Leadership: Connecting Vision With Action

Presented by: Jan StanleySpring 2010 Title I Directors’ Meeting

Overview

• Relationship between district leadership and student achievement

• District leadership responsibilities related to student achievement

• District commitments that impact student achievement

WV Goals for Education

• Consistent and equitable gains in student achievement

• Increasing high school graduation rates

• Ensuring college and career readiness

• Preparing all students with the global 21 skills necessary for success in the 21st century

What is the relationship between district leadership and student achievement?

Leadership Framework

Change is RequiredHow is it viewed?

Current Status• Extension of the past• Within the existing

paradigms• Consistent with

current values and beliefs

• Implementing with existing knowledge and skills

Necessary for Improvement

• A break with the past• Outside of the existing

paradigms• Conflicts with current

values and beliefs• Requires new

knowledge and skills to implement

Leading the Change Process

What district leadership responsibilities are related to student achievement?

District Leadership Responsibilities • Collaborative goal setting process

• Non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction

• Alignment of board of education goals with district goals and board of education support for district goals

• Monitoring the goals for achievement and instruction

• Use of resources to support goals

Collaborative goal setting processs• Include all relevant stakeholders

• Conduct an extensive needs assessment

• Require involvement of all building level administrators

• Share the draft goals with school leadership teams

• Reach consensus on the district goals and communicate expectations to all stakeholders

Non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction

• Identify the non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction

• Set specific achievement targets for the district as a whole, individual schools and for subgroups within the district

• Inform all staff members of the goals• Create an action plan to achieve the goals (district

strategic plan)• Adopt a broad, but common framework for instructional design• Establish a common instructional vocabulary• Expect consistent use of research based

instructional practices in each school

Alignment of board of education goals with district goals and board of education support for district goals

• Ensures the goals remain a top priority• Makes certain no other initiatives detract

attention from the achievement goals• Guarantees adequate resources are allocated

to accomplish goals• Assumes all board members are committed to

the adopted goals and not their own interests and district expectations

• Provide professional development for board members

Monitoring the goals for achievement and instruction

• Ensure highly qualified and highly effective teachers are in every classroom and highly effective administrators are in every building

• Provide differentiated professional development for teachers in both pedagogy and content based on need

• Determine what instructional and management strategies are being used by teachers and evaluate the effectiveness on student achievement

• Develop a district set of instructional design questions and a rubric to use for a teacher profile

• Involve teachers in action research through the professional learning communities to determine the effectiveness of instructional strategies• Permit teachers to observe “master teachers”

Use of resources to support goals

• Consider the four basic resources:• Time• Personnel• Money• Materials

• Dedicate money to professional development for both teachers and administrators

• Ensure that school based professional development is occurring and aligned to

the district goals

What are the three critical commitments a district should consider related to student achievement?

Commitments for Improving Achievement

• Develop a system of individual student feedback

• Ensure effective teaching in every classroom

• Build background knowledge for all students, particularly those most at risk

Develop a system of individual student feedback• Evaluative vs. descriptive feedback

• Common formative assessments of each learning target

• Professional learning communities meet periodically to discuss teaching strategies and the student achievement results –track student progress on learning goals

• Training for teachers in standards based grading

• Standards based report cards

Ensure effective teaching in every classroom• Examine effective pedagogy-develop

instructional design questions– What strategies do I use to help students effectively

interact with new material?– What strategies do I use to engage students in

learning?– What strategies do I use to help students practice

and deepen their understanding of new knowledge?

• Conduct action research– Strategy should be selected by the PLC– Action research can be formal

or informal

Ensure effective teaching in every classroom

• Establish a structure and format for the professional learning communities– Describe the strategy tried– Describe the effect on student learning and

present evidence– Describe how the strategy was used in a lesson– Describe areas of improvement for the teacher

Ensure effective teaching in every classroom

• Have teachers observe master teachers applying instructional strategies– Identify “master teachers”– Overall effectiveness in teaching is defined in

terms of student learning– Teachers observe “master teachers” based on a

specific instructional design question-student engagement

Ensure effective teaching in every classroom

• Monitor the effectiveness of individual teaching styles– Conduct at the district and school levels – Provide descriptive feedback-capitalizing on

strengths and for improving weaknesses-to teachers

– Focus on student learning as apposed to using specific strategies as criterion for effective teaching

– Collect data on teachers as well as students– Develop goals for improvement –focus

on student engagement and learning

Build background knowledge for all students

• Differentiate between “academic” background knowledge and social knowledge

• Recognize differences in vocabulary knowledge based on socioeconomic levels

• Develop district conceptual academic terms• Provide direct, explicit instruction in academic

terms that is consistent across the district

Concluding thoughts

No one questions the pace, the scope and the implications of change in today’s world. Change is the one constant of which we can all be certain.

Questions for district leaders Are you as a leader willing to examine the

district practices and consider alternatives likely to produce improved results?

Will the changes result in improvement? Are you as a district leader willing to commit

yourself to continuous improvement?

Acknowledgements

This presentation was developed based on the research of the following individuals:

• Greg Cameron, M.A.• Robert Marzano, Ph.D.• J. Timothy Waters, Ed. D.