The very foundation of the North Central Association is embedded in the mandate that target goals and strategies include the word "all" in their descriptors. Attention and interventions are not limited to those who can improve with only slight prodding; any school that does not move all four quartiles of students forward, despite whatever average is reached on a standardized test, has not embraced the spirit of a school improvement plan.

Given this reality, how do schools with populations that are predominately minority, predominately poor, and predominately English learners achieve continuous improvement that is measurable and sustainable? One example is seen at Nogales High School in Nogales, Arizona, where fully 98% of the students are Hispanic, and 60% qualify for free or reduced lunch. More than 90% of the current student body started their education speaking only Spanish, and approximately 75% still qualify as English learners when they enter high school.

Nogales High School (NHS) has long been a leader in NCA school improvement and was one of the pioneers of the outcomes-based accreditation process in Arizona. Currently, the campus and its feeder schools are now one of the first to adopt the district-wide improvement plan recently made available in the state. Five of the six elementary schools and both middle schools that feed into the high school are already accredited and have years of experience in the continuous school improvement process. The sixth elementary school just re-joined the NCA family earlier this school year.

As part of the first Outcomes Accreditation cycle eight years ago, writing was selected as one of the target areas at NHS. Through brainstorming, numerous committee meetings, and faculty workshops, a series of strategies was developed. The over-riding philosophy of the school was summed up in the statement that all educators are responsible for teaching reading, writing, and math, and their individual curriculum is a vehicle through which these basic skills are reinforced. While it took a few years to become standard practice, now more than 96% of the teachers are following the writing requirements and using specific writing strategies, as indicated on a faculty survey given at the end of the last school year.

When writing was first adopted as a target goal, these strategies were directed toward showing improvements in grade point averages, the graduation rate, and through scores on the Stanford-9, even though the Stanford-9 did not measure actual writing samples. Then the state mandated that students pass the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) in order to earn a diploma. Unlike the Stanford-9, which purports to measure writing only through multiple-choice questions, the AIMS requires an actual essay that is graded using the six-traits assessment. The state even identified which traits it would measure: ideas and content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. NHS now assesses all students using this state writing rubric, and when writing scores are reported, they are based on the six-point scale of this rubric. Using this method, a score of "6" is the highest possible in each of the traits, and a "1" reflects only that a very minimal attempt was made. When translated into possible "points," the highest possible is a 36-a score of six in each of the six traits.

There have been numerous revisions in the state writing standards and even more changes to the test itself; however, the possibility now existed that students who could not produce an essay in a drop-and-write situation to a specified high standard using the six-trait rubric would be denied a diploma. This was motivation enough to push writing across the curriculum to new heights.

All teachers, not just those in the English Department, are trained in the writing process and in using the six traits as both a teaching guide and an assessment. New teachers are mandated to take the training early in the school year and are assigned mentors who help them develop lessons. The lessons are designed to improve skills of English learners, although they are appropriate for all students. To get the emphasis on writing organized, six years ago English teachers establish portfolios for all students and developed a scope-and-sequence curriculum that mandated numerous writings per student each year. All other teachers are required to have at least one writing per semester that follows the writing process and is assessed using the six traits. Currently, that translates into having every student, even those not in honors classes, write a minimum of 10 papers a year that are officially assessed and recorded according to a common standard.

Every teacher is provided an inkpad and a stamp that has the six traits already imprinted on it. All teachers are given a guidebook that gives step-by-step directions in how to write each of the writing standards, copies of the state rubrics, explanations of each trait, and sample essays for each writing (personal narrative, research document, communications, literary analysis, and persuasive essay). In past years, each department received training from an English teacher in writing that was most appropriate to that curriculum, such as writing a documented essay or lab report.

The increased achievement in writing could not have been achieved simply through increased emphasis within the English Department. Given the low writing skills of the students, it took a total-school effort to show measurable gains. The fact that measurable growth was made is a tribute to the faculty as a whole. To cite just one example, last year the band teacher had students write reports on the history of jazz and on Pearl Harbor, which was the theme of one of the half-time performances. It is this support from educators outside the English, science, and social studies departments that has made a difference for many students, especially those who are not enrolled in the honors English classes that, by their very nature, require more rigorous writing.

In fact, it was decided within the English Department four years ago that all students, even those in the regular English and English as a Second Language classes, would write a minimum of two papers reflecting the five genres listed earlier on a yearly basis. One paper is a guided practice and the other is used as an assessment. Most English teachers view this requirement as a minimum and by the time students are seniors, most of their portfolios are overflowing with writing samples well beyond this minimum.

