Meeting 15
March 24-25,2011
Garden Grove, CA
The California Collaborative on District Reform convened for the fifteenth time on March 24 and 25, 2011 to explore the ways in which Garden Grove Unified School District has pursued increased access to and preparation for post-secondary success. Dialogue during the two-day meeting addressed strategies around student placement, instructional quality (especially for English Learners), and grading practices, with a particular focus on implementation that creates deep and lasting change. All meeting participants received a briefing book of resources and literature on understanding college readiness, student placement, accessing content, standards-based grading, and scale-up and sustainability; these resources are available below.
Meeting Summary (PDF 186 KB)
Briefing Book
- Cover Letter (PDF 67 KB)
- Overview of Garden Grove Unified
- College Readiness
- Student Placement: Garden Grove
- Student Placement: Ensuring Access
- Accessing Content: Garden Grove
- Accessing Content: Language and Instruction
- Standards-Based Grading: Garden Grove
- Standards-Based Grading: Literature
- Scale-Up and Sustainability
Follow-Up
Report produced as an outcome from Meeting 15.
You’ll Never Be Better Than Your Teachers: The Garden Grove Approach to Human Capital Development (PDF, 1.26 MB)
September 2013
Teachers matter. Educators, policymakers, and the general public alike agree that great teachers are vital to a thriving K-12 education system, yet the pathways to assembling a high quality teaching force remain elusive. This case study of Garden Grove Unified School District, winner of the 2004 Broad Prize for Urban Education, demonstrates what a comprehensive approach to maximizing teacher quality can look like in practice. The report examines the strategies behind the district’s two key levers for improvement: (1) getting the best teachers and (2) building the capacity of the teachers it has. The story of Garden Grove is less about what it does, however, than how the district approaches its work. The report therefore explores the district culture and commitment to continuous improvement that produce effective practices of human capital development and enable these practices to achieve success.