How Gwinnett schools reached top

This aggressive failure-prevention program is one of many strategies Gwinnett County Public Schools is using to narrow the gap in test scores between affluent students and low-income and minority students.

Its success in aiding struggling students, while continuing to make progress with high achievers, is what won Gwinnett the Broad Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of public education. The prestigious recognition provides $1 million in scholarship money for students, and a national spotlight for Gwinnett’s educational philosophies and programs.

Those practices stem from two decisions district officials made in the mid-1990s and have steadfastly carried out, often despite criticism from parents and other educators: the development of uniform standards that all schools must follow, and exams to measure how well students are meeting those standards. While commonplace now, both concepts represented a dynamic change from what was happening inside the classroom at the time.

“We expect Gwinnett will share their best practices with other districts and be a beacon for what can be done,” said philanthropist Eli Broad, whose foundation has awarded $8 million to outstanding urban school systems since 2002.

News of Gwinnett’s win Tuesday surprised some in metro Atlanta. Not because they doubted the successes of the state’s largest school district. But, rather, because some don’t consider Gwinnett, an outside-the-Perimeter suburb, “urban.” The Broad Foundation, which examines the 100 largest districts in the country, said the demographics of Gwinnett’s student population — 14th-largest in the nation — more than meet the criteria for its award.

Many wondered how Gwinnett did it. Was it the stability of its school board, whose membership includes one who has been serving since the Nixon administration? Was it the teachers and administrators hired to get the job done? Was it the clout of the nation’s longest-serving large-district superintendent, J. Alvin Wilbanks, who has been on the job for nearly 15 years?

Reacted to change

Parents and community leaders credit all of the above.

Demming Bass of the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce can already see the glossy marketing materials touting the county as home of the nation’s top district.

“Your name is out there, it’s great publicity for Gwinnett County and it reflects well on the entire state,” Bass said. “Gwinnett has worked very hard. I can’t think of a better organization that is more deserving than this.”

At the heart of the district’s selection by Broad is its success in serving its majority-minority clientele.

More than a decade ago, Wilbanks spotted the country’s changing demographics and predicted how this would affect schools. When he took over in 1996, Gwinnett was a mostly white suburb with about 85,000 students, about 14 percent of whom qualified for free and discounted lunch. Today there are 161,000 students. More than half qualify for free or discounted meals. Students speak more than 100 languages and represent 300 countries.

Its middle and high school enrollments are larger than those of some entire Georgia districts and liberal arts colleges, yet they manage to push students to succeed and are closing the achievement gap.

Another key to Gwinnett’s success was its ability to raise money to build new classrooms. It was the first Georgia district to approve the special-purpose local option sales tax. The tax was overwhelmingly backed by voters three times, pumping millions of dollars into district coffers for school construction and technology.

Gwinnett’s school system now has more than 100 schools and its own professional development academy that grooms staff to rise through the ranks as principals.

“Gwinnett is like the New York Yankees,” said former state schools Superintendent Kathy Cox. “You can be jealous and annoyed by their successes, but wouldn’t every baseball team be better if they looked at the way they operate?”

Two key reforms

The district adopted two key programs in the mid-1990s that form the basis of its educational approach.

Academic Knowledge and Skills, implemented in 1996, specified precisely what teachers should teach in each subject at each grade level. The rigorous standards go beyond the state’s own curriculum and were designed to reflect national and international expectations. The school district reviews the material annually.

The district also developed its own standardized test. The test, Gateway, initiated in 1995, set Gwinnett apart. It was in schools five years before the state would introduce its standardized Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests and seven years before President George W. Bush would sign the No Child Left Behind Act, which required schools to test students once a year in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school.

“They were the model for the state and the nation,” Cox said. “They knew early on that it’s not about how you teach, as much as it is about a focus on what you teach.”

Gwinnett has used the results from Gateway to determine which students need extra help and which could handle advanced studies. The results also determined where teachers needed to improve their lessons and what kind of training was needed at each school.

