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The No Chiuld Left Behind Act Essay

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Change is inevitable. When the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) initiative finally became defunct, a new accountability system emerged. In San Francisco Unified School District, central administrative teams began a transition phase starting as early as four to five years ago when Common Core State Standards were introduced to low performing schools. As the Instructional Reform Facilitator during that time, it was exciting because new and more robust learning/content standards also required a change in our approach to instruction and assessment. This was the lever in my mind that this could help close the achievement gap. However this new initiative also brings uncertainty and apprehension for many teachers. When I began my first year as …show more content…

My theory of action was if I help teachers build instructional capacity by developing and improving their backwards planning or curriculum mapping (identifying essential standards) and enhance their data analysis approach, will they make a shift from following a script to making effective instructional decisions based on the specific needs of students. My strategic actions were to plan and design professional development opportunities that would enhance the teachers’ instructional practices and differentiate my support for them through professional learning communities, informal walkthroughs, and formal evaluation processes. During one of our professional development days in the week before school started, we spent an entire day reviewing the curriculum mapping process and began identifying the most essential standards and learning outcomes for students. One subtle indicator was that only two teachers demonstrated understanding about the importance of using assessment results to plan their first two weeks of lessons. One suggested that they would begin with a writing prompt to determine where students were in their narrative writing, and the other expressed the urgency to administer the reading assessment so that she could put her students in reading groups. Eighty percent of our staff were either longing for the

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