"Learning to Lead Change" workshop series with Michael Fullan (7.73MB)

Welcome to the course.We hope you have a productive and enjoyable time.

Table of Contents

Overview i

Module I The Change Process 1

Module II Leadership for Change 23

Module III Learning Communities at the Local Level 39

Module IV Role of the District 43

Module V Case Studies (separate handout) --

Module VI Sustaining Reform 67

Module VII Moral Imperative/Closing 83

Glossary 86

Library 88

Please feel free to use these resources to assist you with your training.We ask that the content be appropriately credited.

June 2006For further information please contact:

[email protected]

© Michael Fullan

Learning to Lead Change: Building System Capacity

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Learning to Lead Change: Building System Capacity is a series of publicationsdeveloped for Microsoft’s Partners in Learning initiative. The documents are:

Core Concepts

A Short Course

Case Studies

Facilitator Guide

Annotated descriptions of the 20 best books on leading change(see www.michaelfullan.ca)

Links to ten best online resources for ideas and tools for developing effectiveleadership for change

Microsoft describes the purpose of the Partners in Learning initiative as "part ofMicrosoft's comprehensive commitment to promoting digital inclusion and to partnering withgovernments to bring the benefits of technology to communities and classrooms around theworld. Microsoft believes that through our collaboration, we can empower schools,strengthen teacher leadership and increase student achievement throughout the world."

In our publications the emphasis is not on technology, per se. In studies ofsuccessful organizations and school systems, time and again it has been found thattechnology must be conceptualised in the context of change in the culture of the system,and in schoolwide and systemwide purposes. The goal of the training modules is to provideawareness and understanding of key ideas for leading change.

Overview

Learning to Lead Change:Building System Capacity

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For those wanting to delve deeper into the ideas, we have captured this growingknowledge base in several recent publications:

The New Meaning of Educational Change, 3rd Ed. (2001) This is the basic textbook and covers all phases of the change process and all roles

Leading in a Culture of Change (2001) Focuses on what successful education and business leaders have in common

Change Forces with a Vengeance (2003) The third in the Change Forces trilogy examines both how to understand complex

systems and how to transform systems for the better

The Moral Imperative of School Leadership (2003) Identifies school leadership as the key force for reform through the moral imperative of

making a difference in students’ and teachers’ lives, as well as making a difference at theschool, district, and societal levels

Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action (2005) Identifies eight core elements of sustainability, and shows how leadership at the school,

district and system level can work towards embedding these eight elements

Turnaround Leadership (2006) Shows limitation of focusing on a small part of the bigger problem (turning around

individual failing schools), and instead make the case for transforming all schools. Basedon closing the income and education gap in societies, the book first demonstrates thesocial consequences of not focusing on closing the gap of high and low achievement, andthen presents specific ideas and successful case studies for success.

Breakthrough (2006) Argues that the new standard for schools in the 21st century needs to be 90%+ success

(for example, in literacy proficiency) not 70 or 75%. Breakthrough documents thelimitation of present strategies, and then builds a system for ‘data-driven instruction’. Itshows what the elements of such a system are, and how to link them together.

Change KnowledgeOverview

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Participants in the training sessions are asked to identify a specific change initiativeor project in which they are currently engaged. There will be an opportunity throughout themodules to apply ideas and concepts to the selected project.

The main objectives are:

(i) To deepen your understanding of educational change;

(ii) To extend your knowledge of cutting edge research and practices ofeducational reform;

(iii) To show what capacities are needed to bring about effectiveschool/community, district and system reform;

(iv) To provide you with an opportunity to apply these learnings to your ownprojects.

There are seven main modules:

Module I The Change Process

Module II Leadership for Change

Module III Learning Communities at the Local Level

Module IV Role of the District

Module V Case Studies

Module VI Sustaining Reform

Module VII Moral Imperative/Closing

Learning to Lead Change:Building System Capacity

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Tri-Level Reform

Enlarging Your World School-Community Regional State

School-CommunityRegional

State

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The Change Processi

The purpose of this module is to provide an overview of the change process, toidentify key drivers for successful change, and to enable participants to apply the ideasthrough (a) illustrative case studies, and (b) their own change projects.

Module i

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The Change Puzzle

Change Saying … Between the thought and action, between motion and the act falls the shadow.—T.S. Eliot

Four Barriers toSystemTransformation

1. Walls of the classroom2. Walls of the school3. Walls of the district4. Walls between local and state interests

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S-t-r-e-t-c-h YourThinkingCooperatively

TASKTogether: Why does education reform often fail?1. List 10 or more underlying reasons for the problem.2. Of all the reasons listed, which one is most at the "heart" of the problem?3. All members must be prepared to present the team answer.Time: 10 minutes.

