The Learning Curve: The Principal Who Sparked Edison’s Turnaround

A couple weeks ago, we published the first installment of The Progress Report, a new monthly series about how innovations in education are panning out and what, if anything, they have to teach us. For that piece, I visited Edison Elementary, a City Heights school that has for years been defying educational gravity.   

After that piece came out, multiple people told me I needed to speak with Tavga Bustani, Edison’s former principal, who they credited with beginning to transform the once-struggling school. Luckily for me, Bustani also reached out.  

Bustani said that all her life, she’d been passionate about “doing the equity work,” by serving marginalized and underserved communities. When she was appointed as principal at Edison in 2008, she’d already worked as a teacher, and then as a vice-principal at Euclid Elementary, less than two miles down the road. She was familiar with research-based instructional practices and comfortable working with the community Edison serves, but she also acutely felt burdened with a new sense of responsibility. 

“I realized I was the principal now and I was responsible for turning around this school,” Bustani said.  

So, she went into prep mode, consulting both research and colleagues about what strategies are proven to work in high needs schools like the one she was entering. In the summer before she started, she gathered Edison’s teachers for two days of strategizing. Many of the changes they outlined that summer, and painstakingly implemented over the next four years, remain in place to this day. 

In 2007, Edison was one of seven San Diego Unified schools to qualify for additional funding following a settlement brought by the state’s superintendent of Public Instruction because it was among the lowest-performing district schools. According to School Accountability Report Cards from the time, which provide data on school performance, by the time Bustani left in 2012 to take a position in the district’s administration student’s test scores had increased by about 40 percentage points in each grade. She’s now an assistant superintendent at Fallbrook Union Elementary School District.

As every researcher and educator I’ve spoken to has said, that wasn’t magic. It required a constellation of changes to how students were taught, how administration monitored progress and even how staff interacted with each other.  

One of the key changes, and one that’s still blindingly evident when you visit the school today, was the fostering of a collaborative and robust professional learning community. That meant meeting regularly to coordinate, consult with data and learn from research and each other.  

Bustani said if there was one thing she’d recommend a struggling school focus on, at least initially, it’s building the culture of a professional learning community. Research has also long backed up their potency. 

“Professional learning communities are the engines that lead to improvement, especially in communities and schools like Edison,” Bustani said. “That’s where learning happens, where we collaborate, we share best practices, we analyze data, we celebrate why this class is getting outcomes, we get underneath barriers to student learning and we engage in cycles of inquiry.” 

But that wasn’t all. Bustani worked to ensure everything being taught was aligned with state standards, which allowed for greater cohesion from class to class and grade to grade. It also allowed for more unified assessments of learning, which was another strategy she pushed. 

“We said, ‘every student is going to leave our classroom having these standards under their belts.’ And teachers were very clear about that. So, we identified what are the key concepts students need? And then how are we going to track? How are we going to monitor that with our assessments?” Bustani said. 

Years later, the seeds planted during Bustani’s tenure are still bearing fruit.  

Bustani isn’t shy about the role her leadership played. When she was at the helm at Edison, she said she ensured she was creating the conditions needed for her teachers to succeed. She brought in a greater focus on data that could inform how much students are learning and what interventions may need to be implemented. She coached Edison’s teachers, modeled lesson plans and gave plenty of feedback. Voice wrote about all of this nearly a decade and a half ago. She also spent time in classrooms every day, speaking to kids one-on-one. That’s something Jamie Lee, Edison’s current principal, also echoed. 

But like Lee, Bustani credits Edison’s staff with much of the change. She said the changes required “all hands on deck,” and incorporated everyone from families to teachers to support staff. 

As to why this approach hasn’t been replicated at other high-needs schools, Bustani has fewer answers. Having a capable leader willing to spearhead a school’s transformation is one big piece of the puzzle, she said.  

But leaders come and go. What sticks around is a culture that extends from a commitment to learning and growth to a belief in students and community at large. Not even a thriving professional learning community can make up for a culture of respect and high standards. 

“So often, we see this type of change and unfortunately, once that leader leaves, (the school) reverts back to old practice and we start seeing the academic academics,” Bustani said. “What was unique about Edison is that we’ve built the capacity of teachers. They are leading the work, not the principal. They know what works and they’ve experienced success.” 

Content Bouncing Around My Mind Palace 

• Facing a shortage of teachers, Chula Vista Elementary School District decided to create a residency program that allows people to get paid while learning to do the job. (Union-Tribune)  
• California lawmakers, including San Diego Assemblymember David Alvarez, are demanding the University of California open more spots to in-state students at campuses. That may mean higher prices for out-of-state applicants. (EdSource)