Charles Venegoni doesn't get a lot of sleep, which is a good thing for high schoolers in the Chicago area. His busy schedule translates into better ACT Assessment^® scores—and better opportunities—for students.

In 2001, as the head of English and fine arts at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, Venegoni implemented a new curriculum geared to ACT's Standards for Transition^®. When the first cohort to use it throughout high school took the ACT Assessment, they earned an average ACT English score two full points above the class that took the test the year before. Their average Composite score was 23.9, 1.3 points higher than the 22.6 average for the previous class. The 2003 scores made John Hersey the top ranking among Township High School District 214's six high schools.

'Is this teaching to the test, or am I teaching good reading?' —Jack Stanislaw, English teacher, John Hersey High School

“A jump of two points is not at all impossible, and that's a huge, huge jump,” Venegoni told an audience of teachers and administrators considering his approach at Hoffman Estates High School, another suburban Chicago high school. “That translates into a lot of college enrollments, a lot of recognized achievement, a lot of financial aid benefits, a lot of happy parents.”

Improving scores at a suburban high school is one thing. But such an achievement among more challenged populations, such as those typical of an urban school, is quite another.

'Thank you for the Standards for Transition. It's a sensible sequencing of skills and a great tool for teaching. It will ultimately create better test scores and skills. This is not an add-in. It works seamlessly in what we do.'  —Dan McDonell, English teacher, John Hersey High School

Venegoni also serves as the president of a Chicago charter school that opened in 2003.

He has seen students there make even greater gains with the Standards for Transition-based curriculum than students in the suburbs. In 2004, the first class of juniors at the Chicago International Charter School (CICS) Northtown Academy Campus earned an average ACT Composite score of 19.1, nearly three points above the average score earned the year before by junior students at the school that had occupied the building previously.

“This school demonstrates that this basic curriculum can be successful with all populations. It works better with more challenged populations. The gains are greater,” Venegoni said.

At CICS Northtown Academy, the average freshman student arrives three years below grade level in reading, Venegoni pointed out. This year, diagnostic test scores predict the ACT scores of the junior class will meet Illinois accountability standards.

'This gets us right to the teaching.' —Charles Venegoni, chairman of English and fine arts, John Hersey High School

“This would make us the first Chicago neighborhood school to hit state standards in I don't know how long. We think we're going to hit it,” Venegoni said. 

District 214 implemented ACT's Educational Planning and Assessment System/EPAS^® in 1994, when it started administering EXPLORE^® to all eighth graders and PLAN^® to all tenth graders. Since 2001, all Illinois eleventh graders have taken the ACT Assessment as a part of the state-mandated Prairie State Achievement Exam. Basing curriculum on the Standards for Transition, as Venegoni has done, is a logical next step. The Standards can guide teachers as they address student needs identified in the tests.

The Standards are specific descriptions of skills students most likely have mastered when they score within certain ranges on EPAS tests.

'As a student your experience should not depend on what teacher you have.' —Dennis McSherry, English teacher, John Hersey High School

“The Standards for Transition are scope and sequence skills,” he said. “These skills are good, essential literacy skills. They are the skills that, if there were no ACT Assessment, we should be teaching anyway.”

Students at both John Hersey High School and CICS Northtown Academy take EXPLORE in eighth grade. The scores tell teachers what the students know and are able to do as they enter high school. EXPLORE predicts a student's performance on PLAN, and PLAN predicts performance on the ACT Assessment. Teachers use the benchmark scores established by EXPLORE to place incoming students and measure their progress. They target their instruction to specific skill needs identified by EXPLORE and PLAN and use the Standards for Transition to guide their lessons.

“You want to assess a student's skills and pitch your instruction appropriately,” said Venegoni. About 50 percent of instructional time is spent on the skills the student needs to learn at that point in the skills matrix, 25 percent on review, and 25 percent on introducing the next level of skills. The goal is to make gains for a cohort of students over time, not to get better scores from one junior class to the next junior class, for example.

Aligned Every Which Way Improves Achievement

The curriculum is vertically, horizontally, and diagonally aligned.

Vertical alignment is alignment within a subject area. Skills build upon each other in a logical order, what teachers refer to as scope and sequence. Skills also are regularly reviewed, in a process called spiraling.

'The Standards allow for a larger curricular experience.' —Kevin Poduska, English teacher, John Hersey High School

“We go from ninth to tenth to eleventh grade with a purposeful scope and sequence. Purposeful is the operative word,” Venegoni said. In a vertically aligned curriculum, all of the students study the same material, although at different levels according to their ability. “With vertical alignment, all the courses in a subject area have the same titles. This way the lower-skilled kids are brought into higher content. The skills matrix is the same for all of them.”

Horizontal alignment adds the interdisciplinary piece to Venegoni's model. Different departments work together to reinforce the skills being taught. The writing and reading skills emphasized in social science classes, for example, are the same as those taught at the same time in English class.

“It's a way of reinforcing what kids are learning. It's purposeful reinforcement of skills—geared to the kid, not the textbook,” Venegoni said. “This way, you can achieve levels that can't be achieved in any other way than through repetition.”

