A Blueprint for Creating Schools that

Work

“Things remain the same because it is impossible

to change very much without changing most

everything.”

-T. Sizer

Practices, Policies, Procedures, Decisions and

Actions--In effect, EVERYTHING

is based on what is best for the students

VISION

• One’s mental and written picture of a preferred future

• Ask Yourself, Ask your staff, and ask your stakeholders,

“What would it look like if everything were just right?” (and keep asking this over time)

Useful Rule of Thumb

• Whenever you cannot describe the vision driving a change initiative in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest, you are in for trouble.

-John Kotter

What is Your Vision?

Management is all about

ALIGNMENToOf StructuresoProcessesoPractices oPeople

• Leadership involves the capacity to create and gain consensus around a compelling vision.

• Management involves the ability to make the vision a reality.

• And both are important.

The Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change• 1. Establishing a sense of urgency• 2. Creating the Guiding Coalition• 3. Developing a Vision and Strategy• 4. Communicating the Change Vision• 5. Empowering Employees for Broad-

Based Action• 6. Generating Short-Term Wins• 7. Consolidating Gains and Producing

More Change• 8. Anchoring New Approaches in the

Culture - John Kotter

These Steps Help to Defrost a Hardened Status Quo

1. Establishing a sense of urgency 2. Creating the Guiding Coalition 3. Developing a Vision and Strategy 4. Communicating the Change

Vision

These Steps Introduce Many New Practices

5. Empowering Employees for Broad-Based Action

6. Generating Short-Term Wins 7. Consolidating Gains and

Producing More Change

This Grounds the Changes in the Culture and Helps Them to Stick

8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

• People often try to transform organizations by undertaking only steps 5, 6, and 7

• Especially if it appears that a single decision will produce most of the needed change

Without the follow-through that takes place in Step 8,

8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

You never get to the finish line and make the changes stick.

Establishing a Sense of Urgency

• Examining the market and competitive realities

• Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities

• What data will you use to establish a sense of urgency?

• How will you identify and discuss your potential crisis or major opportunity?

Creating the Guiding Coalition

Create Trust

• Through carefully planned events• With lots of talk and joint activities

• Contractual Trust-- expectations• Communication Trust--truthfulness• Competence Trust--ability to do what is

needed

• Then Develop a Common Goal-o Sensible to the head o Appealing to the heart

Developing a Vision and Strategy

Characteristics of an Effective Vision

ImaginableDesirableFeasibleFocusedCommunicable

The Vision Paradox

• Visions seldom comes from the group. They are usually the creation of one person.

• However, successful visions require commitment, ownership, and a broad consensus

Communicating the Change Vision

Key Elements in the Effective Communication of Vision• Simplicity• Metaphor, analogy, and example• Multiple forums• Repetition• Leadership by Example• Explanation of seeming inconsistencies• Give and take

Empowering People to Effect Change

• Communicate a sensible vision to staff• Make structures compatible with the

vision• Provide needed professional

development • Align information and personnel systems

to the vision• Confront those who undercut needed

change

Empowering Employees for Broad Based Action

Empowering Employees for Broad Based Action

• How does a school leader empower people to effect change?

Generating Short-Term Wins

“Schools need to adopt the ongoing spirit of concern with incremental but relentless improvement, however small.”

-Jay McTighe

Short Term Goals

Purpose of Short term goals-Divides the School Improvement long range district or building goals into smaller and more manageable skills

- Creates a plan of strategies to address smaller skills which build toward solving annual and long range goals.

Short Term Goals

Help districts stay focused on what is important- annual and long range district/building goals

Show if professional development strategies are being effective

Demonstrate how the efforts and commitment from instructors are paying off to increase student achievement

Short Term Goals

Holds staff accountable for implementation of professional development strategies

Determines additional actions needed

Helps staff want to learn more through continuous feedback

Makes long range and annual goals meaningful

Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change

• Rule of Thumb- Resistance is Always Waiting to Reassert Itself

• Not “Congratulations- we made it!!… instead…“We have reached our goal and the new goal we have set for ourselves is…”

“The best way to train change-agent leaders is on the job, tackling live problems seeking to achieve specific goals…”

“ …To be agents of change, school leaders must know how to set meaningful goals, measure success, alter procedures based on results, and invest money where it matters. These leaders are not born. Leadership skills can be taught and learned.”-Alton Crews

Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

Vision Results

Collaboration

Support for increased Student Achievement

• Schools are Organizations

• We can learn a lot from other organizations and businesses- as students and parents are our clients.

• We must acknowledge that schools would perform better if teachers and administrators worked in focused, supportive teams.

An example of teamwork with clear goals and data analysis-Teachers work in departmental teams that conduct ongoing analysis of performance data. Each team meets once a month to collaborate. Data results are analyzed four times each year.