While the entire faculty pushes writing, the bulk of the work still falls to the English Department. In order to address the need for improvement in reading and writing, the entire curriculum was overhauled. English teachers met over three summers to closely align the English curriculum to state standards and to specify in detail reading, writing, and speech requirements at each grade level. This realignment meant a great deal of compromise; teachers had to give up favorite units that did not necessarily address the state standards, especially in writing. However, through constant monitoring and re-adjusting, the English curriculum is now totally aligned to state standards. In addition, the faculty voted to mandate that all students submit required writings or they will not receive credit in the class.

The number of students who failed English because they did not have one or more required writing was quite high four years ago, but last year represented only a fraction of the failures. Just this innovation in and of itself helped to get students to write because in the past, many would simply not do a writing assignment with the knowledge that other grades would be enough to at least let them pass the class. Now, regardless of other grades on non-writing assignments, that is not possible. Students who do fail an English class and retake it in summer school must also turn in all writing assignments in order to get credit. Summer school is no longer a watered-down version of the regular class.

In addition, over the past two years the English Department has developed common nine-week and semester exams based totally on writing. The first nine-week exam required writing a business letter. The first semester exam is a literary analysis. The third quarter test is a persuasive essay, and all students write a mini research paper for the final exam in May. The key word here is "all." There are no exceptions. English teachers grade the first quarter and both semester tests while the faculty as a whole grades the third quarter exam, following a refresher workshop on the six traits. This is an excellent opportunity for the faculty to sharpen their writing assessment skills and to reinforce the need to focus on writing in all content areas.

Of course, there are many other writings in almost every class, ranging from summaries to research documents to personal narratives that are not graded so rigorously. These writings supplement the writing mandates, and each teacher is free to give as many or as few of these types of assignments as is appropriate to a particular class and/or grade level.

To keep the focus on writing, at least twice a semester the entire faculty participates in in-services that focus on writing strategies. Local school leaders who have received high-powered training themselves lead most of these sessions, but on occasion experts from outside the community are hired to direct workshops. Several times the faculties of the two middle schools and even on occasion, the elementary schools have joined the high school in these training sessions.

The end result? When the first AIMS test was administered two years ago, Nogales High School actually scored above state averages when it came to the written essay itself, outscoring the state as a whole in five of the six traits and tying on the other.

As explained above, the highest score in each trait is a "6" and the lowest a "1." A breakdown of the actual scores comparing Arizona state averages and NHS on each of the six traits on the writing essay is shown in Table 1 below. While NHS did not score significantly higher than state averages on the writing essay, the mere fact that the students did as well and, in some cases, better was most heartening.

Table 1

2000 AIMS Writing Assessment Scores by Trait for State and Nogales High School

Trait	Arizona Average	NHS Average
Ideas and content	3.2	3.5
Organization	3.2	3.4
Voice	33	3.5
Word Choice	3.3	3.4
Sentence fluency	3.3	3.4
Conventions	3.3	3.3

The results of last year's AIMS were recently released, and once again, NHS scored slightly above the state average on the essay portion of the exam. As is common with a state assessment, the way scores were reported changed. Instead of giving a break-down on each of the six traits, the state divided students into four categories: those who exceeded standards in writing, those who met the standards, those who approached the standards, and those who fell far below the standards. The state reported that 68% of all students who took the AIMS essay writing assessment statewide fell into the range entitled "meets or exceeds." NHS had a 69% "meets or exceeds" rate on the essay portion of the test.

What makes these statistics more remarkable is that in reading and math, NHS falls below state averages, and in some instances, well below. In fact, on the portion of the AIMS writing test that is devoted to multiple-choice questions, NHS students score below state averages. Test scores on the essay itself are a true anomaly. While many schools with high minority, high poverty student bodies make strides in reading, we have grown only slightly in this area. Math scores are stagnant or show only slight improvements with isolated sub-populations. However, our essay writing scores have skyrocketed over the past three years, even those for English learners. All subgroups have shown measurable and sustainable improvement in writing scores, even those who fall in the lowest quartile in reading. A breakdown of reading and math scores on the 2001 Stanford-9 test, reported as a percentile compared to the norm is reported in Table 2. A score of 28 means that NHS students did better than 28% of the normed students nationwide while 72% did better than NHS. These scores show that in the areas of reading and math, NHS does not achieve anywhere near the average or above average range, compared to where the majority of students nationwide fall.

