Major progress in
raising achievement and narrowing gaps will require excellent school
districts, not just a few exemplary schools. The June 2008 conference
was a two-day workshop focused on the practical challenges of raising
achievement levels and narrowing gaps in whole school districts. Presentations
and discussions distilled lessons from research and practice for superintendents,
school boards, district level administrators, civic leaders and others.
Speakers were experts who have studied or implemented school or district
improvement efforts and who, based on their work, can contrast and compare
alternative approaches.
Each speaker was asked to do three things: (1) draw
key lessons from their own work; (2) respond to a set of conference themes;
and (3) suggest some specific types of tools that need to be created
or more widely disseminated (e.g., templates, protocols, blueprints for
organizational structures).
Following the conference, AGI staff and consultants
will distill conference themes and work with partners to disseminate
ideas and follow through on some of the ideas that emerge from the workshop.
Some of the latter will be tailored to specific school districts that
agree to be demonstration sites. Like all AGI conference presentations
in the past, presentation materials and videos from the conference will
be posted for the general public on the AGI web site.
