ABSTRACT
District M pursued a standards-focused instructional improvement strategy with many resemblances to the San Diego and District 2 approaches, but it also touted a policy emphasizing parental choice among the District's 14 middle schools, most of which were small alternative schools, reminiscent, indeed, of the thousand flowers approach that Alvarado once championed. This chapter takes readers inside three middle schools within District M to understand, from the schools’ vantage points, how the two reform theories converged and interacted with one another, to the benefit or detriment of teaching and learning. It examines in more detail what the two reform theories presume about instructional improvement and systemic change and consider how each might complement or interfere with one another. The chapter provides examples of how instruction reflected the district's insistence on standards-based practice and evidence that student learning has improved over time.