Additional time is built into the school day for professional development time for teachers and administrators to collaborate and plan. Actions are established based upon results- oriented teamwork….

• Adlai Stevenson HS in 1985-- The school did not rank in the top 50 schools in the 13 state Midwest region.

• 1992- Goals were established and collaborative time was introduced

-- The school ranked first in the region

• 1994- Adlai Stevenson was among the top 20 schools in the world…

Last year the school established new records in every traditional indicator of student achievement, including grade distributions, failure rates, average ACT scores, percentage of honor grades on Advanced Placement exams, and avg. scores in each of the five areas of the state achievement test.-(DuFour 1995, p.35)

“High Stakes for High Schools”

“The schools that seem to be moving are the ones that

become well organized in their mission- and departments work

within themselves and together…

…These are the schools that look at the data, organize the curriculum, and respond to

the needs.”

–Dr. Richard Elmore, Harvard University

Poorly Organized Schools-• Lack coordinated professional development• Lack of organizational response• Poorly aligned internal processes• Lack of communication and alignment

between departments and between teachers about curriculum and instruction

“It is easier to move a cemetery than to effect

a change in curriculum.”

-Woodrow Wilson

“Holding Accountability Systems Accountable”

“We don’t know how to align assessment with curriculum. It’s entirely descriptive-crude ways of thinking about content and learning theory…

… Our level of understanding is rudimentary.

And yet, it’s absolutely critical.”

- Dr. Richard Elmore

Greatest Impact on Student Achievement:

oFocusing on the Objectives the benchmarkthe learning target the essential question

When we communicate between departments and between teachers about

curriculum and instruction,

We can ALIGN what we teach.

The U.S. invests far less pre-service and in-service preparation of teachers and allows much greater variability in teachers’ access to knowledge.

Many European and Asian countries support high-quality teaching by pegging teacher salaries like engineering or civil servants to prevent shortages of qualified teaching personnel.

“Teaching for High Standards: What Policymakers Need to

Know and Be Able to Do”

Countries are providing beginning teachers with intensive mentoring programs and reduced teaching loads so they can gradually learn to teach professionally.

Schools are building extensive time for learning and collective planning into teachers’ schedules so they can work together.

Teachers in other countries spend a significant amount of time watching one another teach and regularly visiting other schools and polishing lessons with one another.

In Japan, new teachers participate in seminars and training sessions and undertake 60 days of in-school professional development in various teaching topics.

Systems provide teachers with greater preparation to help ensure that they make good decisions about curriculum, teaching and assessment.

The suggestions the report makes for United States schools are:

Organize teacher education and professional development around standards for students and teachers

Institute extended graduate level teacher preparation programs that provide year-long internships in a professional development school.

Create and fund mentoring programs for beginning teachers that provide support and assess teaching skills.

Create stable, high-quality sources of professional development and allocate one percent of state and local spending to support them, along with additional matching funds to school districts that invest in teacher learning.

Embed professional development in teachers’ daily work through joint planning, study groups, peer coaching, and research.

Darling-Hammond, L. and Ball, D.The National Commission on Teaching

and America’s Future.

“Recent from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS)

corroborates the idea that a focus on concrete instructional practice results in

increased student learning.

Countries in TIMMS that scored well in mathematics and science tended to have less complex curricula, greater coherence of curriculum across all grade levels, and

greater emphasis on narrowing the range of quality in the curriculum actually delivered

in the classroom.

Hence, when school organization and policy reinforce a focus on curriculum and embody clear expectations about

the range of acceptable quality delivered in the curriculum, a broader

range of students learn at higher levels.

(Schmidt, et al. 1997, Stigler and Heibert, 1999)

“Building a Structure for School Leadership”

Richard Elmore

Dr. Beverly Showers-

The Georgia Study

Ethos, Ethos, and Ethos (Culture, Culture, & Culture)

Thesis: BELIEFS POWER ACTIONS

High and Low Achieving Schools were compared

Similarities Resources Offerings Providers

Time for Staff Development Content

(Heavy in reading)

No Significant Differences in Any of these areas.

DifferencesGovernance

Principal LeadershipDelivery and Focus

SES was not a determiner in successful schools.

It was a study about leadership.

The higher performing schools-

More support and involvement from staff

Lower performing schools-

Governance more top down-

“Look what they are making us do.”

•Lower performing schools-

Principal Leadership-“It takes 5-10 years to get

something done” &

“The community doesn’t really support us.”

•The higher performing

schools-•

Principals were involved and were leaders with high

expectations•

“The Board and Community are excited- we’ve gotten a

lot done in one year.”

It is not only the content of professional development-

the culture matters-

Building Ethos Matters

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”-Margaret Mead