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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pope, Denise Clark, 1966- author.
Overloaded and underprepared : strategies for stronger schools and healthy, successful kids / by Denise Pope, Maureen Brown, and Sarah Miles.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-119-02244-2 (pbk.), ISBN 978-1-119-02256-5 (ePDF), 978-1-119-02246-6 (epub)
1. School improvement programs–United States. 2. Educational change–United States. 3. Students–United States–Psychology. I. Brown, Maureen, 1959- author. II. Miles, Sarah B., author. III. Title.
LB2822.82.P66 2015
371.2′07–dc23
2015005827
Cover Design: Challenge Success
Cover image: ©narvikk/iStockphoto.com
FIRST EDITION
Table I.1. Initiatives in Schools as a Result of Work with Challenge Success
Figure 1.1. Typical Stages in the Challenge Success Change Process
Figure 1.2. A Sample “Stress Tree”
Figure 1.3. SPACE Framework
Figure 3.1. Scheduling Tool
Figure 4.1. Science Fair Display
Figure 4.2. Understanding by Design
Figure 5.1. Curriculum Priorities and Assessments
Figure 5.2. Framework of Assessment Approaches and Methods
Figure 8.1. Timewheel
Figure 8.2. Conference Scenario Results
Exhibit 2.1. Examples of a Traditional and a Block Schedule
Exhibit 3.1. Excerpt from JLS Middle School Homework Guidelines
Exhibit 3.2. Making HomeworkWork: Sample Cover Sheet
Exhibit 4.1. Sample Materials from Laura Docter's Rome Project
Exhibit 5.1. Del Mar Prompt and Rubric
Exhibit 5.2. Castilleja VC Pitch Rubric
Exhibit 5.3. SampleWaldorf Report Card
Exhibit 6.1. Advanced Placement FAQ
Exhibit 7.1. Excerpt from Latin School of Chicago Strategic Plan 2013–2018
Exhibit 7.2. Excerpt from California Standards for the Teaching Profession
Exhibit A.1. Sample of Invite Letter to Parents/Students
Exhibit A.2. Recommended Talking Points—Student Meeting
Exhibit A.3. Skits # 1 through 3
Exhibit A.4. Dialogue Night—Recommended Program/Agenda
Exhibit A.5. Recommended Materials
To schools that are making real and lasting changes to improve their students' lives
Denise Clark Pope, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education and cofounder of Challenge Success. For the past sixteen years, she has specialized in student engagement, curriculum studies, qualitative research methods, and service learning. Challenge Success is an expanded version of the SOS: Stressed-Out Students project that Dr. Pope founded and directed from 2003–2008. She lectures nationally on parenting techniques and pedagogical strategies to increase student health, engagement with learning, and integrity. Her book, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001) was awarded Notable Book in Education by the American School Board Journal, 2001. Dr. Pope is a three-time recipient of the Stanford University Graduate School of Education Outstanding Teacher and Mentor Award, and was honored with the 2012 Education Professor of the Year “Educators' Voice Award” from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences. She has served as a trustee at several independent schools in the Bay Area. Prior to teaching at Stanford, Dr. Pope taught high school English in Fremont, California, and college composition and rhetoric courses at Santa Clara University.
Maureen Rutter Brown, MBA is executive director for Challenge Success, where she oversees daily operations as well as marketing, fundraising, and strategic planning. Ms. Brown comes to Challenge Success with over 20 years of consulting experience in health care, financial services, and technology. Prior to joining Challenge Success, Ms. Brown worked as an independent consultant and as a partner at APM, Incorporated, where she structured, sold, and managed strategic and operations improvement engagements for health care institutions, primarily university medical centers. Ms. Brown has also worked in cash management for Philadelphia National Bank and Citibank. She has been on various boards at Georgetown University, and cofounded the Bay Area Georgetown Technology Alliance. She has also served as cochair of the Parents Committee and as an advisor to Duke University's Entrepreneurship Program, and she has been a board member at Woodside School.
Sarah Becket Miles, M.S.W., Ph.D. is a researcher with Challenge Success. She researches how schools and classrooms can best support student learning and engagement. She works with Challenge Success member schools to translate research into practice as well as presents at conferences and writes articles for education-related journals. She has also been a coach with two Challenge Success member schools and worked as a teaching and research assistant at Stanford University. Prior to receiving her doctoral degree, Dr. Miles taught fifth grade in Oakland, California, and worked as a clinical social worker in the Boston area.
Founded at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, Challenge Success partners with schools and families to develop research-based strategies that provide kids with the academic, social, and emotional skills needed to succeed now and in the future. Through practical workshops, conferences, and presentations, Challenge Success offers parents the tools they need to raise healthy, motivated kids, and collaborates with educators to develop school and classroom policies that encourage students to engage with learning to reach their individual potential and find a more effective path to success. Success, after all, is measured not at the end of the semester, but over the course of a lifetime. For more information about this organization, visit challengesuccess.org.
We wrote this book because we believe that with a clear vision, sufficient resources, and ample support, schools and families can make real changes that will benefit our children. The same can be said for the writing of this book, and we are extremely grateful for the help we received from our many friends and colleagues.
