multiple sources, and specifically focused on
cohort data
 Compare the same student to the same
student
 Compare students to themselves rather than
to other groups of students
 Focus teacher strategies on the needs of
their students and not on generic
improvement methods
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7. Common assessments
 Testing versus assessment
 Testing=end-of-year, summative, evaluative
process
 Assessment=have student complete a task
and then very soon they receive feedback that
is designed to improve their performance
 Use assessment data to make real-time
decisions and restructure their teaching
accordingly
 Allows for a combination of daily discretion
and independence by teachers, while
preserving a school-wide commitment to
equity and consistency of expectations
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8. Value of every adult in the system
 Profound respect for every employee,
including bus drivers and cafeteria workers
 Inclusion of all employees in professional
development opportunities in classroom
management and student behavior
 Every adult leader is regarded as a significant
adult leader in the eyes of students
 Schools that employed this profound respect
witnessed dramatic improvements in student
behavior
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9. Cross-disciplinary integration
 The involvement of seemingly peripheral
subjects in academic achievement
 Example:
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Students need to work on fractions, ratios, and
measurement in mathematics, so music
teacher develops activities in which musical
rhythms reveal the relationship of whole-notes,
half-notes and quarter notes; art teachers
work on perspective and other
representational art that makes explicit use of
scale; gym teachers allow students to choose
to run either a millimeter or a kilometer
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Reeves’ defense against critics
 Need a balance of state, district, and school-based assessment
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measures
Excessive time devoted to reading is better so that students can
enter secondary school able to read at grade level
A parallel comparison was made to high poverty, high minority
schools for students with good attendance and continuous
enrollment, but who did not have the success of students in the
90/90/90 Schools
An expensive program (such as Success For All) was not used
consistently in the 90/90/90 Schools; the professional practices
employed by teachers and leaders in the building was the
predictor of success
Effects sustainable, with some schools maintaining effects
through different principals and high faculty turnover
Marzano, 2003
 Meta-analysis that indicates the importance of teaching,
curriculum, and leadership relative to poverty and ethnic
identity
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Urban success stories
 Reeves:
 Norfolk Public Schools, Virginia
 Wayne Township Metropolitan School
Corporation, Indianapolis, Indiana
 Riverview Gardens and Hazelwood School
Districts, St. Louis, Missouri
 Los Angeles County and Orange County,
California school systems in urban, suburban,
and rural school systems
 http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/er/hphm_a
nderson.html#Anchor-In-49575
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Application to Ellis Chapter 3
 Level II
 Would need large-scale program evaluation
to have Level III research
 Reeves and others are going backwards…
they are looking at schools who have
achieved success and seeing what worked
for them…now someone needs to apply what
has worked for them to schools that need to
achieve success using good research
techniques, and see if these theories hold up
 Agree?
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References
 Anderson, T. (n.d.) High performing high minority
elementary schools: Where are they located and
what do they have in common? Retrieved August 8,
2005 from http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/er/
hphm_anderson.html#Anchor-In-49575
 Marzano, R.J. (2003) What works in schools:
Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA:
ASCD.
 Reeves, D.B. (2000). The 90/90/90 Schools: A case
study. In Accountability in action: A blueprint for
learning organizations, 2nd ed. (pp. 185-208). Denver,
CO: Advanced Learning Press.
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