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Executive Summary
Learning and succeeding in school requires active engagement whether
students are rich or poor, black, brown, or white. The core principles that
underlie engagement are applicable to all schools whether they are in
urban, suburban, or rural communities. Yet although engagement is impor-
tant for all students and all schools, the consequences of disengagement
vary substantially. When students from advantaged backgrounds become
disengaged, they may learn less than they could, but they usually get by or
they get second chances; most eventually graduate and move on to other
opportunities. In contrast, when students from disadvantaged backgrounds
in high-poverty, urban high schools become disengaged, they are less likely
to graduate and consequently face severely limited opportunities. Failure to
earn even the most basic educational credential or acquire the basic skills
needed to function in adult society increases dramatically their risk of
unemployment, poverty, poor health, and involvement in the criminal jus-
tice system.
Schools do not control all of the factors that influence students' aca-
demic engagement. Particularly in disadvantaged urban communities,
academic engagement and achievement are adversely influenced by the
economic and social marginalization of the students' families and commu-
nities. These disadvantages can be lessened, however, by participation in
an engaging school community with high academic standards, skillful
instruction, and the support students need to pursue their educational and
career goals.
Engaging adolescents, including those who have become disengaged
1
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
and alienated from school, is not an easy task. Academic motivation
decreases steadily from the early grades of elementary school into high
school. Furthermore, adolescents are too old and too independent to follow
teachers' demands out of obedience, and many are too young, inexperi-
enced, or uninformed to fully appreciate the value of succeeding in school.
Although there are important exceptions, as a group urban high schools
fail to meet the needs of too many of their students. In many urban high
schools with large concentrations of students living in poverty, it is com-
mon for fewer than half of the ninth graders who enter to leave with a high
school diploma. Dropping out of school is but the most visible indication of
pervasive disengagement from the academic purposes and programs of these
schools. Many of the students who do not drop out altogether attend
irregularly, exert modest effort on schoolwork, and learn little.
To address these problems, the committee was charged to "review,
synthesize, and analyze research on academic engagement and motivation
that might apply to urban high schools." The committee examined how
curriculum, instruction, and the organization of schools can promote in-
volvement of urban youth in the academic program and the broader school
community, also taking into account influences such as peer culture, family,
and community resources.
A system of schools that has fully implemented the core principles
needed to provide engaging, rigorous education for all students is yet to be
seen. Nevertheless, the evidence reviewed in this volume demonstrates that
much has been learned about the conditions in schools that enhance student
engagement, and that there are many examples of schools in which students
deemed at risk of disengagement and failure are productively engaged and
achieving at high levels. Although far too rare, these success stories prove
that schools can engage the enthusiasm for learning of economically disad-
vantaged students.
The committee drew on psychological research on motivation, studies
of the effects of various educational policies and practices on student en-
gagement and learning, and students' own voices. This research base is
mostly qualitative, correlational, or quasi-experimental, thus falling short
of the random-assignment design that is believed by some researchers to be
necessary for causal conclusions. Nevertheless, the evidence is consistent
enough to give credibility to the committee's recommendations.
A common theme among effective practices is that they address under-
lying psychological variables related to motivation, such as competence and
control, beliefs about the value of education, and a sense of belonging. In
brief, engaging schools and teachers promote students' confidence in their
ability to learn and succeed in school by providing challenging instruction
and support for meeting high standards, and they clearly convey their own
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
3
high expectations for their students' success. They provide choices for stu-
dents and they make the curriculum and instruction relevant to adolescents'
experiences, cultures, and long-term goals, so that students see some value
in the high school curriculum.
Although learning involves cognitive processes that take place within
each individual, motivation to learn also depends on the student's involve-
ment in a web of social relationships that supports learning. The likelihood
that students will be motivated and engaged is increased to the extent that
their teachers, family, and friends effectively support their purposeful in-
volvement in learning and in school. Thus a focus on engagement calls
attention to the connection between a learner and the social context in
which learning takes place. Engaging schools promote a sense of belonging
by personalizing instruction, showing an interest in students' lives, and
. . . . .
creating a supportive, caring social environment.
