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Subject: Leader's Role in Sustaining School Reform

From: Kirk_Winters@ed.gov (Kirk Winters)

Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:50:12 -0400

 

 WHAT IS THE SCHOOL LEADER'S ROLE in sustaining school reform? 

 And what "habits of mind & heart" help school leaders guide

 successful school change over time? 

 These questions (& others) are answered by dozens of

 successful education leaders from across the country in "The

 Role of Leadership in Sustaining School Reform: Voices From

 the Field" (July 1996). The full text of the report is

 available in our Online Library at:

 http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Leadership/

 BELOW ARE EXCERPTS from the report. The first excerpt looks

 at "key dimensions of leadership for sustaining reform." Two

 others present a few of the many direct quotes from school

 leaders. The final excerpt is a list of "ideas for assessing

 success in...creating a school culture that could sustain

 change after the leader leaves & building meaningful school

 partnerships."

 NOTE: This report is the culmination of a project directed by

 our 1994-95 principal-in-residence, Adel Nadeau. It was

 written by Mary Leighton. Please note that opinions in the

 report don't necessarily reflect positions or policies of the

 U.S. Department of Education.

 ***************************************************

 Excerpts from "The Role of Leadership in Sustaining 

 School Reform: Voices From the Field" (July 1996)

 ***************************************************

==================================================

Key Dimensions of Leadership for Sustaining Reform

==================================================

FORUM PARTICIPANTS CAME UP WITH HUNDREDS of different ways to

identify key dimensions of leadership for sustaining reform. Their

responses fall into five general categories: 

 * Partnership and voice. Effective reform leaders cultivate a

 broad definition of community and consider the contribution

 that every member can make to helping children meet

 challenging standards. They hear the voices of many

 stakeholders -- families, businesses, and other groups and

 institutions. Their ability to develop plans that reflect the

 legitimate influence of others draws in many authentic

 partners, whose personal convictions as well as community

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 spirit energize participation. They look for evidence of

 widespread participation in important aspects of change. 

 Establishing partnerships and listening to a chorus of voices

 are leadership skills that permeate many aspects of reform.

 * Vision and values. Effective reform leaders are dependable

 and committed "keepers of the dream" of student success

 generated by faculties, families, and the community. They

 know that realizing the dream hinges in part on applying

 certain agreed-upon values to decision making. They know that

 the dream is continuously evolving and that it belongs to

 everyone. In different ways they ask themselves daily: does

 this decision help realize the dream?

 * Knowledge and daring. Effective reform leaders develop

 relevant information bases and cultivate human resources to

 minimize failure while encouraging risk taking. They study,

 count, send staff to workshops, bring in experts and mentors,

 consult their own insight and experience, and in a hundred

 other ways increase capacity to make good decisions. Then

 they step into the unknown and encourage staff to do likewise. 

 Their risks are carefully calculated to push the boundaries of

 what is known and commonly done without threatening long-term

 success.

 * Savvy and persistence. Effective reform leaders know how the

 system works and they can take a lot of flak (if they must). 

 They know how to interact with the central office, the local

 community, and others outside the school. They know how

 certain school structures nurture or discourage attitudes and

 behavior. They can put up with resistance inside or outside

 the building, but they eventually find ways to win

 cooperation. They are good managers. They monitor their

 understanding of the nature and operations of systems, and

 they maintain a network of supporters to lean on in times of

 particular stress.

 * Personal qualities. Effective reform leaders put to good use

 an array of personal qualities that many feel may be innate,

 but are often underutilized. A well-developed sense of humor

 was often mentioned as a priceless asset. Leaders use

 language that signals their understanding of human variation

 and the ways their own gifts can be used well.

==========================

Quotes from School Leaders

========================== 

BENNETTA MCLAUGHLIN, PRINCIPAL of Mt. Diablo (CA) Unified School

District says:

 Lately I've been thinking a lot about a comment one of my

 teachers made to me about three weeks ago. She said, "We've

 been talking. What we want to do next year is coach each

 other. We've gone to all the conferences on multi-age

 classes, and we haven't found anyone who knows as much as we

 do ... We can do our own training--we can learn from each

 other ..." She described a plan for coaching that the

 teachers had devised. I was elated because I believe that

 coaching is one of the highest forms of learning. Then I

 began to reflect on how the staff had come to this place in

 their thinking...

 For five years, we have been learning together via various

 means. We meet monthly for discussion of research and staff

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 development sessions led by teachers. The reading specialist

 has weekly 30-minute "coffee conversations" about language

 arts, and teachers drop in. Recently, as part of her mentor

 project, the specialist set up voluntary coaching sessions for

 teachers wishing to get more information on student progress

 by using a tool called a running record. The staff loved

 these coaching sessions -- perhaps this is the impetus for the

 next level of coaching.

