Sustainable Results in Urban Middle Schools: How Principals Use Systems Thinking to Lead Effective Change

This study presents the stories of four urban middle school principals engaged in reform that is grounded on the core principle that every early adolescent has the capacity for high-level intellectual development. Data collected over two years through formal interviews and informal conversations with principals and teachers, school and district surveys and reports, student test data, and personal observations were analyzed from a systems thinking theoretical framework to assess each principal's ability to implement reform that produced sustainable results. A systems thinking framework articulates the importance of a leader's ability to: 1) conceptualize the whole and recognize patterns; 2) aspire a purpose for why the organization exists and describe the beliefs about how members of the organizations will interact; 3) reflect so as to surface assumptions and patterns of behavior that facilitate or block the organizations ability to achieve what they want most. The analysis makes visible that all four principals have the ability to conceptualize, aspire, and reflect. The data also suggest that the principal's clarity of purpose has a significant impact on the their ability to stay focused on moving the school in a coherent direction. Sustainable Results in Urban Middle Schools Acknowledgements The skeleton of this dissertation materialized when Dr. Stephen M. Brown, at that time Dean of the College of Education at Lesley University, recommended that I read Peter Senge's book. The Fifth Discipline (1990). The concept of Systems Thinking resonated with my own beliefs about leadership and creatmg collaborative organizations. Dr. Brown continued to nurture my interest through several conferences on leadership and organizational learning sponsored by Linkage. It was at these conferences that I had my first opportunity to hear and talk wdth Peter Senge and Margaret Wheatley. I am extremely grateful to Steve for the introduction, dialogue, and initial support m imderstanding the multiple layers of Systems Thinking. Peter Senge's Work, at that time with hmovation Associates, led to my introduction to Lou Ann Daly. I greatly appreciate Lou Ann's mentoring and guidance on a journey into systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning. When I would leap over big concepts, she gently walked me through the maze helping me to understand the nuances. The many people that I then met through my work vsdth Turning Points both nationally and locally gave me the heart and content ofthe work. This committed group ofpeople, includes: principals, teachers, students, superintendents, and assistant superintendents, fellow coaches, and the researchers and practitioners ofthe original Carnegie Project, the Middle Grade School State Policy hiitiative (MGSSPI). There are many from MGGSPI Sustainable Results in Urban Middle Schools ^ who contributed to the knowledge base I had to work from, and a few whose friendship and influence extended beyond MGSSPI. Gayle Davis, Director ofMGGSPI, generously shared both her depth of knowledge of middle schools and middle school reform and her amazing and treasured friendships. Tony Jackson, who spearheaded this initiative for the Carnegie Corporation, kept the work focused on adolescents and teaching and learning. Tim Flynn, Susie Girardin, Coila Marrow, Debbie Kasak, and Diane Devine welcomed this latecomer into the initiative and shared their passion for teaching, learning, and the young adolescents. Second, I would like to thank the community of colleagues at the Center for Collaboration Education who provided an environment for taking risks, thinking critically, and engaging in the ongoing process of learning. Of this group, I am especially indebted to Dan French, the Executive Director, who gave me the opportunity and the tools for growth, and to Cheryl Jones Walker and Martm O'Brien, the first wave of Turning Points coaches, who so often shared the load and made it lighter, helped me to understand what it means to be White, and expanded my understanding of literacy. I also appreciate the members ofthe Lesley University community who challenged, nurtured, instructed, and gave generously to my learning over the past seven years. No one in the doctoral program at Lesley would make it without the outpouring of talent, organizational skills, and kindness of Jo Ann Gammel. As she begins her own doctoral study, I wish for her a "Jo Ann" to care for her when she needs it most. The members of my writing group provided the lifeline that moved me from ABD to this completed Sustainable Results in Urban Middle Schools 5 document. I am so grateful to Susan Griffith, Mary Knight McKenna, Roxie Black, Amy Rustein-Riley, Suzanne Spreadbury, and Sandras Barnes for their willingness to read many drafts, provide scholarly analysis, objective and critical thinking, and enduring friendship. Foremost, I appreciate the wisdom and guidance ofmy faculty advisor Sheryl Boris-Schacter. Sheryl provided a deep and rich literary understanding of leadership. She shared opportunities to explore muhiple areas of research, and she waited patiently through years of delays. I have, of course, saved the desert for last. My heartfelt thanks to the principals and teachers that I have had the privilege ofworking with, and my family of educators, who share my love of children and the process of learning. First among the principals that gave so much to me is my third committee member. Dr. Judith Malone-Neville. She was the first principal I had the opportunity to observe closely, and the first principal to provide me with a clear vision of excellence in leadership. She willingly accepted the role of committee member and always provided the context of the real world in her valued and critical analysis. Then there are the many principals that shaped my understanding of this ever changing, seldom appreciated, role of the middle manager in public education. Although this dissertation is only about four ofmy heroines, there are many more that have openly shared their thinking, challenges, disappointments, and triumphs. I thank them all for the journey they have helped me begin. Finally, I say thank you to my family both my immediate family and my extended family and friends. My parents passed on the genes for teaching and the environment of inquiry; Sustainable Results in Urban Middle Schools 6 my brother, Dr. James Hageman, has always helped blaze the trail ahead, and my sister, Dr. Janet Chrispeels, became my cheerleader, reliable resource, sounding board, latenight advisor, and incredible friend and colleague; and my children pulled me back into education, learned to cook and care for themselves and others, cheered each success, and taught me how to learn academically and practically. Above all, I am grateftil for my husband. He read multiple drafts, listened to endless monologues and discussions, prepared countless meals, provided counseling, Kleenex, and hugs, and still remained my best friend. Thank you one and all. Sustainable Results in Urban Middle Schools