This description of engaging schools applies to few urban high schools.
Instead, the picture that emerges is of schools that engender low expecta-
tions, alienation, and low achievement. Resources are lacking and services
are fragmented. The teachers are the least qualified, and the buildings are
the most dilapidated. The curriculum and teaching often are unresponsive
to the needs and interests of students especially students of color, English-
language learners, students from high-poverty neighborhoods, or those who
entered high school with weak skills in reading and mathematics. Students
often do not get to know or to be known by their teachers. As a result,
many experience schools as impersonal and uncaring. Because few urban
schools are well connected to the communities they serve or to the educa-
tional and career opportunities potentially available to their students, many
students fail to see how working hard in school will enable them to attain
the educational and career goals to which they aspire.
Improving the quality of urban high schools in the United States is
critically important, not only to the futures of the students who attend
them, but also for the future prosperity and quality of life of cities and for
the nation as a whole. Fortunately, knowledge derived from research and
practice provides more than a sufficient basis to proceed with urgently
needed reforms.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The evidence reviewed by the committee leads to a number of conclu-
signs and recommendations as a means to achieve the goals of meaningful
engagement and genuine improvements in achievement. Because our delib-
erations revealed significant limits in the available evidence, the committee
also outlines in its full report some recommendations and directions for
future research.
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
Recommendation 1: The committee recommends that high school
courses and instructional methods be redesigned in ways that will in-
crease adolescent engagement and learning.
The evidence is clear that high school courses can be designed to engage
urban high school students and enhance their learning. The instruction
typical of most urban high schools nevertheless fails to engage students
cognitively, emotionally, or behaviorally.
Evidence indicates that when instruction draws on students' preexisting
understandings, interests, culture, and real-worId experiences, the curricu-
lum becomes more meaningful to them. Students stay engaged when in-
struction is varied and appropriately challenging for all students, when
students are active participants, and when teachers allow students to use
their native language abilities and other resources to master the material
and complete tasks.
Recommendation 2: The committee recommends ongoing ciassroom-
based assessment of students' understanding and skills.
Instruction that is appropriately challenging for all students in a class
requires that teachers have information about each student's current knowI-
edge and skills. Teachers' instructional decisions about tasks and next steps
will be more effective when they are informed by daily or weekly data
about student progress. Standardized testing done annually does not pro-
vide enough useful information for teachers to make instructional decisions
in their classrooms.
Teachers should monitor continually the effectiveness of curriculum
and instructional practices, not only for progress in learning, but also to see
whether students are staying engaged behaviorally (e.g., attendance, comple-
tion of work), cognitively (e.g., efforts to understand and apply new con-
cepts), and emotionally (e.g., enthusiasm for learning activities).
Recommendation 3: The committee recommends that preservice teacher
preparation programs provide high school teachers deep content knowI-
edge and a range of pedagogical strategies and understandings about
adolescents and how they learn, and that schools and districts provide
practicing teachers with opportunities to work with colleagues and to
continue to develop their skills.
Teaching in a way that engages students requires a complex set of skills
and knowledge. High school teachers need to know about different meth-
ods of teaching and about adolescent learning, and they must have a deep
understanding of the discipline they teach. High-quality teachers need to
have a range of available strategies to use with their students and skill at
adapting instruction to the needs of individual students.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
s
Teacher education programs should provide beginning teachers with
an understanding of student-centered pedagogy that is focused on under-
standing, and teach them strategies for involving students in active learning.
New teachers need explicit preparation in order to be effective with diverse,
heterogeneous groups of high school students as well as those who have
special needs, including English-language learners, students with special
disabilities, and students who are substantially behind in their basic skills.
Teachers already working in high schools cannot meet the needs of
their students unless they also have opportunities to learn and develop new
skills. District- and state-level administrators need to provide resources-
time and experts for teachers to continue to develop their teaching skills.
