So Much Reform, So Little Change: part 5

The Way Forward

The reality is that the students who need the most help tend to be in lower-quality schools, with larger classes, fewer resources, and with less-prepared and less-experienced teachers. Given the complexity of the problem, where should we begin?

A good place to start would be to recognize that in a low-performing school, everyone is working below capacity. These aren’t necessarily bad teachers, bad administrators or bad students. Everyone is dragged down by – as well as a contributor to - an organizational culture that expects little and is deeply resistant to change.

(As Payne points out, this concept of working below capacity also includes the attitude towards time. The typical view is that there’s never enough of it, but he argues that there should be a lot more discussion in policy circles on making better use of the time we already have.)

So, while there are a few interventions that have demonstrated some success regardless – for example, formative assessments for diagnosing student learning problems, and smaller class sizes, particularly in the early years – it appears that the best approach to school reform is to focus on interventions that are “tools for increasing district capacity”.

What that means is that, in bottom-tier schools, the first year or two of a new initiative should be more about building organizational infrastructure than about trying to implement anything specific. (Besides, the search for the one best educational model is probably a lost cause. Even if such a model exists, these schools lack the organizational capacity to implement any model with reasonable fidelity.)

First, you need a superintendent who understands organizational dynamics, ideally someone with experience in public education (including experience in the classroom!) Then, as Jim Collins might say, it’s about ‘getting the right people on the bus.’ How do we do that?  

It should be obvious that you begin by paying teachers a living wage. But more importantly, the focus should be on trying to create an environment that is attractive to the kind of teacher that you want in your school: a culture that respects and values teacher contribution; that provides opportunities for collaboration and meaningful professional development; in which teachers are supported by administration; and in which the needs of students are placed above the needs of the adults.

Once you have the right people on the bus, there are some things we have learned – or should have learned - from decades of reform efforts.  (The central problem in struggling schools appears to be an historic lack of adult learning.) Research findings from nearly 40 years ago told us that:

•  training should be practical (not theoretical), teacher-driven and extended                    
• one-shot, drive-by teacher training doesn’t work
•  teachers should be provided with assistance in the classroom
•  teachers should have opportunities to observe similar project in other schools
•  teacher agency is strongly related to outcome
•  there should be regular meetings focused on practical problems 
• Principals should be active participants in the training.

In addition, research has shown that good implantation is more likely to occur:

• in smaller (i.e., “manageable”) schools;
• in schools where the focus is on strengths, not weaknesses (such as discipline problems, lack of student skills or parental support, etc.);
• where there is a stable team of consultants providing whole school support.

Finally, here’s a key insight that we ignore at our peril: all of this takes time. Organizational reform can’t be rushed. In fact, when people who have led reform efforts were asked what one thing they would do differently, the most common answer was “take more time” – for planning, for training, for reflection. The unfortunate paradox is that time is something the children don’t have.

So Much Reform, So Little Change, part 4

The Dynamics of Organizational Change

Payne challenges the idea that it is possible to change these schools without making anyone do anything they don’t want to do. As he sees it, the fallacy of this idea is based on an assumption of a ‘rational’ organization; that is, if you show the education professionals a better way to do something, they will naturally adopt it. But this ignores the fact that once hopelessness takes root in an organization, the organization ceases to function rationally.

Observing this dynamic at work, it’s easy to label it as resistance to change, but Payne argues that this is not entirely accurate, either. It’s more skepticism than actual resistance, and it manifests itself in predictable ways. Veteran teachers – who have seen reforms come and go - are more likely to be uncooperative than newer teachers. It’s also not uncommon for relatively successful teachers to be resistant, because they’re already doing well, and they don’t need some outsider telling them what to do!

A common scenario looks like this: there’s one group of successful teachers who are split about a given reform, another group of younger teachers who are pro-reform, but who have little political clout within the system. (These are often elementary teachers who seem to have a genetic predisposition to accept change.) And then there’s a group of older, high-status teachers who are adamantly opposed. This last group often has disproportionate influence as to whether any change will be adopted, and they give legitimacy to the doubters.        

Another issue with the implementation of education research lies in the mindset of the university researchers who develop the model. Because they spend much of their time in the ivory tower, they often have little understanding of the real-world demands on teachers and principals. Worse, a deeply ingrained cultural assumption that places the university at the top of the educational food chain often leads to a sense of superiority, unjustified confidence in the reform model, and a lack of interest in practitioner knowledge! A former superintendent in New Jersey once commented that not one of the university developers he had worked with over the years had felt it necessary to strategize with school leaders before starting work.

A quality superintendent is essential to the success of any proposed reform. Unfortunately, the tenure of most urban superintendents is less than three years, which is not nearly long enough for a significant organizational change to take root, and certainly not long enough to actually begin to make a difference - which further reinforces the ‘this too shall pass’ organizational mindset. Also unfortunately, the next guy typically has no interest in building on the work of his predecessor; he’s got limited time to establish his own reputation!