“[Superintendent Wilbanks] believed in data a long time before it was fashionable,” said school board chair Mary Kay Murphy. “He is a visionary leader focused on the long term. We are blessed to have him.”

Before the instructional changes, some teachers say, there was confusion in the classroom.

“When I first started teaching in Gwinnett it was pretty much: Here are a bunch a books on life science, teach what you want,” said Tim Mullen, a teacher at Bay Creek Middle who traveled to the Broad ceremony in New York. “There was a lot of white flight as teachers kept moving east to stay with the white schools.

“The last five or six years you don’t see it much anymore. Now we are all teaching the same thing. People realize that we are a minority school district. Even though our [population] has changed, our scores have gone up.”

“My teachers ... they push you but not too far to where you are going to fall over,” said Sheena Hartley, 16, a Norcross High student who admits to having a “bad attitude” freshman year but is now getting A’s and B’s and taking Advanced Placement classes. “Sometimes people just need some extra help.”

‘All students can learn’

Wilbanks, the leader behind the dramatic changes in Gwinnett, set the stage for success. While some say his single-minded style can come across as dictatorial, others say he has given his staff the room to be creative in trying to boost student achievement.

“Our core business is teaching and learning with the emphasis on learning,” he said. “Our job is to teach every child that comes to school. We believe that they need a good education. We are the source dedicated to provide that. We believe all students can learn.’’

A visit to Duluth Middle School demonstrates how Gwinnett provides extra help to students who struggle and enriches those who are ready for more advanced lessons.

In one class, a group of about 15 gifted seventh-graders works on writing skills, learning how to include more details and depth. Down a different wing, 12 students who need extra support work in small groups. All of them are repeating a grade. They solve word problems, an activity designed to improve their math and reading skills. The group is small enough that the youngsters feel comfortable raising their hands and reading aloud — something they might not do in a room with 30 students.

“We don’t deny the needs of our students. Instead, we sit down and think about what we can do to help them,” Principal Deborah Fusi said. “The idea is to customize instruction.”

In another class, two teachers team up to work with students learning English as a second language using visual cues. When this team teaching approach began last year, 81 percent of the English-as-a-second-language students passed the reading/English CRCT. In 2007, about 70 percent passed.

Critics question award

Gwinnett doesn’t have universal approval. One member of the Broad Prize review board questioned whether the district should have won, citing its involvement in a lawsuit against the Georgia Charter Schools Commission.

State law allows this group to approve charter schools rejected by local school boards and transfer funding from school districts to the newly approved charter schools. Gwinnett is viewed as hostile to charter schools, although these schools are lauded by some education reformers.

And while posting high student passing rates, Gwinnett has been criticized for failing to address issues such as bullying and gang problems and for building schools that are too large.

“They made the decision to operate big schools and they lose some kids because of that,” said Cox, currently chief executive officer of the U.S. Education Delivery Institute, a nonprofit promoting school reform. “Gwinnett is not perfect. They are not without their issues and problems. But they don’t make excuses. They just remain singularly focused on student achievement.”

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The Broad Prize

The million-dollar Broad Prize won by Gwinnett County schools this past week goes to the best urban school district in the country. So how did a system considered suburban by many in Georgia win?

The Broad Foundation said it analyzed the 100 largest school systems in the nation and selected as its winner the system deemed to have made the most significant gains in academic achievement among minority and poor students.

Gwinnett is the 14th-largest district in the country, with more than 161,000 students. The majority of the student body is considered ethnic minority, and 16 percent of the students are not native-English speakers, according to the foundation. Also, half the students are eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

Gwinnett County Public Schools at a glance

It’s the 14th-largest district in the nation, and the majority of its student body is ethnic minority.

161,130: students

11,253: teachers

130: schools

12: percentage of students with disabilities

$1.76 billion: total budget

$105.3 million: scholarship money earned by Class of 2010

Source: Gwinnett County Public Schools, staff reporting