These opportunities for professional development have to translate into
new practices and their effects on student learning need to be discussed
among colleagues who can hold each other accountable.
Recommendation 4: The committee recommends that schools provide
the support and resources necessary to help all high school students to
meet challenging standards.
Standards and high expectations are critical, but they must be genu-
inely achievable if they are to motivate student engagement. Students are
most likely to be academically engaged when they are challenged with
demanding learning goals and when they have opportunities to experience
a sense of competence and accomplishment about their learning. Setting
high standards and holding students accountable for reaching them can
serve as an incentive to exert effort, but only if students know what to do to
meet the standards and believe that they can succeed and that the standard
is achievable. Simply asking students especially low achievers to attain
higher standards without providing the assistance and support they need is
more likely to discourage than to motivate them.
Thus, for example, we urge districts and school administrators to pro-
vice individualized instruction, tutoring, and summer programs for stu-
dents who are behind to help them progress in their skills. Teachers need to
help students develop short-term goals that are calibrated to their preexist-
ing knowledge and skills, while students work toward meeting the high
standards.
Recommendation 5: The committee recommends that tests used to
evaluate schools, teachers, and students assess high-level, critical think-
ing and that they incorporate broad and multidimensional conceptions
of subject matter that includes fluency, conceptual understanding,
analysis, and application.
The tests that are used for accountability have substantial impact on
what gets taught and how, and these in turn affect student engagement. It is
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
unrealistic to expect teachers to exert effort to provide a coherent and
integrated curriculum and focus on understanding and critical thinking and
writing if the tests used to evaluate them and their students measure only
fragmented, decontextualized, basic skills.
Recommendation 6: Districts should restructure comprehensive urban
high schools to create smaller learning communities that foster person-
alized, and continuous relationships between teachers and students.
Supportive personal relationships are critical in promoting and main-
taining student engagement. Although learning involves cognitive processes
that take place within each individual, motivation to learn also depends on
the student's involvement in a web of social relationships that support
learning. Most urban high schools are too large and fail to promote close
personal relationships and a sense of community between adults and students.
Restructuring can be achieved by starting new schools, by breaking up
large schools into new and completely autonomous schools, or by creating
smaller connected but somewhat autonomous units in large schools. Block
scheduling and looping (teachers staying with the same group of students
for multiple years) are promising strategies for promoting longstanding,
respectful, and mutually accountable relationships.
Creating small learning communities may be necessary, but it is not
sufficient to improve student engagement. The social climate of the school
and the quality of interactions are critical. Principals and teachers need to
promote an environment of trust and respect of each other and of students.
They need to mode! these behaviors and refuse to tolerate disrespectful
behavior among students.
A social context centered on learning in which all administrative
decisions are made with student learning in mind and teachers leverage
their closer relationships with students to ''press''] students to challenge
themselves and develop deep understanding is also critical. This focus can
be conveyed by implementing school policies that recognize students who
respond to academic challenges quickly and that provide preemptive inter-
ventions when problems of poor attendance, failure to complete home-
work, and poor performance arise.
Recommendation 7: The committee recommends that both formal and
informal tracking by ability be eliminated. Alternative strategies should
be used to ensure appropriately challenging instruction for students
who vary widely in their skill levels.
1''Academic press" has been defined as offering demanding curricula and having high
expectations for learning, without pressuring performance or undermining autonomy (Phillips,
1997 and Shouse 1996a, 1996b, 1997).
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
7
Currently, students who are most at risk of disengaging from school
have too little contact with peers who have high expectations for academic
success. Groups of students with similar achievement levels are often
tracked, formally or informally, into different courses, thus isolating and
grouping the relatively low-performing and disengaged students with one
another. In addition to preventing interaction among low and high achiev-
ers, tracking precludes for some students access to the curriculum needed to
prepare for postsecondary education. Tracked courses, especially at the low
achievement levels, can also reinforce lower standards and engender in
students the belief that they lack academic competence.
