SEDL Letter | Within Our Reach: Higher Student Achievement | Spotlight on the Southeast Comprehensive Assistance Center

Delivering Professional Development and Technical Assistance that Helps Educators Improve Student Learning.

Reading Success Network Helps Increase Reading Achievement

The Reading Success Network is one of the most successful projects of the 15 Comprehensive Assistance Centers across the country. Here is how SECAC and RSN helped one Arkansas school.

SEDL's Southeast Comprehensive Assistance Center (SECAC) focuses on improving learning for all students in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia. One of 15 comprehensive technical assistance centers authorized by the U.S. Department of Education under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, SECAC works with tribal governments, state education agencies, intermediary education agencies, districts, and schools on issues as diverse as reading, English as a second language, schoolwide planning, and safe and drug-free schools. SECAC has a state team leader for each of the five states who coordinates activities in his or her state, and keeps other SECAC staff members abreast of the educational climate in the state. Much of SECAC's work is tailored to meet the individual needs of the agency, district, or school with which SECAC's staff is working Parkin Elementary had been on the Arkansas distressed school list since the list was started. In 1999, 88 percent of the district's fifth graders scored in the lowest quartile on the Arkansas Comprehensive Testing and Accountability Program (ACTAAP) norm-referenced test.

SECAC introduced Parkin to the Reading Success Network (RSN) process, a collaborative effort by all of the Comprehensive Assistance Centers process used in the Reading Success Network (RSN). RSN supports a teacher's efforts in the classroom through a combination of activities that include peer coaching, the use of reading and assessment tools, and data collection and analysis to inform instruction and determine the most effective intervention strategies. Parkin Principal Becky Gibson believes RSN put the school on the road to improving teacher performance, raising student test scores, and getting the district off the academic distress list.

After two years of participating in RSN, Parkin experienced the highest gain in reading scores in Arkansas for the students in the bottom quartile. And consequently, was removed from the academic distress list in May 2001.

"The networking was the most important thing," said Gibson. "With more access to learning opportunities, the students are better able to measure up to outside standards."

Parkin wasn't the only school that has showed great improvement. Regional RSN evaluations for the 2000-2001 school year showed an increase of 31 percent of second graders reading on or above grade level, and an increase of 35 percent of third graders reading on or above grade level.

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SEDL products related to the subject:
Improving School Performance: Leadership

Briefs
- Board's Role in Educational Improvement, The: Issues About Change, Volume 3, Number 4
- Comprehensive School Improvement: Addressing the Challenges: Issues About Change, Volume 9, Number 1
- Confronting and Managing Culture in a Changing Environment: Issues About Change, Volume 5, Number 4
- Creating a Context for Change: Issues About Change, Volume 2, Number 2
- Creating a Professional Learning Community: Cottonwood Creek School: Issues About Change, Volume 6, Number 2
- Launching Professional Learning Communities: Beginning Actions: Issues About Change, Volume 8, Number 1
- Leadership: An Imperative for Successful Change: Issues About Change, Volume 1, Number 2
- Maryetta School: The Center of a Rural Community: Issues About Change, Volume 5, Number 1
- New Alliance of Superintendents and Principals: Applying the Research to Site-Based Decision-Making: Issues About Change, Volume 2, Number 1
- Professional Learning Communities: What Are They and Why Are They Important?: Issues About Change, Volume 6, Number 1
- Realizing School Improvement through Understanding the Change Process: Issues About Change, Volume 1, Number 1
- Site-Based Decision-Making: Its Potential for Enhancing Learned Outcomes: Issues About Change, Volume 1, Number 4
- Staff Development and Change Process: Cut from the Same Cloth: Issues About Change, Volume 4, Number 2
- Superintendents of Small Districts and School Improvement: Planning, Providing Resources, and Professional Development: Issues About Change, Volume 3, Number 1
- Vision, Leadership, and Change: Issues About Change, Volume 2, Number 3

Literature Reviews/Research Syntheses
- Facilitative Leadership: The Imperative for Change
- Leadership Characteristics that Facilitate Change
- Professional Learning Communities: Communities of Continuous Inquiry and Improvement
- Professional Learning Communities: An Ongoing Exploration
- Professional Learning Communities (PLC) Publications Bundle

Magazines/Newsletters
- CSRD Connections: Taking the Lead: The Role of the Principal in School Reform

Professional Development Resources: Guides/Toolkits
- A Trainer's Companion: Stories to Stimulate Reflection, Conversation, Action
- Being a Successful Principal: Riding the Wave of Change Without Drowning
- Beyond the Numbers: Making Data Work for Teachers & School Leaders
- Energizing Staff Development Using Film Clips: Memorable Movie Moments That Promote Reflection, Conversation, and Action
- GEARS: Creating an Approach to Support Education and Systemic Change
- Implementing Change: Patterns, Principles, and Potholes 2nd Edition
- Leadership for Changing Schools
- Living on a Tightrope: A Survival Handbook for Principals
- Manual for Assessing Open-Ended Statements of Concern about an Innovation
- Measuring Change Facilitator Stages of Concern: A Manual for Use of the CFSoC Questionnaire
- Measuring Implementation in Schools: Using the Tools of the Concerns Based Adoption Model
- Measuring Implementation in Schools: The Stages of Concern Questionnaire
- Measuring Implementation in Schools: Levels of Use
- Measuring Implementation in Schools: Innovation Configurations
- PROBE: Designing School Facilities for Learning
- Show Me the Proof!: Tools and Strategies to Make Data Work for You
- Strategies for Success: Implementing a Comprehensive School Reform Program
- Taking Charge of Change

Reports
- Changing Mental Frameworks: One High School's Success through a Triad Partnership: Issues About Change, Volume 3, Number 2
- Co-Developers: Partners in a Study of Professional Learning Communities: Issues About Change, Volume 8, Number 2
- Multiple Mirrors: Reflections on the Creation of Professional Learning Communities
- Principals and Teachers: Continuous Learners: Issues About Change, Volume 7, Number 2
- Schools as Learning Communities: Issues About Change, Volume 4, Number 1
- Year One and Year Two: What Do You Do in Comprehensive School Improvement?: Issues About Change, Volume 9, Number 2

Resource Lists
- Pulling Together: R&D Resources for Rural Schools

Videos
- Voices from the Field: Success in School Reform