Gering Public Schools: The School District to Watch

The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) has a new documentary video and article posted on one of their whole school reform implementations in Gering, Nebraska.

I have a short post on the video at d-ed reckoning.

The implementation began in 2004 and involves all four elementary schools in the district and the district's only junior high. Here's a chart I made up showing the status of the implementation.


As you can see, this year (07-08), the grades K-3 have had DI since they began school and grades 4-6 have all had four years of DI. The implementation is still fairly new and hasn't quite stabilized yet, but is already showing remarkable achievement gains. Some of these gains are shown in the documentary. I have also received additional information/data from NIFDI and Gering showing even more for you data nerds. I'll be posting on them soon.

What is even more noteworthy is that starting next year, the junior high (7th graders) will begin getting sixth grade students who have had four years of DI instruction. By the 2010 -11 school year, every grade of the junior high will have students with 4 to 6 years of DI instruction. Back in 2004, 90% of the seventh graders were placing in a remedial reading program (Reading Mastery VI or below). In 2008, Gering is projecting that only 10% will be reading on a remedial level. You can bet a good portion of these students are transfer students.

Even cooler is the fact that Gering only has one junior high school and one high school. Each of the four elementary schools, and only those schools, feed into the junior high, which then feeds into the high school. I don't think we have ever seen a public junior high school in which every student has received effective instruction in grades K-6 such that they aer almost all performing at grade level and ready to learn content area instruction.

I think this is a pretty big deal and Gering will be a model school showing what kind of academic improvement we can expect to see in a real public school district.

Stay tuned.