Classes that do not prepare but prevent students getting on to rigorous
grade-level work should be eliminated, and challenging courses, including
Advanced Placement courses, should be as available to students in urban
schools serving low-income students as they are in schools serving more
affluent students.
A more challenging curriculum with heterogeneous grouping can only
be successful if teachers are well trained to address individual student needs.
Teachers need support to develop instructional approaches that will meet
the needs of a class of students who vary dramatically in their skill levels.
We suggest, in particular, training in individualized and peer group learning
strategies that have been shown to be effective in promoting learning in a
heterogeneous class. Another strategy, used previously only at the college
level but which merits experimentation in high schools, is connecting help
from a reading or English-as-a-second-language specialist directly to sub-
stantive courses. Thus, rather than isolating students with special needs, the
additional assistance that some students need is provided in the context of
a regular course with more skilled peers.
The committee also recommends that school administrators create op-
portunities for low-achieving students to interact with and develop friend-
ships with more academically successful peers. Because students tend to
choose to interact with students with the same ethnicity and similar achieve-
ment levels, concerted efforts must be made to create activities that will
attract diverse students, and to promote a climate in which students feel
comfortable venturing beyond familiar peer and instructional contexts.
Recommendation 8: The committee recommends that school guidance
and counseling responsibilities be diffused among school staff, includ-
ing teachers, who are supported by professionals.
Serious social or psychological problems can interfere with adolescents'
own academic engagement as well as undermine a positive learning climate.
Currently many problems go unnoticed or untreated. Professionals who
have relevant expertise are responsible for far too many students and they
have too little time to provide the support and intervention students need.
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
The problem is especially serious in urban high schools serving low-income
students, where social and psychological problems are more prevalent.
A climate of learning is also undermined when students do not under-
stand the consequences of disengaging from school. Many urban high school
students are poorly informed about postsecondary educational and career
options. In particular, they have only a vague understanding of what they
need to learn during high school to have a realistic chance of achieving the
ambitious educational and career goals to which many aspire. Because they
don't see the connections, students are not motivated to engage in purpose-
ful and challenging academic activities. In most schools, helping students
make these connections is the responsibility of guidance counselors who
oversee large numbers of students and have little opportunity to know their
individual interests and needs.
A promising new strategy is to provide every student and family with a
member of the school staff who can act as an adult advocate and who in
turn has a trained expert (like a counselor) to consult and to whom students
or families with serious problems can be referred. To help students achieve
a realistic understanding of how what they are learning in high school is
related to their educational and career options after high school, we suggest
also providing students with experiences in work settings, teachers with
curriculum materials and instructional supports to integrate rigor and rel-
evance into the core curriculum, as well as close coordination with post-
secondary educational institutions.
Recommendation 9: The committee recommends that efforts be made
to improve communication, coordination, and trust among the adults
in the various settings where adolescents spend their time. These set-
tings include homes, religious institutions, and the various organized
extracurricular activities sponsored by schools and community groups.
High schools cannot, by themselves, achieve high levels of engagement
and academic standards for all students. Most urban high schools function
quite independently of the other adults in adolescents' lives, such as parents,
health care providers, and those involved in extracurricular or religious
activities. Many efforts to improve schools are too "school-centric" in the
sense that they focus exclusively on school resources and programs and fail
to take advantage of the resources in the larger community.
School administrators and teachers should also expand and enrich the
high school curriculum and help students see the real-worId meaningfulness
of school learning by taking advantage of resources in the community. For
example, artists, civic leaders, and community members and parents with
cultural or historical knowledge and experiences can be invited to schools
to share their knowledge and interact with students. Teachers and adminis-
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
9
trators should also provide students with opportunities to engage in service
learning and internships that take them into community contexts.
Recommendation 10: The committee recommends that schools make
greater efforts to identify and coordinate with social and health services
in the community, and that policy makers revise policies to facilitate
students' access to the services they need.