This ignores research that indicates it typically takes about five years for a comprehensive school reform to produce sustainable results. What typically happens is that a new intervention shows some early promise (which gets everyone excited), and then there’s a slight dip as the initial enthusiasm wears off. Then just about the time everyone is getting on the same page and becomes comfortable with what they’re doing, there’s a change in administration, and we’re on to something else.

The other scenario (particularly when there’s serious grant money involved) is that under relatively ideal conditions, a new intervention shows promise. Under pressure from funders, the reform is then ‘brought to scale’ under less ideal conditions, with diluted support and, predictably, less impressive results - and the plug gets pulled. (Unless the funders are of an ideological bent, in which case evidence, or the lack thereof, isn’t important.)

An interesting factoid: in the year before Katrina wiped away the deeply dysfunctional New Orleans school district, said district had posted its best test scores ever.

On that note, Payne offers some interesting insight into how the ground was prepared for the Michelle Rhee reign of terror in Washington, D. C.  In addition to pervasive outright corruption, the best description of the school district prior to her administration was this outside analysis: “the district hasn’t done anything to improve student achievement.” When there’s nowhere to go but up, it engenders a willingness try anything.

This mentality of ‘anything would be an improvement’ can easily lead to investments in the simplistic and untested: closing of neighborhood schools, massive change-overs to charter schools, teacher evaluations via student test scores, etc..  Another manifestation of the ‘try anything’ mentality is the willingness to look for educational leadership anywhere except among educators! 

Unfortunately, this allows us to avoid thinking about the hard questions of instruction, human capital, and school culture - and it leaves us with a false choice between the entrenched politicized bureaucracy and ‘bold, radical’ transformation.

So Much Reform, So Little Change, part 3

'High expectations', Quality teachers & Professional development

There is similar nostalgia (see previous post) for Catholic schools, especially in urban areas. Historically, Catholic schools seem to do two things very well. One, there is a consistent message of high expectations; ‘no excuses’, if you will.  Two, explicit attention is paid to developing in students a sense of moral purpose. Students aren’t being educated for the sake of education, or just to acquire job skills. “Students are pushed to develop a moral vision towards which those skills should be pointed.” For the Catholic school, education does not exist in a vacuum; central to their mission is the idea that education is the means to fulfilling a higher purpose.

This brings us to the question of ‘high expectations’.  The degree to which students ‘invest’ in their education is greatly affected by their perception of what the learning environment appears to be asking of them, but this dynamic of high expectations is often misunderstood or misrepresented. Students may respond to demanding teachers, but only after the teacher has first established legitimacy, not only as a competent teacher, but as someone who genuinely cares for the student. It is not enough just to have ‘high expectations.’ 

Consider your own experience. I have no doubt that the teachers who ‘got the most out of you’ were not only ‘demanding’; they also expressed a genuine interest in you as a person.

It is therefore ironic that some (generally white) teachers mistakenly think that what ‘these kids’ really need is for someone to be ‘nice’ to them. Not that there’s anything wrong with being nice – nice is good!  Unless niceness is a stand-in for not expecting very much.

The quality teacher predicament is another issue that lacks an easy solution. Despite some positive rhetoric in policy circles about ‘placing teachers where they’re most needed’, I’ve yet to see a credible plan to address this. The problem is, we’d first have to repeal the law of supply and demand. Wealthy schools can afford to be picky; large urban schools with dysfunctional school cultures, not-so-much.  (Another problem is that states don’t hire teachers, school districts do.)

Making the matter worse, it’s hard for bottom-tier schools to keep the teachers they already have. Some of this is about money, but a lot of it is about school culture: lack of administrative support, lack of discipline, and the lack of teacher autonomy. But the challenge is greater than that. Even if you found a way to sprinkle in a handful of high-quality teachers, you may benefit a few students in the short term, but you’re not likely to change the overall culture of the school. Most likely, those teachers will eventually leave out of frustration, or adopt the norms of the school. Why?  Because the nail that sticks up tends to get hammered down. You’re making everyone else look bad!

It’s also important to note that ‘quality’ teachers don’t exist in a vacuum. A teacher’s ‘effectiveness’ is largely a function of the school environment. The best seed in the world won’t produce a good crop if the soil lacks nutrients and water!

Payne devotes an interesting chapter to the issue of teacher professional development. There are still many administrators who rely on the (albeit, inexpensive) model of ‘drive-by’ professional development: you send the teachers out to be ‘trained’ (or bring in an expert to deliver a lecture) and then send the teachers back into the classroom. This is based on a mindset that teachers are essentially interchangeable, programmable widgets, and shows little understanding of how adults actually learn. And so, even in places that have made arguably progressive investments in say, teacher coaching, you have administrators who don’t understand why coaches need time to collaborate, build relationships, or spend time in the classroom!  

In this model, it is the job of administrators to administer; it is, ironically, not part of their job description to understand how adults learn (as opposed to an organizational model in which principals are seen as ‘lead learners’). Which just highlights how important quality principals are to the educational capacity of a school.