Table 2

Percentile Scores on 2001 Stanford-9 for Nogales High School

Grade	Reading	Math
Ninth	28	39
Tenth	31	32
Eleventh	32	30
Twelfth	34	32

The writing scores themselves are not limited to verification on the AIMS. Several of our students have won local, state, and national essay contests. Arizona State University made it a point to write the school a letter praising the writing skills of entering freshmen. Several students have had works published in literary journals. There has not been one isolated strategy or specific teacher who made this achievement in writing a reality. It was truly a school-wide effort that represented a commitment to continuous school improvement for all students, not an isolated select few for whom writing comes naturally.

The Nogales Unified School District assesses writing every quarter for every student through a stop-drop-and-write type of a prompt that is universal for all students at a particular grade level. The District Assessment Office keeps records on these scores and releases statistics to show progress from first quarter through fourth quarter, broken down by how many students score in the "meets" expectations category (meaning they earned at least a 4.0 on the writing sample when graded using the six-trait rubric); the "approaches" category, 2.0-3.9 rubric score; and the "far below" category, 0 -1.9).

The Assessment Office prepared a chart showing the growth from first quarter through fourth quarter in each of the three categories and in ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades. Table 3 presents the results for 2000-2001. The improvement over a period of eight months is noteworthy, although it must also be acknowledged that approximately 50% of the freshmen still did not meet the writing standard and fell into the "approaches" or "far below" categories. Also, by the time the fourth quarter writing assessment had been given, 70 freshmen were no longer in the class.

Table 3

Percentile Scores Who Met Writing Expectations by Grade and Quarter in 2000-01

Class	"Meets" End of 1st Quarter	"Meets" End of 4th Quarter
Ninth	23.1% (536)	50.4% (466)
Tenth	45.6% (403)	66.9% (420)
Eleventh	51.1% (268)	76.2% (270)

Note. Numbers in parentheses represent n for each category.

The senior class was not included in last year's calculations but will be this year in order to allow a longitudinal study from grade level to the next grade level as well as from first through fourth quarter. In all class levels there is significant improvement, and a comparison of the ninth graders to those in eleventh and then again in twelfth shows this improvement is continuous.

Now that the latest AIMS essay assessment scores validate the increased writing skills of students for a second year in a row, NHS is looking to replicate that success in reading and math. It is certainly not the case that these areas have been ignored; however, the school-wide focus has been so strongly on writing across the curriculum that not all students have experienced what it took to get the other scores up. Students needed increased time-on-task by highly trained teachers in all subject areas across the curriculum. Even little touches provided, like guidebooks, and inkpads and stamps, moved the faculty into a supportive role. These little touches have yet to be done in the reading and math areas.

That is why this year NHS is focusing on reading in the same way that it attacked writing in the past. In-services are now centered on helping teachers develop reading strategies, and the mini-lessons given during our home base class (12-15 minute focus lessons) to all students of every ability level are centered on functional and technical reading. Two English teachers are providing tutoring help for an hour after school three days a week and two others are available every Saturday morning in the library. A summer tutorial for incoming freshmen has expanded its reading and study skills focus, and selected teachers from content areas other than English are slated to attend reading workshops off campus so they can share learned strategies with their departments.

All this effort is being made so that reading can enjoy the same distinction that writing now enjoys-namely, that students of all ability levels show improvement and that all students receive focused practice in the skills that will help them be successful while in school and in the their endeavors once they have graduated. It should be noted, however, that despite the low AIMS averages in reading reported over the last two years that NHS students who are fluent English speakers do very well. When aggregated from those who are identified as English learners, the fluent English speakers score above state averages. Given that the number of English learners is so high at NHS, when the scores of these students are averaged with the scores of the fluent English speakers, NHS falls far below acceptable levels. Since the philosophy of the school reflects the mandate of NCA in that all students must be successful, it is not acceptable that only fluent English speakers are doing well. After all, these students form less than 20% of the student body.

The main conflict facing the School Improvement Team this year is to find ways to stress reading without lessening the focus on writing, and at the same time to incorporate as much math as possible across the curriculum. Although the school day has been lengthened by 30 minutes this year, it is still a major challenge to find the time to address all these issues on more than a superficial level.

As Nogales High School has discovered, a superficial covering of the target areas is not enough to garner success for all students when the majority does not enter the freshmen year with basic skills intact. Minority and English learner students can reach state standards if the school improvement plan adjusts for their needs. The writing improvements are proof of that, and if it can be done in writing, it most certainly can be done in reading and math as well.