The diagonal alignment allows students to move to more challenging levels of study as their skills improve.

Venegoni's curriculum isn't about bells and whistles. It is a framework for teaching fundamental skills in a coordinated way that leaves no child behind and allows any student to achieve the highest level of individual potential. He calls it design-based professional development.

'It is strange that something this basic is so different.' —Charles Venegoni, chairman of English and fine arts, John Hersey High School

“There's no rocket science here. This is absolutely the most generic way of designing a curriculum possible. It is as without idiosyncrasy as possible,” Venegoni said. “It is made to work within the current state of most U.S. high schools.”

Building Strong Curriculum Depends on Support

Careful alignment creates a curriculum with a high degree of both coherence and continuity. But the collaboration required to create such alignment also requires a few supporting elements within a school.

One requisite support is time for teachers to plan and collaborate. The first question posed by the teachers listening to Venegoni's presentation was, how do they find the time to coordinate and integrate their lesson plans to such a degree?

The answer lies with the school's administration. A school must have leadership committed to making the time available, Venegoni replied. At John Hersey, he said, “We use all of our in-service time, all of our summer workshop time, every opportunity we have.”

“Alignment means alignment of resources, too.”

Successful implementation also requires interesting content. Interest springs from conflict, Venegoni said. Lessons must encourage synthesis, analysis, and debate.

“You have to court controversy. The kids love it, and it really teaches higher-order thinking skills,” he said.

And, finally, this approach depends on a basic paradigm shift among most high school educators. The focus of curriculum decisions must move from the teacher to the student.

'When we started this, we weren't saying, “What can we do to increase our ACT scores?" We were saying, "What can we do to be more successful?" We knew we needed to have continuity and coherence. As we learned about the Standards for Transition, it was a slam-dunk.' —Dennis McSherry, English teacher, John Hersey High School

“In the past, we as teachers taught good classes, but we taught them individually. We developed our class and we taught it. We didn't think about what the student needed,” said Venegoni. “But where that kid is going has to be as much a part of what you do as anything else. We're doing this for that kid, and he's going on to someplace else next. We have to prepare him for that next place.”

When high schools prepare students well, when the instruction reaches all of the students in a relevant, meaningful way, the results can be amazing. In addition to the ACT Assessment score improvements, at John Hersey twice as many students were prepared to enroll in advanced placement courses after following the Standards for Transition-based curriculum.

'It's more work, but it's worth it.' —Janet Levin, English teacher, John Hersey High School

“This is a curricular effect. The numbers of kids able to move into advanced courses is directly consistent with curriculum change,” Venegoni said. “I can also give you other test data and qualitative data that support these results. It's higher-order thinking that matters here, not test scores. Just talk to teachers about the quality of discussion in their classrooms. Talk to parents about what they're seeing at home.”

Venegoni said this approach creates communities of learners. Students' achievement comes as a result of learning, not as the result of teaching to the test, as critics sometimes claim. And teachers find themselves “exponentially” more creative as a result of their collaboration with colleagues.

“This collaboration dignifies and enhances the profession of teaching,” Venegoni said.

Any which way you want to measure it, instruction improves.

“Success with numbers is not the be-all and end-all . . . but I think I can demonstrate to you that usually success with numbers indicates other success, too.”

Word of Mouth Generates Interest

This spring the federal government and the National Governors Association joined the growing call for an overhaul of public high school education.

Venegoni has thought a lot about how to improve high schools, and he thinks depending on the Standards for Transition and the EPAS assessments is the answer. He describes the challenge facing high schools as a challenge of three variables: curriculum, student population, and assessment. As long as the curriculum and the assessment are independent of each other, the assessment can do no more than produce the characteristics of the student population.

'Two years ago, I started getting papers that are very different from what I got before we implemented this model.' —Janet Levin, English teacher, John Hersey High School

“The test score data will remain flat forever unless something is actually done to affect it,” he said. If you believe your assessment tool measures the skills graduates need to have, it makes sense to gear your instruction to those skills, he said. “I think the ACT gives us a good target to shoot at in terms of curriculum.”

And now that John Hersey High School and CICS Northtown Academy are finding success with Venegoni's approach, more schools are interested in trying it.

“I do believe this is the direction we have to move. This approach has all the components we have talked about the last several years,” said Terri Busch, the principal of Hoffman Estates High School.

'Grammar doesn't have to be taught as a separate unit.' —Kristen Aloisio, English teacher, John Hersey High School

A dozen high schools in the Chicago area have expressed interest in implementing a similar program. The CICS organization plans to open three more charter schools following a curriculum based on the Standards for Transition. The Bill and Melinda Gates Founda-tion is studying CICS Northtown Academy to learn more about what makes it successful, with an eye toward replicating proven approaches.

Systematic assessment over time with instruction geared to teaching the skills measured on the assessments makes sense. EPAS and the Standards for Transition help teachers ensure that every student achieves his or her potential.

“EPAS and the Standards for Transition are analytical tools that help us teach better. They tell us what a kid knows and can do,” said Venegoni. “With this way of teaching, we are able to have high expectations for everyone. We really can include everyone.”

Ninth-Grade Integrated Units—CICS Northtown Academy Campus