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.