 But I don't think these events are [the whole story]. For

 five years, different teachers have taken leadership in

 providing training in their particular areas of expertise. We

 all learn together. I go to workshops with teachers so I know

 what they are learning and can provide materials and emotional

 support. I'm sure modeling being a learner is part of this,

 but I'm not sure this is all. Empowerment is part of it too...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VICKI FOREMAN, NOW PRINCIPAL of Kimball Elementary in Seattle,

Washington, explained how she got started: 

 When I was a new principal, our district made a top-down

 decision to implement a reading program that required

 significant paper/pencil testing of even the very youngest

 learners. The teachers did not support the program and the

 parents did not understand it, but we had to do it.

 During the first round of testing in the fall, I was in a

 kindergarten class watching the teacher, who was patiently

 encouraging the children to do their best and explaining that

 she could not help them. Most of the children filled in the

 bubbles and crossed out pictures by thought or guesswork,

 trying to comply with the teacher's request. One little girl

 just sat there, arms folded, pencil down. Several times the

 teacher encouraged her to give it a try, but she continued to

 just sit. When she was asked again to pick up her pencil, she

 responded with total exasperation, "Don't you know, I can't

 read, that's why I'm here."

 Now I could comment on my story with many thoughts on the

 purpose of assessment and the appropriate connections between

 expected outcomes, teaching strategies, student understanding

 of the expectations, and authentic ways to demonstrate

 learning, but that's for another time.

 Since then, I have often thought about the principal's

 leadership role in dealing with other people's agendas and

 district imperatives. I think we need to deal with them from

 our perspective as "keepers of the collective dream." I

 didn't know then how to help the staff figure out where the

 district-imposed reading program matched our school goals and

 how to "turn a sow's ear into a silk purse." We just moved

 along, crabby and negative, and it's unlikely that our efforts

 contributed to student learning.

 I think principals need to give staff the chance to vent,

 rant, and rave, and then to model for them how to use someone

 else's agenda to further our goals. Often it is possible. We

 need to help teachers ask questions like, "Why are we doing

 this? Where does the purpose match ours? How can we view

 this as a resource to further our agenda? What's in it for

 the school community?" We need to be careful not to join in

 the naysayers, the "burned out," the negative thinkers. But

 we also need to stand up and be counted when a program or

 initiative is just not okay. While we try to bend a program

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 to our own purposes, we need to pull out the research and best

 practice evidence and try to be a positive force for change

 within the community, district, and school. If teachers have

 been allowed and encouraged to develop their own leadership

 and knowledge base, they can be a powerful force for change,

 in partnership with principals.

 All of our schools operate within the context of a district,

 local, state, and federal government, and many community

 advocacy groups. They all have an agenda for our schools. 

 Some match, some don't. Some help greatly, some don't. 

 Principals need to exercise their leadership to help their

 school community thread its way through this sea of

 expectations toward the vision, the dreams of the school. And

 most important, to focus on the students and their dreams. 

 Like the kindergartner, they all came to learn. Don't you

 know?

=========================================================

Ideas for Assessing Success in "Creating a School Culture 

That Could Sustain Change After the Leader Leaves" & in 

"Building Meaningful School Partnerships"

=========================================================

PARTICIPANTS IN THE SAN FRANCISCO FORUM -- like those in several

other groups -- hotly debated the question of whether the

leadership qualities for sustaining reform were innate or acquired

and, in either case, how their effectiveness could be assessed. 

Challenging the hypothesis that most important qualities were

ineffable and unmeasurable, one participant said, "Well, suppose

the superintendent said that unless you could prove that you were

skillful in reform-related areas, she would simply evaluate you

according to the old rules that are unrelated to reform. If you

absolutely had to show evidence, how would you do it?" Thus

inspired, the group generated the following ideas for assessing

success in two often-mentioned areas of reform that can be

difficult to measure: creating a school culture that could sustain

change after the leader leaves and building meaningful school

partnerships.

 Evidence of a school culture that can sustain change: 

 Show what school committees are doing and who is on each,

 that is, demonstrate distribution of authority and

 responsibility among a wide range of stakeholders

 Document voting patterns on key issues, to demonstrate

 the breadth and depth of support

 Chart organizational functions and the decision making

 matrix to demonstrate the extent of participation

 Show how meetings are run--and that the reform leader

 does not always run them

 Show the diversity of key players

 Document the persistence of reform after the leader

 leaves

 Evidence of meaningful school partnerships:

 Provide a roster of the school site council

 List community institutions that have formally "adopted"

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 the school and document their productive efforts

 Report the number and nature of student apprenticeships

 or mentorships involving community institutions

 Create a photographic record of special events involving

 community partners

 Keep a sign-in log for volunteers

 List members of the advisory board & their contributions

 Document teachers' participation in community-sponsored

 summer learning opportunities (e. g., serving as interns

 in content-related industries or cultural institutions).

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 Kirk Winters

 Office of the Under Secretary

 U.S. Department of Education

 kirk_winters@ed.gov

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