In the past several years, Noyes Education Campus has gone from being one of the lowest performing DC public schools in the district to one of the highest. In 2001, Noyes was declared a “transformation school.” Wayne Ryan was hired as the new principal and truly has transformed the school. The entire staff was overhauled, leaving only two of the former teachers. Also, Principal Ryan completely changed the culture of the school to one of high expectations for teachers and students, and as a result test scores improved significantly. The percent of students ‘proficient’ or above has increased by 53 percentage points over the last four years in math and 60 percentage points in reading (see Exhibit 7).

The transformation at Noyes has been no easy task, but the tactics they have used are applicable to other schools in the district, including:

• Creating a safe, respectful and positive learning environment that “students (and adults) love to enter and hate to leave”
• Providing weekly professional development and strong instructional leadership
• Engaging parents through daily homework, weekly progress reports, monthly newsletters and more
• Analyzing interim assessment data four times throughout the year and using results to guide instruction and provide students with additional skill development where needed

Principal Ryan is confident that similar gains are possible in other DC schools. When asked what might prevent other DC public schools from making similar progress, he said “Nothing. We work really hard – teachers, students, everybody. But there’s no reason other schools can’t do what we’re doing.”