Worksheet

Team Answer Sheet

1.

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4.

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The PathwaysProblem

What is Change? New materials New behaviour/practices New beliefs/understanding

The ImplementationDip

Inertia Identify and discuss the forces of inertia in your education reform project.

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Change KnowledgeDrivers

Foundation Drivers 1. Engaging People’s Moral Purpose2. Capacity Building3. Understanding the Change Process

Activity Letter off A-D (groups of 4)Person A: Read Drivers 1-2Person B: Read Driver 3, Understanding the Change Process, and 3i-iiPerson C: Read Driver 3, Understanding the Change Process, 3iii-ivPerson D: Read Driver 3, Understanding the Change Process, 3v-viShare your part with the group

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The First Driver: Engaging Peoples’ Moral PurposeThe first overriding principle concerns knowledge about the why of change, namely moral purpose. At afundamental level, moral purpose in educational change is about improving society through improvingeducational systems and thus the learning of all citizens.

In education, moral purpose involves a commitment to raising the bar and closing the gap in studentachievement, for example, increasing literacy for all with special attention to those most disadvantaged. Thereis a wide gap, particularly in some countries between groups at the bottom and those at the top. Thus, schoolsneed to "raise the floor" by figuring out how to speed up the learning of those who are at the bottom forwhom the school system has been less effective.

Improving overall literacy achievement is directly associated with economic productivity in a country. Incountries where the gap between high and low performance of students is reduced, the economic health andwell-being of citizens is measurably better.

In change knowledge, moral purpose is not just a goal, but more importantly is a process of engagingeducators, community leaders and society as a whole in the moral purpose of reform. If moral purpose is frontand center, the remaining seven drivers become additional forces for enacting moral purpose.

The Second Driver: CapacityBuildingThe second driver is capacity building which involves policies, strategies, resources and other actions designedto increase the collective power of people to move the system forward (schools, districts, state levels). This willinvolve the development (collective development) of new ‘knowledge, skills, and competencies’, new resources(time, ideas, materials) and new ‘shared identity and motivation’ to work together for greater change.

In addition to individual and collective capacity as defined by increased knowledge, resources and motivation,organizational capacity involves improvements in the infrastructure. The infrastructure consists of agencies atthe local, regional and state levels that can deliver new capacity in the system such as training, consultancy,and other support.

Capacity is crucial because it is often the missing element even when people are in agreement about the needfor change. For example, to improve literacy, teachers and principals must develop new skills and increasedcommitment in the face of inevitable obstacles (see the third driver). Similarly, in the case of new technologiesnot only must educators acquire new skills and understandings, they must integrate technology into curriculum,teaching and learning, and the assessment of learning.

1. It is a 'collective' phenomenon. Whole schools, whole districts and whole systems must increase theircapacity as groups. This is difficult because it involves working together in new ways.

2. Capacity must be evident in practice and be ongoing. This is why front-end training is insufficient –it does not transfer into improvements in the daily cultures of how people need to work in new ways.

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The Third Driver: Understanding the Change ProcessUnderstanding the change process is a big driver because it cuts across all elements. It is also difficult andfrustrating to grasp because it requires leaders to take into account factors that they would rather not have tostop and deal with. They would rather lay out the purpose and plan and get on with it. Change doesn’t workthat way.

For change to work you need the energy, ideas, commitment and ‘ownership’ of all those implicated inimplementing improvements. This is perplexing because the urgency of problems does not allow for long term‘ownership development’ (in fact more leisurely strategies do not produce greater ownership anyway).

Ownership is not something you have at the beginning of a change process, but rather something that youcreate through a quality change process. Here are some of the things you need to know to push as hard as theprocess will allow while increasing your chances for success.

Understanding the Change Processi. Strategizing vs strategyii. Pressure and supportiii. Know about the implementation dipiv. Understand the fear of changev. Appreciate the difference between technical and adaptive challengesvi. Be persistent and resilient

3. i Strategizing will help us to evolve and reshape ideas and actions.There is a great temptation to develop the complete strategic plan and then allocate mechanisms ofaccountability and support in order to implement it. This leads to the first lesson in the change process: thestrategic plan is an innovation; it is not innovativeness.

