Voices Inside Schools: Beyond NCLB and AYP: One Superintendent's Experience of School District Reform

In this Voices Inside Schools essay, Ron Sofo, a school district superintendent in western Pennsylvania, argues that schools need bottom-up solutions more than topdown mandates if they are to prepare all students to meet twenty-first-century workforce demands. Framing the discussion in terms of his district's reform model — the "New 4 Rs" of rigor, relevance, relationships, and reflection — Sofo describes how one middle school developed a multifaceted, classroom-level intervention to support struggling learners. He then explains how that effort was scaled up to other grades and how insights from the initiative reverberated throughout the district. In telling his story, Sofo depicts the instructional reforms his staff undertook, the challenges they encountered, and the early indications of their success. His essay offers a window into the complex process of instructional reform at the classroom, school, and district levels.