A+ In Practice

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A+ Essentials™

The A+ Essentials™, developed by the North Carolina A+ Schools Network in 1997, emerged in response to the question, "How do you know a school is an A+ School?" Over several years, A+ principals, Coordinators, Fellows, and Program staff engaged in a collaborative process to identify and clarify the response to this question so that schools might have a framework for articulating and recognizing the role of A+ in the daily life of their school.

Designed as a reflective tool enabling schools to self-assess their growth as an A+ School (not as a checklist), the A+ Essentials™ continue to guide the Network as its overarching conceptual framework. The significance of the Essentials lies in the relationships among them, and the interactive process of implementation. The A+ Essentials™ include the Arts, Curriculum, Multiple Intelligences, Enriched Assessment, Experiential Learning, Collaboration, Climate, and Infrastructure.
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A+ and School Reform

The A+ Schools Program is now nationally recognized as an effective, research-based strategy for sustainable, arts-based school reform. Most recently, the Program is the topic of the book Creating and Sustaining Arts-Based School Reform: The A+ Schools Program (2009, Noblit, Corbett, Wilson, and McKinney). It has been highlighted in national publications including Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development (2002, Arts Education Partnership); Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century (2004, Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College Chicago); and more recently in Third Space: When Learning Matters (2005, Arts Education Partnership).

In North Carolina, the A+ Schools Program has been recognized and cited extensively as an exemplary program by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction as documented in two of its most recent publications, A Balanced Curriculum and Elementary Level and A Balanced Curriculum, Middle Grades.

With over twelve years experience working in school "re-form," A+ has shown that through high-quality professional development and ongoing Network support, teachers can learn to be both efficient and creative with their time and resources by integrating instruction and assessment to teach all disciplines and meet accountability standards.

A+ Personnel

The A+ Program's administrative staff and its 43 Network schools have worked in partnership for over fourteen years to continuously guide and shape the A+ Network, ensuring that the professional development and other Network support (regional Network meetings of A+ Principals and site-based A+ Coordinators) are relevant to the particular context and culture of each A+ School.

This collaborative approach models the concept of broad-based leadership and has influenced the development of a similar leadership model at the schools. The A+ evaluators have attributed this collaborative approach, in part, to the remarkable sustainability of A+, even when principals are transferred and new principals assume leadership.

In addition, A+ Schools Program professional development is facilitated by a cadre of 43 A+ Fellows, master practicing teachers and teaching artists. This network of Fellows, many of whom are National Board Certified, has been developed and sustained over twelve years and continues to be key to the Program's success. Fellows include practicing classroom teachers, arts teachers and other specialist, administrators, teaching artists, and writers.

Professional Development

Professional development in A+ Schools is conducted by a cadre of 43 practicing classroom teachers and specialists, administrators, teaching artists, and writers who work as a network to help guide the A+ Program and conduct professional development for A+ Schools and A+ partner organizations. These professionals are called the A+ Fellows.

As a group, the A+ Fellows represent the many perspectives of the school community and the community at large. Although many of the A+ Fellows teach in A+ Schools, others work in other schools and in other settings. Using this "practitioner model" for professional development allows A+ Fellows to continually practice what they teach and teach what they practice.

As practicing educators, the Fellows have increased credibility in leading their peers in professional development because they are immersed in the same kinds of implementation challenges. They are also in a position to provide schools and individual teachers with continuing support from inside their own classrooms.
A+ professional development is highly experiential, providing opportunities for participants to learn and apply information through participation and application.

Inside A+ Schools

A+ Principals

A+ Principals play a major role in helping sustain the A+ Network, providing site-based leadership for A+ initiatives and advising Program Leadership on the use and allocation of Network resources.

A+ Principals gather twice yearly for fall and spring working retreats to reflect on A+ professional development from the previous summer and to discuss issues common to A+ Schools in the Network. At these events, the power of membership in a network of schools committed to school reform is evident. Principals share ideas and "best practices," celebrate one another's successes, support one another through professional and personal challenges, and mentor new principals joining the Network.

Mentoring new A+ principals is particularly important, given the well-documented challenges of principal "turnover" in sustaining any school reform. While only one of the original 25 principals who implemented A+ (1995) remains, 23 of those original 25 A+ schools continue to be active in the Network, evidence that the program has been sustained through multiple changes in school administration. Providing support to new A+ principals and developing shared leadership in A+ schools have proven to be effective in helping to sustain the culture of A+ over time.

