Turning High-Poverty Schools Into High-Performing Schools

At the start of spring semester, a colleague in my doctoral program showed me a book that was just published by a couple of professors at our university, William Parrett and Kathleen Budge. While I have not been able to take a class with either of the professors, I have heard many positive comments about both as researchers, leaders, and mentors throughout my program. When I saw the title of the book, Turning High-Poverty Schools into High-Performing Schools, as well as heard what it was about, I could not wait to read it.

In the book Parrett and Budge synthesize research related to poverty and provide a framework for action in order to prompt high-poverty, high-performance (HP/HP) schools. Their framework is not a one-size fits all approach, but rather a foundation for building capacity and reflective practice in order to carefully meet the needs of students living in poverty. Various components of their book supported their vision, providing frequent self-assessments and questions to prompt a high level of reflection. Many of their figures provided continuums with descriptors to support careful analysis.

In order to consider the effectiveness of the framework, the authors conducted research of seven HP/HP schools in various regions of the United States. After providing a context for each of the schools in an early chapter, the authors continued to highlight specific examples of these (and other schools) while explaining ideas. Showing multiple possibilities of practice aligned to needs of the specific schools, communities, and students, strengthened the overall presentation of concepts in the text.

One of my favorite features in the book were illustrative examples of "Uncommon sense," framed by an explanation in the introduction, "Leaders in the schools we studied consistently considered the research base in the context of their own schools. They also used strategies that were uncommon but made sense in the school context. We call this out-of-the-box thinking 'uncommon sense,'" (p. 4). While reading I made frequent notes of ideas that I want to continue to consider and reflect upon as my colleagues and I continue to collaborate and think outside of the box for the benefit of the students in our school.