Patrick Lee, Director
When the superintendent of the troubled Oakland Unified School District in 2002 called on Patrick Lee, the director of research and assessment, he gave him a big problem to solve. Only three percent of the district teachers were complying with curriculum assessments—despite the fact that the assessments were mandatory.
Lee, who had worked as a teacher before getting his PhD in educational psychology at UC Berkeley, tackled the district’s predicament with compassion and thoughtfulness. “I wanted the teachers to see the value in doing the assessments,” he explained, “not threaten them.” Lee conducted focus groups
at school sites and discovered that the teachers had many legitimate frustrations with the assessment program.
Lee addressed the teachers’ concerns. He also asked them to consider the ways the assessment data could be used to improve classroom instruction. Lee then developed and implemented new systems for creating, administering, and reporting benchmark assessments in core subject areas. Within months, the compliance rate went up to 90 percent.
“Sometimes districts need to rethink their approach,” Lee explains. “Dialogue with principals and teachers can be invaluable in creating a new vision.” Lee’s face-to-face method has benefited numerous California school districts including San Francisco, San Lorenzo, Fremont, and South San Francisco. It has also brought him to national attention. The Stupski Foundation recruited Lee to direct its program to determine patterns of longitudinal growth in student achievement across 20 urban school districts. As an independent consultant, Lee has been invited to assist districts from Chicago to New Orleans. The American Education Research Association has twice recognized Lee for the excellence of his evaluation reports.
When Lee revisited an Oakland school after the new assessment guidelines were in place, he ran into a once skeptical teacher. With tears in his eyes, the teacher thanked Lee for ensuring that he got the data he needed to help his students.