A+ Coordinators

A+ Coordinators are teacher leaders who maintain a special commitment to supporting and developing A+ implementation at their school. The role and scope of their work varies greatly from school to school, ranging from "extra duty" of a full-time teacher to a full-time, paid position in some magnet schools. Many schools have opted to have co-coordinators, with a parent or the school secretary often serving in this shared role. While special project coordination work is often accomplished by teams of teachers or parent volunteers working with the Coordinator, it is the Coordinators who play a significant role in facilitating the sustainability of A+ in the schools. They are often the "program champions" who keep the school focused on their commitment to arts integration and the A+ Schools Program. Along with the principal, the A+ Coordinator is usually the school-based liaison to the A+ Network. 

A+ Fellows

A+ Fellows are a Network of professionals who conduct the professional development for the A+ Schools and partner organizations. Because the professional development is based on a strong practitioner model, the Fellows include practicing classroom teachers, arts teachers and other specialists, administrators, artists, and writers. As a group, they represent the varied perspectives of the school community and the community at large, and include teaching artists, school-based teachers and administrators and higher education faculty.

Many of the A+ Fellows are currently teachers in A+ Schools, and about half work in "non-A+ schools" or in the community at large. Using this model for professional development allows A+ Fellows to continually practice what they teach and teach what they practice.

A+ Fellows enter the Network as apprentices (Potential Fellows) with a wide range of expertise and experience, and are asked to serve in this "developmental apprenticeship" role for one year, observing and assisting Fellows as the Fellows conduct professional development. During this first year, Potential Fellows consider how their particular strengths might be used and what areas they need to develop. Fellows are then assigned to work on teams that allow them to use their expertise and to develop in identified areas, thus always teaching and learning.
Becoming an A+ Fellow 

A+ Teachers

The A+ Program's approach to school reform relies on teachers (along with administrators and A+ Coordinators) to also provide leadership for the Program within their individual schools. Teachers and staff are responsible for adapting the Program to school culture and community context, designing and implementing integrated thematic units that honor the role of the arts and Multiple Intelligences, and for building connections with parents and the community. A+ teachers in Network schools attend A+ professional development each summer and, often, throughout the year. These institutes allow teachers to network across schools, sharing ideas and concerns in "job-alike" groups. Teachers exchange emails and phone numbers, allowing them to continue sharing back at their school site. This has been especially beneficial to teachers in small schools and to teachers who are "one-of-a-kind" in their buildings (arts teachers, media specialists, physical education teachers, and other specialists). 

A+ Classrooms

The A+ Classroom honors the role of the arts as central to teaching and learning. It is characterized by students engaged with the curriculum in multiple ways. Several times each day, students may be working independently or in groups at various Learning Centers throughout the classroom. They are given regular opportunities to learn and apply the arts and technology as part of their instruction and assessment. Students in A+ Schools may be assisted by the regular classroom teacher, a parent, or a student intern from the local university or college. Whether the activity is instruction or assessment, the student is engaged in experiential learning through the arts or demonstrating understanding through the use of "informances" that demonstrate outcomes of learning from the classroom. The teacher maintains a balance among instructing students directly, facilitating group engagement, coaching individual students, challenging students to move beyond their current understanding, and celebrating their success.

A+ and Community Partners

Individual A+ Schools have found that promoting arts-integrated learning experiences forces them to look outside the school walls and draw on the talents and resources of parents and community institutions, including higher education, teaching artists, and arts and cultural organizations. In particular, they found that in order to achieve their new instructional vision they needed to deepen their idea of "partnerships" beyond the generic notion of supporting the school through donated resources and volunteer labor to one that connected their partners to the substance of the curriculum.

In its professional development for its Network schools, the A+ Schools Program includes strategies to partner with area community resources, particularly arts and cultural resources (arts councils, visiting artists, community colleges and universities). The A+ approach is to build capacity within the schools to forge their own partnerships, which they have done successfully, with local, state and national organizations.

However, the A+ Schools Program leadership also maintains these kinds of community partnerships on behalf of the entire North Carolina Network of schools. Called A+ Partners, these include education, arts and cultural organizations that have collaborated on multiple projects, grants or other initiatives, or have provided financial or other support.

A+ and Higher Education

The A+ Schools Program maintains a commitment to the development of teacher education and research agendas that include arts-integrated instructional and assessment practices. As part of this commitment, A+ has developed a comprehensive syllabus for Elementary Education majors which draws on the Program's fourteen years of work in schools. In Fall 2007, North Carolina State University became the first University to implement this A+ syllabus. NCSU's "The Arts for Elementary Education" provides students with an experiential understanding of the basic concepts of the four major arts forms; Application of the basic elements and principles of those art forms in unit development and lesson planning; Exploration and application of Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory and other theories of intelligence in the classroom; Understanding of the relationship among curriculum mapping, thematic unit development, MI theory, arts integration, and experiential learning; And awareness of the role of community cultural resources in the elementary classroom.

