School Information System

Reading, Writing, ROI

James Nevels on Philadelphia School Reform:

How did we--teachers, principals and our chief executive, Paul Vallas--do it? We defined the district's "customers" exclusively as the 200,000 children we serve. Not interest groups. Not adult constituencies. We held adults accountable for results.

To start, we instituted businesslike systems. First came a standardized curriculum so that all students would learn what we agreed was most crucial for success and could easily transfer among schools.

Elementary school students now spend two hours a day on reading and 90 minutes on math, double what they spent before. We conduct benchmark testing every six weeks in elementary and middle schools and every four weeks in high schools. This helps teachers to either dedicate more time to a subject in which students are struggling or provide advanced instruction in subjects students have mastered.