The committee finds that most urban schools are unable to deal with
the many problems (e.g., poor physical and mental health, instability in
parenting, substance abuse, homelessness) that some low-income adoles-
cents face and which interfere with their engagement in academic work.
Schools cannot be expected to compensate fully for problems associated
with factors such as economic and social inequalities and the lack of effec-
tive policies to address them. However, such problems cannot be ignored in
urban communities with high concentrations of poverty. Although person-
alized, supportive high school communities can help protect adolescents
from environments that place them at risk for negative academic outcomes,
some high school students need additional services. Policy makers can and
should do more to help students whose personal circumstances interfere
with their ability to learn, and school administrators can make better use of
the resources that are available.
School administrators often encounter barriers to partnerships and col-
laborations with community service providers. Federal, state, and local
policy makers should remove barriers to coordination. Schools and social
service and health agencies should seek ways to improve communication
among school personnel and service providers who see the same adolescent.
CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTATION
The urgency of reform must not lead us to seize upon quick fixes or
silver bullets. The research reviewed in this volume illustrates repeatedly
that student engagement and learning are directly affected by a confluence
of organizational factors and instructional practices in particular schools,
by family and community influences, and by a wide range of national, state,
and local policies. No single educational policy or practice, no matter how
well grounded in research, can be expected to increase students' academic
engagement if the policies and practices in which they are embedded are
ignored. For example, small, personalized schools may not enhance mean-
ingful cognitive engagement and learning if they do not also provide effec-
tive teaching and a strong press for achieving high academic standards; the
most engaging teaching practices may have little effect on a student who is
homeless, has serious untreated health problems, or faces the chronic threat
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
of violence. Allowing students to choose among different small, thematic
learning communities can recreate tracking based on social class, ethnicity,
and achievement levels without policies and special efforts to avoid this.
Teachers cannot be expected to provide meaningful and engaging instruc-
tion if they do not have deep knowledge of their subject matter and prin-
ciples of effective pedagogy.
Student engagement and learning are affected by a complicated set of
nested variables. Some factors affect the motivation of individual students
in specific classrooms of specific high schools, while others stem from
broad federal or state policies that may affect a large number of very diverse
high schools. The array of policies and practices that affect student motiva-
tion and learning must be aligned so that efforts in one area (e.g., the
classroom) are supported rather than undermined by policies at another
(e.g., broader educational and social policies). Although it is neither neces-
sary nor realistic to expect that all potential policy conflicts can be resolved
before students can engage productively in learning, educators and policy
makers should, at the very least, consider how their policies and practices
interact to affect student engagement.
A fundamental transformation of American high schools and the policy
contexts in which high school education is embedded is needed to engage
all students in learning and to ensure high standards of achievement. There
are no panaceas, and some of the simple solutions that have been proposed,
such as raising standards, can alone do more harm than good. Realistically,
the reforms that are needed will require greater resources than are currently
provided. At the very least, the inequities in resource allocation, with schools
serving students with the greatest needs having the fewest resources, will
need to be redressed. In addition to increased funding of high schools, we
suggest investigation of ways to use current resources more effectively. The
committee did not address ways to acquire resources because it was beyond
its charge.
Although the focus is primarily on what can be done in high schools,
the policies and practices described in this volume have important implica-
tions for many issues beyond its scope including, for example, policies
that affect who is attracted into the field of teaching, preservice teacher and
leadership training and credentialing policies, state and federal testing poli-
cies, graduation requirements, and school funding and resource allocation.
Policy makers and educators must not become discouraged or give up
when they encounter difficulties. Difficulties are inevitable, and overcoming
them will require persistence, continuous evaluation, and using what is
learned to fine-tune, and possibly to alter the course of, but not to cast
aside, their efforts.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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As a society, we should not fail our youth by failing to provide them
with the kind of educational program they need to achieve high standards
of learning. Much is known about what needs to be done, and we are
learning more every day about how to do it. What is needed now is the will
to use this knowledge where it is most needed in our urban high schools.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
engaging schools
