Reading Notes – EDLD 5333 Week 1
How Do You Change School Culture?
First, define what you will not change.
· Effective change leaders identify and build on traditions rather than compete with them.
Second, recognize the importance of actions
· The greatest impediment to meaningful cultural change is the gap between what leaders say they value and what they actually do.
Third, use the right change tools jor your school or district.
· differentiate culture tools, such as rituals and traditions; power tools, such as threats and coercion; management tools, such as training, procedures, and measurement systems; and leadership tools, such as role modeling and vision.
Fourth, be willing to do the "scut work."
· Although education leaders must make speeches and attend board meetings, leaders aspiring to change school cultures will take the risk, as Superintendent Stan Scheer of Murrieta Valley Unified School District in California has done, of taking a tum as a substitute teacher or spending time with bus drivers at 5:00 on a frosty morning.
What Do We Believe?
· To achieve deep, sustained improvement in our schools, we must look beyond a checklist of things good principals do.
· At the heart of effective learning is a principal who holds a pervasive belief that all students truly can learn and whose zeal for learning is palpable.
· How principals can dig deeper into this belief: self-reflection, network with other practitioners, take risks, and articulate publicly what is important to them
· Reflection questions that help distinguish essential from ordinary priorities
1. What is our work?
2. Does our school’s culture reflect this passion?
3. Have we found a context for psychometric data?
4. Is our leadership embedded in relationships?
5. Are “teachers as professionals” and “teacher leadership” more that buzzwords?
6. Is the principal the head learner?
The Importance of Visions for Schools and School Improvement
· Developing a vision is a critical component of school improvement and school leadership
· School improvement is the focal point in the community of professional educators
· Southern Regional Board of Educators (SREB) suggest that the school leader impacts as much as 20% of the achievement levels of students
· The Louisiana State Department of Education places great emphasis on the role of the principal in school improvement. Within the department, the Office of Quality of Educators has established and redesigned 7 standards for school leaders. The first one, and the focus of this reading, is establishing and maintaining a shared vision.
o A school leader should:
§ Work collaboratively with the school and community to develop and maintain a shared vision
§ Bring the school vision to guide decision making with regard to students and instructional programs
§ Maintain faculty focus on developing prosperous learning experiences for students
§ Maintain open communication and convey high student expectations
§ Provides opportunities and support for collaboration, the exchange of ideas, experimentation with innovative teaching strategies, and ongoing school improvement
§ Monitor, assess, and revise the vision and goals as needed
§ Foster the integration of students into mainstream society while valuing diversity.
A clear vision exists when people in an organization share an explicit agreement on the values, beliefs, purposes, and goals that should guide their behavior.
The ABC’s of AYP
· Schools expected to meet clearly defined goals
· Each state sets specific benchmark goals for the percentage of students in each school that are expected to demonstrate proficiency on standardized tests. These goals are raised over time.
· Schools are accountable for overall student achievement and for the achievement of subgroups. If a school doesn’t make AYP for one of these subgroups, it doesn’t make AYP.
· States decide whether schools are making Adequate Yearly Progress through a five-step process.
o States determine what all students should know and be able to do.
o States calculate the starting point for AYP, but raise target until it reaches 100% by 2014
o States set specific targets to measure whether all groups of students are making Adequate Yearly Progress in language arts and math.
o States measure the performance of students and schools
o Steps are taken to help students in schools that do not make AYP
§ Year 1 – A school is going about its business as usual
§ Year 2 – School finds out that it did not make AYP for the previous school year, but suffers no consequences.
§ Year 3 – does not make AYP 2 years in row in same subject it is now considered in need of improvement. School, parents, and outside experts need to develop a two-year plan to raise student achievement. Parents are notified and given the opportunity to transfer their children to a higher performing school in the district. Priority is given to the lowest achieving low-income students.
§ Year 4 – the schools does not make AYP in the same subject for 3 consecutive years, tutoring, student transfer and supplemental services need to be made available.
§ Year 5 (Corrective Action)– The school fails to make AYP for four years in a row, same subject. Students can continue with services mentioned in year 4. Additional it must do one of the following: appoint an outside expert advisor, institute a new curriculum, extend the school year or school day, restructure internal organizational structure, or replace staff.
§ Year 6 (plan for restructuring) – fails AYP again. School must develop and “alternate governance” plan such as reopen as a charter school, replace most of the staff, contract w/ private company to operate school, turn school over to the state, or implement state-approved reform
§ Year 7 (restructure) – implement “alternate governance” plan
o School must meet AYP two consecutive years to no longer be identified as considered as needing improvement
Ten Big Effects of the No Child Left Behind Act on Public Schools
- State and district officials report that student achievement on state tests is rising, which is a cause for optimism. It’s not clear, however, that students are really gaining as much as rising percentages of proficient scores would suggest.
- Schools are spending more time on reading and math, sometimes at the expense of subjects not tested.
- Schools are paying much more attention to the alignment of curriculum and instruction and are analyzing test sore data much more closely.
- Low-performing schools are undergoing makeovers rather that the most radical kinds of restructuring.
- Schools and teachers have made considerable progress in demonstrating that teachers meet the law’s academic qualifications – but many educators are skeptical this will really improve the quality of teaching.
- Students are taking a lot more tests.
- Schools are paying much more attention to achievement gaps and the learning needs of particular groups of students.
- The percentage of schools on state “needs improvement” lists has been steady but is not growing. Schools so designated are subject to NCLB sanctions, such as being required to offer students public schools choice or tutoring services.
- The federal government is playing a bigger role in education.
- NCLB requirements have meant that state governments and school operations, but often without adequate federal funds to carry out their duties.
The Change Leader
o Only principals who are equipped to handle a complex, rapidly changing environment can implement the reforms that lead to sustained improvement in student achievement.
o Core strategies for developing principals into instructional leaders.
o Nested learning communities
o Principal institutes
o Leadership for instruction
o Peer learning
o Individual coaching
o Principals who lead cultural change have a deeper and more lasting influence on organizations and provide more comprehensive leadership if their focus extends beyond maintaining high standards.
o The Cultural Change Principal displays energy, enthusiasm, and hope. Additionally, they are characterized with moral purpose, and understanding of the change process, the ability to improve relationships, knowledge creation and sharing, and coherence making.
o Moral purpose is social responsibility to others and the environment. Student learning paramount to the principal. However this principal is also concerned with how well students in other schools are doing.
o Understanding change guidelines.
1. Innovating selectively with coherence
2. help others assess and find collective meaning and commitment to new ways
3. appreciate the implementation dip that usually takes about six months
4. redefine resistance – address concerns of doubters that sometimes have good ideas
5. transforming culture
6. no shortcuts to transformation – hard day to day work
o Improving Relationships – requires emotional intelligence. Need to motivate and energize disaffected teachers and forge relationships among disconnected teachers. When relationships get improve, schools get better.
o Knowledge Creation and Sharing – The Cultural Change Principal is the lead learner in the school and models lifelong learning by sharing what he or she has read lately, engaging in and encouraging action research, and implementing inquiry groups among the staff.
o Coherence Making – The characteristics above help forge coherence through checks and balances embedded in their interaction.
o Sustaining Cultural Change Principals key components: developing the social environment, cultivating leaders at many levels, and enhancing the teaching profession.