Woodstock Elementary, like many suburban schools, serves a highly diverse student body with large numbers of youngsters who are challenged by the educational process and by life issues such as poverty. Teacher Gwen Stephens was called to move to Woodstock as a result of the spiritual connection she made with two young friends at her church; but she cemented her connection, she says, when she began to understand more about how the school, under the leadership of Principal Rosalind Davenport, had created a “culture of inquiry” that focuses on professional development for teachers and data-driven learning.

“And it was hard to give up the boxes!” she adds enthusiastically. Boxes that figuratively and literally held her older teaching tools that focused too heavily on the needs of the teacher (herself) instead of her students. “At my former school, my kids did really well. However, I didn’t have as close a handle as I have on these kids in terms of what the data say about what they need.”

The improvements at Woodstock have been impressive with verifiable growth in reading and literacy competency, and a reduction in the achievement gaps—a typical result for schools using what is now called the Springboard, a new teaching model developed by XYXYZ, the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative.

Data helps educators replace hunches with facts about achievement problems and then uses those facts to make instructional changes, says XYXYZ Project Manager Lisa Congdon. “It provides a catalyst for a staff member to recognize that particular students aren’t achieving as well as they could be. It provides a way to gain consensus on where to focus student achievement.”

The XYXYZ Cycle of Inquiry model is a kind of Total Quality Management approach geared for schools and teachers who recognize the need these days to teach differently. We emphasis the use of verifiable best practices and the facts, networks and support that make them work well.

Most XYXYZ schools choose to conduct their inquiry in the area of literacy because it impacts achievement in all other subjects. At Woodstock the emphasis for success is on reading and writing, making use of state level scores as well as summative tests, merging literacy tests and theme tests, such as those provided by Houghton-Mifflin.

“Lots of assessments” was how Ms. Stephens admits she felt about this new inquiry style. “And I was really resentful at first about all the testing. … But now we’ve made it more manageable, and it is so easy to see where we need to focus our teaching. I also found that if I look ahead at the assessments, I can see the standard that the kids are expected to learn, and I can teach to that. It certainly isn’t as amorphous as it was before.”

Our inquiry approach may take anywhere from a month to a year, depending on the size of the question it seeks to answer. It may be about an individual student or it may focus on a group of students. In California, the groups that most often score within the bottom 25 percent on achievement tests are Latinos, African Americans, Filipinos, and Pacific Islanders—much too often poor students of color.

“Of course, we want all students to achieve, and evaluation shows that inquiry tends to lift the test scores for everyone,” comments Katherine Barr, a veteran teacher and XYXYZ coach at several schools facing these very challenges. “But to narrow the achievement gap, we have to do something to accelerate the learning of the kids at the bottom. So our inquiry process is about understanding and meeting the needs of those struggling students.”

But it is also about understanding and helping teachers themselves to think and work together. “I have never been on a staff that actually had time to work together as a team, and I am used to putting forth a very hard personal effort. I was really quite willing to put down the whole business of the singular ‘one good teacher,’” Ms. Stephens continued as she opened up about her new school environment. “I never liked that anyway. In the school I was in previously, you stood out for what you did and what you were good at, but the piece that was missing was pulling together as a team. I really appreciated having a strong team—not just a grade level team, but a whole school team.”

Teachers begin using the XYXYZ approach (with the help of their principals and their fellow teachers) by examining student achievement data—standardized tests if that’s the only measure a school has, plus other, more-diagnostic assessments if they are available—to determine which students are most in need of help and in which subject areas. Because inquiry also looks for links between what teachers do and what students achieve, XYXYZ schools often choose to adopt and give more frequent assessments. This allows teachers to better diagnose students’ needs and fine-tune classroom strategies before students move on to the next grade.

Originally launched in 1995, XYXYZ has introduced the Cycle of Inquiry to 200 K-12 public schools in six Bay Area counties. An independent evaluation by Stanford University Research has shown that schools using the Cycle of Inquiry made faster test score gains than other comparable schools—and that the more inquiry that a school uses, the more gains it makes.

“The Cycle of Inquiry has become the process tool that distinguishes XYXYZ work from other reform strategies,” summarized a five-year report released by Stanford University evaluators in 2002. It “offers schools… a problem solving process around school practices while California’s focus on data merely identifies strengths and weakness without offering a means to improvement.”

Beginning in May 2005, teachers, principals and administrators interested in learning more will have a variety of educational opportunities available as XYXYZ changes its name to “YYYYY Schools.” We will continue with our use of tested and verified approaches by:

Ø Researching high-performing schools to understand what they are doing right;

Ø Offering high-impact professional development that examines and uses the Cycle of Inquiry approach; and,

Ø Partnering with districts to provide intensive on-site coaching to transform new ideas into practical strategies for local success!

YYYYYYY’s “research to action” model is unique. It provides answers to and guidance from the what, why and how of effective educational change. No other school reform approach answers these facts so directly. And no other group offers the depth and breadth of services that we do.

As Alameda teacher Stephens says: “We always had passion, but now we have common tools to work with.”

For more information about XYXYZ, visit our web site at www.xxxx.orgor contact us at 415-348-XXXX.