Resources
Dr. Raymond Isola and Dr. Jim Cummins Webinar
Transforming Schools: Shared Leadership, Equity and Evidence
A principal shares the successful turnaround story in an elementary school serving students from low-income, primarily Latino homes in San Francisco. He emphasizes the powerful role principals have in school reform and explains how their shared leadership approach and results-oriented cycle of inquiry process dramatically improved student performance over a 13-year period. Concrete examples illustrate how this approach engages key constituents: teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators, parents, community members, businesses leaders, and students themselves.
© California Association for Bilingual Education, 2020.
Publication: Transforming Sanchez School
Topic: Professional Development
Specialty:
Dr. Raymond Isola and Dr. Jim Cummins Webinar Slides
Transforming Schools: Shared Leadership, Equity and Evidence
A principal shares the successful turnaround story in an elementary school serving students from low-income, primarily Latino homes in San Francisco. He emphasizes the powerful role principals have in school reform and explains how their shared leadership approach and results-oriented cycle of inquiry process dramatically improved student performance over a 13-year period. Concrete examples illustrate how this approach engages key constituents: teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators, parents, community members, businesses leaders, and students themselves.
Publication: Transforming Sanchez School
Topic: Professional Development
Specialty:
La Cosecha 2021 Presentations
Transforming Sanchez School: Shared Leadership, Equity and Evidence
Friday, November 12, 11:10 AM-12:30 PM EST
This workshop describes the innovative structures of shared leadership, community engagement, and biliteracy instruction at both preschool and elementary school levels that transformed Sanchez Elementary School in San Francisco’s Mission District from a failing dysfunctional school to one that significantly outperformed a large majority of schools with similar demographic characteristics.
Publication: Caslon Community
Topic: Professional Development
Specialty:
Language Plan Checklist
Administrators, teachers, and leadership teams can utilize this language planning tool in conjunction with the text to guide the development of a coherent language plan for their school’s dual language learners.
Publication: Young Dual Language Learners
Topic: Policy, Leadership, and Advocacy
Specialty:
Object(s): checklist
National Council on Teacher Quality Databurst: Teacher Leadership Opportunities
Teacher leadership is garnering considerable attention these days. According to the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), 35 states now have some formal policy on designating strong teachers as teacher leaders. These emerging policies create opportunities for clear definitions of teacher leadership roles and responsibilities at the district and school levels.
Publication: Caslon Community
Topic: Policy, Leadership, and Advocacy
Specialty:
Program Preparedness Checklist
Program Preparedness Checklist helps Head Start and Early Head Start programs to promote school readiness for Dual Language Learners (DLLs) by examining their systems and services for children and families who speak languages other than English.
Publication: Young Dual Language Learners
Topic: Policy, Leadership, and Advocacy
Specialty:
Object(s): checklist
Reform Excerpt Chapter 2
Raymond R. Isola and Jim Cummins analyze education reform initiatives during the past 60 years and explore difficult questions, including:
• Do standardized tests boost achievement?
• Does systematic phonics instruction increase reading comprehension?
• Is it reasonable to expect English learners to learn English in just 1 year?
• Is underachievement caused by bad teaching or by low socioeconomic status?
The authors argue that when policy ignores credible education research, there are consequences for vulnerable student populations, especially those from low-income and linguistically diverse communities.
Publication: Transforming Sanchez School
Topic: Policy, Leadership, and Advocacy
Specialty:
Object(s): reference
Roles of the Principal Excerpt Chapter 3
This book explores the multidimensional roles of the school principal, including instructional leader, resource manager, social architect of learning, and community organizer and activist.
Dr. Isola is the principal who led the successful turnaround effort at Sanchez School over 13 years. Readers will readily relate to his perspective, examples, and stories about:
• the principal’s roles in school transformation,
• the principal’s efforts to balance attention to top-down reform mandates with socioemotional and instructional approaches that lead to real student learning, and
• the principal’s collaborations for shared leadership, family engagement, and teacher agency.
This is a story told by a principal, Raymond R. Isola, and a university researcher, Jim Cummins, to illustrate the dynamic and complex processes of education reform during a turbulent time in the history of education in this country. It is a tale of a principal and his staff making choices in the best interests of their students.
Publication: Transforming Sanchez School
Topic: Policy, Leadership, and Advocacy
Specialty:
Object(s): reference