Our Challenge Success Cofounders Madeline Levine and Jim Lobdell helped to launch Challenge Success and continue to spread our message in what has become a national movement. We are indebted to them for their vision, persistence, and commitment to helping every child thrive. Our core team, Margaret Dunlap, Samantha Spielman, Emeri Handler, and Genie Hyatt, picked up the slack and kept the organization working smoothly when we disappeared for days to write. Our work on this book would not have been possible without their flexibility and sense of humor. Thank you, too, to Shannon Davidson for stepping in to help us meet our deadline; your careful eye and attention to detail was invaluable.
To our incredible interns, Christopher Geary, Emily Breyer, and Julia Maggioncalda: We can't thank you enough for your dogged research efforts, skillful interviewing, and the detailed work you completed to help us get the book ready for publication. Your persistence in tracking down everything we asked for was impressive.
We are also thankful to Challenge Success coaches Alexandra Ballard and Paul Franz, and to Jerusha Conner and Karen Strobel for providing us with the extra help we needed in writing our chapters on project-based learning, alternative assessment, and a climate of care. Your clear thinking and valuable advice helped us frame those sections of the book.
Our Challenge Success Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and Research and Policy Advisors play a critical role in everything we do, and we are grateful for their guidance and insight. In particular, we would like to thank our board chair Charlene Margot for her tremendous leadership, along with our past chairs, Gabrielle Layton and Lisa Stone Pritzker; without their support and vision, we would not be where we are today.
We also want to thank the many Challenge Success volunteers, students, faculty members, and administrators who contributed directly to the book by allowing us to interview them and tell their stories in our case studies. Thank you to Lisa Babinet, Megan Boesiger. Patrick Burrows, Drew Ciancia, Shivani Dayal, Laura Docter, Mary Dowden, Elizabeth Fee, Ryan Fletcher, Kirk Greer, Karen Klapper, Thomas Lengel, Alex Lockett, Charlene Margot, Jessica Nella, Sharon Ofek, Dave Otten, Kristin Plant, Amy Richards, Anne Schaefer-Salinas, Pam Scott, Casey Sheehan, Richard Simon, Lisa Spengler, Karen Strobel, Patricia Tennant, Janice Toben, Alan Vann Gardner, Carola Wittmann, Susie Wolbe, and Matthew Zito.
Thank you to our publishers and editors at Jossey Bass/Wiley, especially Kate Bradford who was tremendously patient as she waited for us to find the right time to write this book. Thank you for giving us the nudge to move forward with this project and the support to complete it.
Finally we would like to thank our families. Thank you to our children for letting us “Challenge Success you to death,” for being patient with us throughout this process, and for helping us realize that practicing what you preach isn't always easy or comfortable. Thank you to our parents for raising us to love learning and for giving us the encouragement to find jobs and careers that we love. And thank you to our fabulous husbands, Mike, Dave, and Kevin, who support all that we do at Challenge Success, and who remind us to prioritize PDF (playtime, downtime, family time), even amidst a busy project like this one. We love you guys, and are incredibly grateful to have you in our lives.
This is a fairly typical schedule for a high-achieving high school student. On top of seven hours of classes, some of which are honors or advanced levels, most students have sports practices after school, at least one other extracurricular activity—sometimes more—and several hours of homework. Other students may have fewer honors courses but have responsibilities at home or at after-school jobs that keep them just as busy. It is no wonder that these students are exhausted and stressed out. Our research at high-achieving schools has found that high school students get, on average, about six and a half hours of sleep each night (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013), in spite of the fact that sleep experts recommend approximately nine hours of sleep for healthy development (Eaton et al., 2010). National research also shows that academics are the leading cause of stress for nine- to thirteen-year-olds and a top concern for high school students as well (National Association of Health Education Centers, 2005). In response to this stress, students are increasingly engaging in harmful behaviors, including overuse of stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin, known as “study drugs,” binge-drinking, and “cutting” or other self-harm practices (Feliz, 2013; Goldberg, 2012). In fact, 73 percent of high school students say that stress is the main reason they use drugs (Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, 2008). The effects of this unhealthy stress and overload reach beyond high school; nationwide, 50 percent of college students have felt overwhelming anxiety, and 30 percent reported that they felt so depressed it was difficult to function (American College Health Association, 2012). Many students and parents feel they have no choice but to continue day after day at this frantic pace. They believe the prospect of a good education and future employment and security are at risk if they don't.
Admittedly, many students in the United States have schedules that look nothing like the one at the start of this chapter. For a wide variety of reasons, these students may be struggling in remedial or basic level classes or on the verge of dropping out of school; they may spend very little time on homework or extracurricular activities and may have too much free time on their hands. For many of these kids, the current education system isn't working. But is it working well for the typical student who stays in school, strives to learn the material, earns good grades, and plans to go to college? In light of the mental and physical health concerns just outlined, along with reports of rampant cheating in high school and college (for a review, see Challenge Success, 2012a), and research showing that many students—even those at the top—lack sufficient critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving skills (American Management Association, 2010; Casner-Lott & Barrington, 2006; Darling-Hammond & Conley, 2015; Lythcott-Haims, 2015), we question whether the current education system is preparing students well for college and future careers. At Challenge Success, we offer students, parents, and schools strategies for healthier and more productive pathways to success.