In addition, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) maintains a cohort of elementary education majors as interns at an area A+ School. These students work beside A+ students and teachers as part of their pre-service training for two years.

A+ continues to nurture partnerships with institutions of higher education to promote arts integration coursework for pre-service teachers. 

Program Evaluations

Upon launching the A+ Schools Program in 1995,the Kenan Institute for the Arts made a commitment to evaluating the Program over a four-year period. After a national search for an evaluation team, the Program selected a team of researchers headed by Dr. George Noblit at UNC-Chapel Hill, Drs. Bruce Wilson and Dick Corbit, independent researchers. The results of the initial four-year evaluation of the A+ Schools Program and the follow-up evaluation at eight years funded by the Ford Foundation, attributed the sustainability of the Program to three primary factors: 

1. the use of the arts and school reform
2. the high quality, practitioner model of the professional development 
3. the maintenance of a strong network to support teachers and administrators

The initial intensive 4-year, evaluation of the Program, The Arts and Education Reform: Lessons from a Four-Year Evaluation of the A+ Schools Program, 1995-1999, "Overview of Key Findings," showed significant effects on schools, communities, administrators, teachers and students that included the following:

• Schools increased their organizational capacity and leadership to sustain the innovation 
• Schools developed a more focused identity and increased channels of communication among staff and with parents 
• Schools developed new community partnerships 
• Parents increased and deepened their affiliation with the school 
• Teachers changed their instructional strategies, resulting in more engaging and experiential learning for all students 
• Teachers developed richer, more substantive and authentic classroom assessments 
• School staff and parents found the A+ approach to teaching equally beneficial to all groups of students, regardless of cognitive development, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status 
• Teachers designed enriched academic environments-more ways for students to understand and demonstrate understanding and mastery of the curriculum with improved assessment results 
• Students were more engaged in the curriculum and improved their attitudes, attendance and behavior 
• Students achieved assessment gains without teachers "narrowing" the curriculum

A second, follow-up study of A+ Schools after eight years, Creating and Sustaining Arts-Based School Reform: The A+ Schools Program (2003) demonstrated the sustainability and resilience of the Program as a school reform. The researchers attribute these unusual results to the Program's high quality, ongoing professional development and the creation of a Network of schools with increased communication and collaborative planning within and among schools. 

• Results 
• The Arts and School Reform

The Arts and School Reform

According to the most recent A+ Program evaluation, "There is much that the arts can teach us about school reform, and the A+ Schools Program provides a powerful example on which to base these lessons."

The evaluators stated that A+ is a successful comprehensive education reform because it begins with a vision of arts-integrated instruction creating enhanced learning opportunities for all students, but "other changes in school practice, in areas ranging from assessment to scheduling to parent involvement, radiate out as necessary to achieve that central vision."

The report goes on to say that the A+ approach to school reform used lessons from the arts and focused on the "process" (learning) not the product (test scores), thus the "product" emerged as both student achievement and sustainable school reform that supports learning for all students. The arts were key to the sustained changes in teaching approach and in the organizational structure of the schools.

Formal quantitative and qualitative evaluation results, summarized in the "Overview of Key Findings" from the Executive Summary of the four-year evaluation, as well as anecdotal reports from the past ten years of the program's implementation indicate that significant school characteristics related to learning have been positively influenced by the program's implementation.

Program evaluations over the first eight years of the Program's history (since 1995) have identified the whole school, residential Five-Day A+ Institute (link to professional development) as the primary change agent leading to high implementation levels for the arts integration approach to school reform.

Value Added: Beyond Test Scores

A+ Schools Program evaluators and developers have chosen to identify, in addition to the usual measures of student achievement and school success (expected gains in test scores, student and teacher attendance, student discipline, parent involvement), the unique contributions that the arts in education make to an individual's intellectual, social, and emotional growth.

While this "value-added" case for the inclusion of the arts in a school's curriculum proved to be a strong justification for A+ and schools were able to achieve growth on North Carolina's accountability tests comparable to that of other schools statewide without "narrowing" the curriculum (eliminating non-tested subjects such as science, history and the arts) during the four-year pilot period and since.

However, the greater challenge for schools is how to infuse and sustain the arts into the curriculum, instruction, assessment and supporting infrastructure so thoroughly that the arts are not "lost" in the day-to-day operation of the school.

The arts must be seen as fundamental to the school's educational mission within the context and culture of individual schools, complementing and supporting rather than competing with it for scarce resources. The A+ Schools Program enabled schools to use the arts to "re-form" their approach to "doing the business of schools"—educating children.

The evaluators found that A+ Schools were able to respond to accountability standards in both effective and creative ways, meeting standards in North Carolina's high-stakes testing program and to develop a school identity around the arts by integrating the arts into the curriculum.