Comprehensive Aligned Instructional Systems:

CAIS Benchmarking Study

 

Urban district reform has been hampered by the challenge of understanding and supporting the tremendous complexity of district change. Improving this understanding through actionable, practice-based research is the purpose of the CAIS Benchmarking Study.

We began the study with the hypothesis that achieving districts both align their instructional systems (standards, curriculum, instructional strategies, professional development, and assessment and data) and their systems to support instruction (accountability and planning, human resources, specialized student supports, use of funds, technology and governance) around a powerful equity goal and a clear vision of teaching and learning. This basic framework is laid out in Defining a Comprehensive Aligned Instructional System (CAIS) by Louise Bay Waters (2007; available for download at www.stupski.org). The purpose of this study was to delve deeply into exactly how districts accomplish this alignment.

The CAIS Study selected three districts to examine in detail Montgomery County, Maryland; U-46, Illinois; and Elk Grove, California.

Each of these districts has had success in raising the achievement of underperforming students and has been recognized for the development of systems to support this effort. Bellevue, Washington, which does not meet our demographic profile, has received wide recognition for closing the advanced placement gap and for developing strong district systems. Their accomplishments and openness to partnering in the development of the methodology for this study resulted in their inclusion as a pilot CAIS district.

To learn more about this study, download the full report. Click here.

 

For more information, contact research@springboardschools.org