Challenge Success, a research-based project founded at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education, partners with schools and families to provide the information and tools needed to create a more balanced and academically fulfilling life for kids. Cofounders Denise Pope, Madeline Levine, and Jim Lobdell started Challenge Success because, as mental health and education-reform experts, they knew they had to speak out against an increasingly fast-paced world that was interfering with sound educational practices and harming kids physically and mentally. The program, which grew from Denise Pope's original work on Stressed-Out Students and celebrated a 10-year anniversary in 2013, has reached almost 800,000 students, faculty, administrators, and parents throughout the United States and across the globe. During our first decade we have learned what works and what doesn't when trying to make changes in schools and in homes. At the urging of those who have worked closely with us, we decided to write a book of best practices that we hope will be shared widely so that more schools and families can benefit from what we have learned.
While everything we do is based on research, our goal is to provide practical information and tools to effect change. We know that teachers, administrators, and parents can get overwhelmed by the research and jargon associated with school reform, and we are here to help. We review and synthesize the literature from the field, match those findings with knowledge from our own research and practice, and then help translate research into reality. We work with teams of educators, parents, and students at schools to identify problems and implement changes to school policies concerning curriculum, assessment, scheduling, and a healthy school climate. We provide support to parents by giving them the tools they need to help their children regain their balance, strengthen their sense of self, and learn how to deal effectively with the inevitable challenges of life. And we share our research findings widely via white papers, conferences, and webinars, so that the public can make informed decisions about educating children and advocating for changes in local communities.
At Challenge Success, we know that every child has his or her own story and path to success. We believe that kids come with a wide variety of interests, skills, capacities, and talents. They need love, support, limits, and a safe environment to develop their full potential. This process of growing up is slow, deliberate, and often unpredictable, and therefore requires that kids have the time and energy needed to mature into resilient, caring, and engaged adults. Challenge Success recognizes that our current fast-paced, high-pressure culture works against much of what we know about healthy child development. The overemphasis on grades, test scores, and rote answers has stressed out some kids and marginalized many more. We all want our kids to do well in school and to master certain skills and concepts, but our largely singular focus on academic achievement has resulted in a lack of attention to other components of a successful life—the ability to be independent, adaptable, ethical, and engaged critical thinkers. These traits, frequently described as 21st century skills, have and will continue to serve students well into the next century. Our work helps to foster learners who are healthy, motivated, and skilled with these traits that will prepare them for the wide variety of tasks they will face as adults.
What have we learned over the last 10 years? Some policymakers and those in the media want us to believe that schools are broken, but our experience doesn't bear that out. The teachers we meet care about their students and work hard. Our team-based approach and in-depth professional development have shown that it is possible to make changes to further improve schools. By focusing on what works, like hands-on learning and alternative assessments, as well as educating students and parents about healthier ways to handle stress, we have positively impacted tens of thousands of kids. For instance, as seen in the table below, schools make changes even in their first few years working with Challenge Success.
How do we know if our work is making a difference? From our own evaluation following a small sample of schools over time, we found that when schools make substantive changes to practices and policies such as those in the table below, student engagement in school increases and student stress decreases. In addition, many students report they feel more supported in school, are less likely to cheat, and are getting more sleep (Challenge Success, 2014). Finally, schools report that these changes happen without negatively affecting students' academic achievement, college acceptance rates, or standardized test scores. We hope that compiling our lessons from the field and sharing best practices will allow more schools and families to make positive changes like these, so that all kids can succeed on their own terms and live healthier and more fulfilled lives.
Table I.1 Initiatives in Schools as a Result of Work with Challenge Success
| Percentage of schools accomplished or in progress by Year 2 | Percentage of schools accomplished or in progress by Year 3 | Examples of initiatives accomplished or in progress | |
| Students' schedule and use of time | 100% | 100% | Revised exam or project calendars Changed homework policies Provided students with organizers Changed to a later start time Implemented new bell schedules Moved to modified block scheduling Revised athletics schedules Instituted homework-free vacations with finals before winter holiday |
| Used scheduling tools to prevent over- and underscheduling of AP/honors courses | |||
| Project-based learning | 40% | 50% | Added community-building school-wide projects Modified units to incorporate project-based learning Incorporated project-based learning into final assessments |
| Alternative assessment | 80% | 90% | Modified grading policy/weights Gave ungraded assignments in first quarter (comments only/no letter grade) Lowered significance of or eliminated mid-term and final exams and included more formative assessment practices Implemented “Revision & Redemption” policies |
| Climate of care | 80% | 100% | Added new advisory periods Initiated student mentorship programs Offered extra help periods/tutorials Established a Student Union Implemented wellness programs Conducted senior exit interviews Modified awards assemblies |
| Educating faculty, parents, and students about well-being | 100% | 100% | Organized parent book club discussion groups Held school-wide health fairs Offered faculty professional development on effective homework practices and teaching for engagement Created parent education programming Started student-run Challenge Success clubs |