We need strategy and strategic ideas, but above all we need to think of the evolution of change plans as aprocess of shaping and reshaping ideas and actions. Henry Mintzberg, in his 2004 critique of existing MBAprograms (Managers not MBAs) captures this idea precisely:

Strategy is an interactive process, not a two-step sequence; it requires continual feedback betweenthought and action … Strategists have to be in touch; they have to know what they are strategizingabout; they have to respond and react and adjust, often allowing strategies to emerge, step-by-step.In a word, they have to learn.

Effective change is more about strategizing which is a process than it is about strategy. The more that leaderspractice strategizing the more that they hone their scientific and intuitive knowledge of the change process.

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3. ii Pressure means ambitious targets. Support involves developing new competencies.The second element of understanding change dynamics concerns the realization that all large scale reformrequires the combination and integration of ‘pressure and support’.

There is a great deal of inertia in social systems which means that new forces are required to change direction.These new forces involve the judicious use of pressure and support.

Pressure means ambitious targets, transparent evaluation and monitoring, calling upon moral purpose, and thelike. Support involves developing new competencies, access to new ideas, more time for learning andcollaboration.

The more that pressure and support become seamless, the more effective the change process is at gettingthings to happen. As the eight drivers of change begin to operate in concert, pressure and support in effect, getbuilt into the ongoing culture of interaction.

3. iii Knowledge of the implementation dip can reduce the awkwardness of the learning period.

The third aspect of understanding the change process is to understand the finding that all eventual successfulchange proceeds through an ‘implementation dip’.

Since change involves grappling with new beliefs and understandings, and new skills, competences andbehaviors, it is inevitable that it will not go smoothly in the early stages of implementation (even if there hasbeen pre-implementation preparation). This applies to any individual, but is much more complex when (as isalways the case) many people simultaneously are involved.

Knowledge of the implementation dip has helped in two important ways in our work with change initiatives.First, it has brought out into the open and given people a label for what are normal, common experiences,namely that all changes worth their salt involve a somewhat awkward learning period.

Second, it has resulted in us being able to reduce the period of awkwardness. By being aware of the problem,we are able to use strategies (support, training, etc) that reduce the implementation dip from (in the case ofschool change) three years to half that time. This obviously depends on the starting conditions and complexityof the change, but the point is that without knowledge of the implementation dip, problems persist and peoplegive up without giving the idea a chance.

Shorter implementation dips are more tolerable and once gains start to be made earlier, motivation increases.Note that motivation is increasing (or not) during the implementation process. This is a sign of a quality (orpoor) change process.

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The next two elements of understanding the change process – the fear of change, and technical vs adaptivechallenges – delve deeper into ‘the implementation dip’.

3. iv Mastering implementation is necessary to overcome the fear of change.The fear of change is classical change knowledge. What people need to know for starters is that at the beginning of thechange process the losses are specific and tangible (it is clear what is being left behind), but the gains are theoreticaland distant. This is so by definition. You cannot realize the gains until you master implementation, and this takes time.More than this, you don’t necessarily have confidence that the gains will be attained. It is a theoretical proposition.

Black and Gregersen (2002) talk about ‘brain barriers’ such as the failure to move in new directions even whenthe direction is clear:

The clearer the new vision, the more immobilized people become! Why? (p. 69).

Their answer:“The clearer the new vision the easier it is for people to see all the specific ways in which they will beincompetent and look stupid. Many prefer to be competent at the [old] wrong thing than incompetentat the [new] right thing” (p. 70).

In other words, an additional element of change process knowledge involves realizing that clear, even inspiring,visions are not sufficient. People need the right combinations of pressure and support to become adept andcomfortable with ‘the new right way’.

3. v Identify the distinction between 'technical problems' and 'adaptive challenges'.The fifth element comes from Heifetz and Linsky’s (2004) distinction between ‘technical problems’ and ‘adaptivechallenges’.

Technical problems are ones in which current knowledge is sufficient to address the problem. Technicalproblems are still difficult, and people will experience the usual implementation dip, but they are solvable interms of what we know.

Adaptive challenges are more complex and the solutions in a sense ‘go beyond what we know’. Heifetz andLinsky identify some properties of adaptive challenges as follows:

Adaptive challenges demand a response beyond our current repertoire; Adaptive work to narrow the gap between our aspirations and current reality requires difficult learning; The people with the problem are the problem and are the solution; Adaptive work generates disequilibrium and avoidance; Adaptive work takes time.

Most of the big moral purpose goals we aspire to these days tend to be 'adaptive challenges'. The changeknowledge, then, involves strategizing with Heifetz's five assumptions in mind. When you do this, you set up asounder and more realistic change process.

