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A spring 2022 survey by Edge Research for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation showed 70 percent of high school graduates ages 18-30 who did not attend college viewed on-the-job training as the best path to career advancement. Soon after I was appointed superintendent in Cajon Valley in 2013, the district conducted a needs assessment that asked local government officials, business owners, military leaders and clergy members this: \"If the school district was yours to run, what would you do differently?\" Overwhelmingly, the response was to stop stigmatizing the most important work in our community, including public service, law enforcement, fire and rescue, health care, construction and the military. After attending the ThinkaBit Lab with a group of 8th graders, I asked Ed Hidalgo, creator of the ThinkaBit Lab at Qualcomm, to help Cajon Valley get students to be enthusiastic and engaged every day of school. The curriculum is digitized so students can track their strengths and interests over time as they explore more and more career possibilities. Because Cajon Valley students have access to these data, they quickly take ownership and are equipped to enter the world of work with a strong vocational identity and the self-assurance to tell their story when a prospective employer says, \"Tell me about yourself.\"

A spring 2022 survey by Edge Research for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation showed 70 percent of high school graduates ages 18-30 who did not attend college viewed on-the-job training as the best path to career advancement. Soon after I was appointed superintendent in Cajon Valley in 2013, the district conducted a needs assessment that asked local government officials, business owners, military leaders and clergy members this: \"If the school district was yours to run, what would you do differently?\" Overwhelmingly, the response was to stop stigmatizing the most important work in our community, including public service, law enforcement, fire and rescue, health care, construction and the military. After attending the ThinkaBit Lab with a group of 8th graders, I asked Ed Hidalgo, creator of the ThinkaBit Lab at Qualcomm, to help Cajon Valley get students to be enthusiastic and engaged every day of school. The curriculum is digitized so students can track their strengths and interests over time as they explore more and more career possibilities. Because Cajon Valley students have access to these data, they quickly take ownership and are equipped to enter the world of work with a strong vocational identity and the self-assurance to tell their story when a prospective employer says, \"Tell me about yourself.\"

Advances in educational research and technology have provided us with improved assessment tools, scientific research-based instructional strategies, software and data-management systems, and a bottomless well of resources for engaging students in learning. But despite these advances, and despite a modest political and societal effort to improve our nation's schools, achievement gaps persist. The problem is not that we lack knowledge about effective teaching strategies or good curricular materials, but that we cannot implement these where they matter most, inside classrooms. To address this central problem, a substantial professional development literature base and lessons learned from achieving schools indicate that the most effective methods of professional development involve teacher learning and collaboration based on the outputs of their students. This research study investigated the development and implementation of Reciprocal Teaching Parallel (RTP), a guided scaffold for building the habits of mind and communication essential to teacher learning and collaboration. Combining structured dialogue with the supports of modeling, coaching, and facilitating, RTP provided settings to improve teaching and learning. The central goal of the study was to identify the structures and behaviors that minimize limiting factors and enable teams of teachers in developing a system for analyzing student work, developing lessons based on student achievement data, and studying lessons for collaborative instructional improvement, while following teams of teachers through team development. Using action research and participant observation, the researcher documented a series of explicit connections between sources of influence that served as limiting factors, participant behaviors, participant perceptions, and student achievement. The investigation of these connections revealed a potential blueprint for other school leaders and teachers to use in building and sustaining professional learning communities. The study team progressed through three distinct phases of development; heavily structured (facilitated by an RTP consultant), mixed-facilitation (shared responsibility for planning and protocol), and self-managed (facilitated by team members). Through modeling pre-negotiated positive behaviors and explicitly using the RTP dialogue through each phase, team members developed habits of mind and communication essential to effective teacher learning and collaboration. The result was a dramatic increase in teacher efficacy and substantial gains in student achievement.