The Hechinger Report recently published an article headlined The habits of 7 highly effective schools.
It’s a summary of a study (not behind a paywall) finding that effective schools seemed to shared several traits, including “they created a culture of belonging, delivered consistent grade-level instruction, and built a coherent instructional program.”
In addition:
“The schools also gave students extra instruction to fill knowledge gaps and extra practice to solidify their skills. These extra support classes, called “intervention blocks,” are now commonplace at many low-income schools, but TNTP noted one major difference at the seven schools they studied. The intervention blocks were connected to what students were learning in their main classrooms. That requires school leaders to make sure that interventionists, classroom aides and the main classroom teachers have time to talk and collaborate during the school day.”
Our school does well on the first three – not so great on the last one.
We did do a very successful special intervention for Long Term ELLs a few years ago, but had to stop it because of lack of funding. I still think a similar effort for all students facing challenges would work well.
Of course, it’s also important to note that this study, as do most education studies, equate “effective” with increased test scores, though that may not be accurate (see The Most Important Studies Showing That VAM For Test Scores Is Not The Be-All, End-All Of Schooling).