In 1993, Seymour Sarason wrote the book, The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform: Can We Change Course Before It’s Too Late? The question resonates (well, actually, it’s like standing in the belfry as the matins bells are rung, that is, it’s deafening) these days as I read more and more stories of districts that got federal money to restructure their comprehensive high schools into smaller learning communities, botched the effort, and often before the end of the grant, had their communities storming the walls of the district office and school board meetings to demand return to the status quo. Why should that be the case? What are we all doing so terribly wrong? I don’t think it’s all about the football team.
The research on effective small schools is overwhelmingly positive. Even the less autonomous SLC’s in many places have had success in personalizing teaching and learning, reducing absenteeism and disruptive behavior, and increasing graduation rates and college attending rates, even if not showing some gains on state and NCLB mandated tests. So, I repeat, why the predictable failure rate?
I’ll stick my neck out here. It’s simple. Poor leadership that lacks a real understanding of the why’s and wherefore’s of the conversion process (signing on to the latest fad), poor efforts at community (and union) engagement early in the process and continuing throughout implementation, bad communication planning and execution, poor design process, lack of attention to existing research on successful efforts and failure modes, no effort to visit existing successful districts that have model small school and/or SLC’s to show off, a complete and utter lack of understanding of the complexities of the transition from design to implementation, and horrible to non-existent implementation planning and support. And I have to say, the feds certainly could be more directive here. I know of some districts that got money for “wall to wall” SLC conversions whose design was nothing more than advisories, and advisories that meet 20 minutes once or twice a week. The comprehensive high school of the 1960’s with homeroom.
So, what could we be doing better, other than just throwing the baby out with the bathwater and starting from scratch? How might a school district avoid these obvious pitfalls? I think all of this is avoidable. I think the simplest answer is to find (and commit to working with over the long haul) a consultant/coach, or better yet a team of them, who know more than how to coach a leader to develop his or her personal leadership style and be a better instructional leader, or how to coach a teacher to teach better. Coaching and consulting skills and experience with systems change, not just leadership coaching and instructional coaching, is essential for SLC or small school conversion efforts to succeed. Districts need outside assistance (better yet, they need to develop inside assistance systems) to plan and manage a conversion effort so it’s research-based, coherent, engaging of the community from the start, based on an understanding of successful practice, understood as more than a change in curriculum, that is, as an organizational change effort, thorough as to its design planning, even more thorough as to its implementation planning, focused at the district level, with policy changes that are necessary to support the new configurations at the schools, develops district capacity to engage in continuous improvement, and provides skill development coaching for all the new roles and responsibilities. Not to mention a radically different understanding of teaching and learning that is more than advisories once or twice a week, that permeates the intimate relations between teachers and students, and among teachers, and among students.
What does such coaching look like? I’ve begun that discussion here before. Now I’d like to add some thinking from my own research reviews and experience. The next post will lay out what I see the research on effective systemic coaching as involving. I hope you will read what is here and add your own perspective and insights. Let’s build the dialogue about coaching’s role in successful school and district change.
John