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3. vi Engaging others in change requires persistence to overcome the inevitable challenges.

The final aspect of understanding change as a process is a kind of retrospective overlay of the previous fivecomponents.

Engaging others in the process of change requires persistence in order to overcome the inevitable challenges – tokeep on going despite setbacks – but it also involves adaptation and problem-solving through being flexibleenough to incorporate new ideas into strategizing. Both focus and flexibility are needed.

The concept that captures persistence and flexibility is ‘resilience’. Because change processes are complex,difficult and frustrating it requires pushing ahead without being rigid; regrouping despite setbacks; and not beingdiscouraged when progress is slow.

The reason we emphasize persistence and resilience is that people often start with grand intentions andaspirations, but gradually lower them over time in the face of obstacles and in the end achieve precious little.Thus, armed with change knowledge, people should approach the change process with a commitment tomaintain, even increase high standards and aspirations. Obstacles should be seen as problems and barriers to beresolved in order to achieve high targets rather than reasons for consciously or not lowering aspirations.

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Brain Barriers BB #1: Failure to seeBB #2: Failure to moveBB #3: Failure to finish

— Black & Gregersen, 2002

BB #1: Failure to See The comprehensiveness mistake The ‘I get it’ mistake Illuminate the right thing


BB #2: Failure toMove

The clearer the new vision the more immobilized people become! Why?


Right Thing Poorly The clearer the new vision, the easier it is for people to see all the specific ways inwhich they will be incompetent and look stupid. Many prefer to be competent atthe wrong thing than incompetent at the right thing.


BB #3: Failure toFinish

People get tired.People get lost.


Breaking ThroughBarriers

Conceive Believe Achieve


Technical vs AdaptiveChallenge

Heifetz distinguishes between technical problems and adaptive challenges.Technical problems are ones for which our current know-how is sufficient.Adaptive challenges are more complex and go beyond what we know. Heifetzidentifies several properties of adaptive challenges:

Adaptive challenges demand a response beyond our current repertoire; Adaptive work to narrow the gap between our aspirations and current reality

requires difficult learning; The people with the problem are the problem and are the solution; Adaptive work generates disequilibrium and avoidance; Adaptive work takes time.

— Heifetz & Linsky, 2004

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Triple I Model Activity 1. Review the list of factors in the Triple I model.2. Which of the three stages best characterizes your project at this time?3. Use the list of factors at the stage selected to assess your own project:

- How does each factor apply?- Are there other factors that you would add?

Worksheet – Triple I Model(One Model for Understanding Change Initiatives)

Comments Action Implications

Initiation Factors

Linked to high profile need

Clear model

Strong advocate

Active initiation

Implementation Factors

Orchestration

Shared control

Pressure and support

Technical assistance

Rewards

Institutionalization Factors

Embedding

Links to instruction

Widespread use

Removal of competing priorities

Continuing assistance

— Miles, M.

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Change KnowledgeDrivers

Enabling Drivers 4. Developing Cultures for Learning5. Developing Cultures of Evaluation6. Focusing on Leadership for Change7. Fostering Coherence-Making8. Cultivating Tri-Level Development

Change Without Pain Creative destruction (destroys, removes)vs

Creative re-combination (recombines and adds to existing assets)— Abrahamson, 2004

Repetitive ChangeSyndrome

Initiative overboard Change-related chaos Employee cynicism

— Abrahamson, 2004

Activity Letter off A-D (groups of 4)Person A: Read Driver 4Person B: Read Driver 5Person C: Read Driver 6Person D: Read Drivers 7 and 8Share your part with the group.

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The Fourth Driver: Developing Cultures for LearningThe fourth driver, cultures for learning, sounds like a general statement, but it means something specific inestablishing the conditions for success. It involves a whole set of strategies designed so that people can learnfrom each other (the knowledge dimension) and become collectively committed to improvement (the affectivedimension). Strategies for learning from each other involve:

Developing learning communities at the local, school and community levels Learning from other schools regional and otherwise (lateral capacity building)

Successful change involves learning during implementation. One of the most powerful drivers of change involveslearning from peers, especially those who are further along in implementing new ideas. We can think of suchlearning inside the school and local community, and across schools or jurisdictions. Within the school there is agreat deal of practical research that demonstrates the necessity and power of ‘Professional LearningCommunities’.

