Portrait of a Springboard Schools School:
Sanchez Elementary School, SFUSD

A while ago Erika, then a first-grader at Sanchez Elementary School, was flagged by her teacher because she knew only 12 of her consonant and vowel sounds. As a result, Erika received more intensive reading and writing instruction every single day last year, says Doug Rich, the school's Instruction Reform Coordinator and Springboard Schools coach. Erika is now happy to show off her reading skills — which are just where they should be for a girl going into the second grade. "Having that teaching structure and also having the time for her teachers to talk about what's working and what's not has really benefited Erika and the other students as well," says Rich.

When California first administered its standardized test in 1999, San Francisco's Sanchez Elementary School scored so low that it was tapped for state intervention. Subjected to scrutiny and sanctions, the state supplied additional money and demanded an improvement plan. To accelerate the learning of struggling students like Erika, Sanchez Elementary sought support from Springboard Schools, a nonprofit that understands how to improve learning for both children and adults.

Not only has Erika benefited, so has her teacher. "Everyone from the president down to the principal is asking teachers to work harder," explains Springboard Schools' Executive Director Merrill Vargo. "That doesn't always work. Instead, we teach educators to work smarter. We teach people in schools to use data to identify gaps in achievement, and we help them identify new approaches that will work for struggling students. Then we give them a process that ensures that they can implement new teaching strategies effectively."

Springboard Schools has helped hundreds of schools by teaching educators a data-driven continuous improvement process called the Cycle of Inquiry.

Data helps educators replace hunches with facts about achievement problems and make needed changes, says Springboard Schools' Project Manager Lisa Congdon. "It provides a catalyst for a staff to recognize that particular student groups aren't achieving as well they could be. It provides a way to gain consensus on where to focus student achievement." Most Springboard Schools schools choose to conduct Cycle of Inquiry in the area of literacy because it impacts achievement in all subjects. "Inquiry is a mechanism for assessing the success of strategies that are used to address problems," Congdon adds. "It is a means of proving that school reform strategies are making a difference."

Sanchez has raised its scores enough to double its state Achievement Performance Index rating. "Effective teaching begins where the child is," says Raymond Isola, principal of Sanchez and also a member of the Springboard Schools Board of Trustees. "We monitor the child over time and make adjustments based on assessments of the student's performance... A momentum starts building and people start thinking, 'this is possible,'" Isola adds. "Then it becomes contagious and you start having this excitement. Initially, you see just small, incremental steps and then you start seeing some of these leaps that we've been able to see over a period of time."