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Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education

Growing a Waldorf-Inspired Approach in a Public School District

By Diane Friedlaender, Kyle Beckham, Xinhua Zheng, and Linda Darling-Hammond

sco e Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education

The research and findings in this report were conducted independent of the funder. Portions of this document may be reprinted with permission from the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE). To reprint, please use the following language: "Printed with permission, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. ." For more information, contact us at scope@stanford.edu. Suggested citation: Friedlaender, D., Beckham, K., Zheng, X., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2015). Growing a Waldorf-Inspired Approach in a Public School District. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to note that the terms Waldorf?, Waldorf-Inspired?, Steiner?, and Rudolf Steiner? are registered trademarks of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. The trademark is used to ensure clarity, integrity, and the quality of services represented by the service mark. All reference to these terms in this report is intended to be aligned to the goals of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America.

The authors of the study would like to thank all who made this research possible. This project was funded by Steiner College, to which we are deeply grateful, not only for its generous financial support but also for the encouragement and partnership in this important work. We offer particular thanks to Liz Beaven for her enthusiastic support, essential help with historical data, and ensuring that we accurately represent the Waldorf educational approach. Secondly, we want to thank the Alice Birney Waldorf-Inspired School community for their generosity and openness to us. Teachers, administrators, parents, and students were forthcoming, honest, and welcoming and far exceeded our expectations in sharing their time and knowledge. In particular, Principal Mechelle Horning spent countless hours answering our questions, planning our visits, and reviewing drafts of this report and always provided thoughtful responses. We also appreciate the generosity of time and openness of administrators, teachers, parents, and students at A.M. Winn and George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science. Particular thanks to A.M. Winn principal Michael Kast and Carver principal Allegra Alessandri. We also truly appreciate the contributions of current and past district staff, in particular Mary Hardin Young and Jonathan Raymond for their essential contributions to this research. We appreciate the support of our copy editor, Louisa Potter, for sharpening our prose. At SCOPE, special thanks to Jon Snyder for his thoughtful feedback and ongoing support and to Alethea Andree and Terry Turner for thorough and thoughtful research support and keen eye. Finally, thanks to Lauren Koch for final edits and layout.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary..................................................................................................i Preface...................................................................................................................1

Research on Waldorf Schools...........................................................................1 Chapter 1: Introduction and Background of the Study..................................................4

Why Examine Public Waldorf-Inspired Schools?.............................................5 A Short History of Steiner Philosophy and Waldorf Schooling...................6 Chapter 2: Study Methods..........................................................................................11 Our Research Approach .................................................................................11 Chapter 3: Waldorf Education Comes to Sacramento City School District................13 Gradual and Deep Implementation of the Waldorf approach in SCUSD...13 Chapter 4: Alice Birney Waldorf-Inspired School in Action......................................21 Inside the Waldorf School...............................................................................21 Developmentally Appropriate Instruction for the Whole Child.................21 Child Development Theories as the Basis for Teaching................................34 Teaching Waldorf in a Public School: The Journey of a School as Family.......51 Parents as the Glue of Alice Birney...................................................................65 Chapter 5: Student Outcomes.................................................................................72 Life Readiness: Evidence of Success..............................................................72 Tracking Alice Birney Graduates to High School and Graduation................79 Prepared for a Full and Engaged Life as Change Makers..............................80 Chapter 6: Implications for Policy and Practice.....................................................86 District Support and School Advocacy Lead to Sustainability...................86 Developing and Sustaining Innovative Practice........................................92 Honoring the Value of Trained Teachers.........................................................95 Concluding Thoughts..............................................................................................99 Appendix A: Data Sources and Methodology........................................................100 Appendix B: Main Lesson Examples from Second and Sixth Grade.......................112 Appendix C: Sample Lesson Planning Template.....................................................116 Appendix D: The Expansion of Waldorf-Inspired Schools in SCUSD.......................117 Endnotes.......................................................................................................126 References.............................................................................................................127

Executive Summary

G rowing a Waldorf-Inspired Approach in a Public School District documents the practices and outcomes of Alice Birney, a Waldorf-Inspired School in Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD). This study highlights how such a school addresses students' academic, social, emotional, physical, and creative development. Birney students outperform similar students in SCUSD on several behavioral and academic measures. The study also examines how a district supports alternative models of education while working to ensure equitable access to a high quality education for all its students. This study provides an opportunity to learn from alternative approaches to schooling to help surface deeply embedded, often unchallenged, assumptions about public education and expand our understanding of the purpose of education and the practices that support the development of the whole child and deep student learning in public schools.

This mixed methods study was conducted over the 2013?14 and 2014?15 school years. We interviewed nearly 40 educators, students, and parents and engaged in almost 40 observations of classrooms, out-of-classroom activities, school events, and teacher trainings. Our quantitative research included an examination of multiple years of student record data from SCUSD including: 1) student demographic data, 2) student standardized test scores, 3) student attendance and behavioral data, and 4) graduation data.

Learning From an Alternative School in the Public Space

As the country moves from the era of NCLB (No Child Left Behind), with highstakes accountability and narrowing of the curriculum into the potentially more expansive era of Common Core, we can make the most of this critical window of transition to broaden our understanding of the purpose and essential components of a well-rounded education to better prepare students to both survive within and solve the problems of our world. Although this research focuses on a single school, our careful examination of its practices can help inform these goals. Our research also enables us to explore the potential of Waldorf and other alternative approaches in other public school settings, and explore the contextual conditions that support the effective implementation of such alternative traditions.

Grounded in Steiner's theory of child development. At Birney, the Waldorfinspired approach differs from many other public schools in the extent to which Birney extends its focus beyond providing students with specific knowledge and skills to prepare them for college and career, to also preparing children for meaningful lives in the broadest sense by developing them for physically, socially, artistically, and cognitively meaningful engagement with the world. A second difference is the extent to which Rudolf Steiner's, the founder of Waldorf Schools, theory of child development and goals for nurturing human development inform every aspect of

Growing a Waldorf-Inspired Approach in a Public School District

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