Newmann and his colleagues (2000) identified five components of change capacity within the school whichincludes the development of new knowledge and skills, establishing professional learning communities, programcoherence, access to new resources, and principal/school leadership. Schools and their local villages andcommunities must develop new cultures of learning how to improve.

When school systems establish cultures of learning they constantly seek and develop teachers’ knowledge andskills required to create effective new learning experiences for students. In addition to within school andcommunity learning, a powerful new strategy is evolving which we call ‘lateral capacity building’. This involvesstrategies in which schools and communities learn from each other within a given district or region and beyond.This widens the pool of ideas and also enhances a greater ‘we-we’ identity beyond one school (Fullan, 2005).

Knowledge sharing and collective identity are powerful forces for positive change, and they form a corecomponent of our change knowledge, i.e., we need to value these aspects and know how to put them into action.Pfeffer and Sutton (2000) reinforce this conclusion in their analysis of The Knowing-Doing Gap. They claim thatwe should ‘embed' more of the process of acquiring new knowledge in the actual doing of the task and less informal training programs that are frequently ineffective (p. 27). Change knowledge has a bias for action.Developing a climate where people learn from each other within and across units, and being preoccupied withturning good knowledge into action is essential. Turning information into actionable knowledge is a socialprocess. Thus, developing learning cultures is crucial. Good policies and ideas take off in learning cultures, andgo nowhere in cultures of isolation.

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The Fifth Driver: Developing Cultures of EvaluationCultures of evaluation must be coupled with cultures of learning in order to sort out promising from not sopromising ideas and especially to deepen the meaning of what is learned. One of the highest yield strategies foreducational change recently developed is ‘Assessment for Learning’ (not just assessment of learning).Assessment for learning incorporates:

Accessing/gathering data on student learning

Disaggregating data for more detailed understanding

Developing action plans based on the previous two points in order to make improvements

Being able to articulate and discuss performance with parents, external groups

When schools and school systems increase their collective capacity to engage in ongoing assessment forlearning, major improvements are achieved. Several other aspects of evaluation cultures are importantincluding: school-based self-appraisal, meaningful use of external accountability data, and what Jim Collins(2001) found in ‘great’ organizations, namely, a commitment to ‘confronting the brutal facts’, and establishinga culture of disciplined inquiry.

Cultures of evaluation serve external accountability as well as internal data processing purposes. They producedata on an ongoing basis which enables groups to use information for action planning as well as for externalaccounting (see Black, et al, 2003, and Stiggins, 2001).

One other matter: technology has become an enormously necessary and powerful tool in our work onassessment as it makes it possible to access and analyze student achievement data on an ongoing basis, takecorrective action, and share best solutions. Developing cultures of evaluation and capacity to use technology forimprovement must go hand in hand; both are seriously underdeveloped in most systems we know.

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The Sixth Driver: Focusing on Leadership for ChangeAs might be expected, one of the most powerful lessons for change involves leadership. Here changeknowledge consists of knowing what kind of leadership is best for leading productive change. It turns out thathigh-flying, charismatic leaders look like powerful change agents, but are actually bad for business because toomuch revolves around themselves.

Leadership, to be effective, must spread throughout the organization. Collins (2001) found that charismaticleaders were negatively associated with sustainability. Leaders of the so-called ‘great’ organizations werecharacterized by ‘deep personal humility and ‘intense professional will’. Collins talks about the importance ofleadership which ‘builds enduring greatness’ in the organization rather than just focusing on short-term results.

To provide a specific illustration, the main mark of a school principal at the end of his or her tenure is not justtheir impact on the bottom line of student achievement, but rather how many leaders they leave behind whocan go even further. Mintzberg (2004) makes the same point:

Successful managing is not about one’s own success but about fostering success in others. (p. 16)

While managers have to make decisions, far more important, especially in large networkedorganizations of knowledge works, is what they do to enhance decision-making capabilities of others.(p. 38)

Change knowledge, then, means avoiding leaders who represent innovation, and seeking those who representinnovativeness – the capacity to develop leadership in others on an ongoing basis. We need to produce acritical mass of leaders who have change knowledge. Such leaders produce and feed on other leadershipthrough the system. There is no other driver as essential as leadership for sustainable reform.

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The Seventh Driver: Fostering Coherence-MakingWhen innovation runs amok, even if driven by moral purpose, you get overload and fragmentation. To a certainextent this is normal in complex systems.

Change knowledge is required to render overload into greater coherence. This is a never-ending propositionthat involves alignment, connecting the dots, being clear about how the big picture fits together. Above all, itinvolves investing in capacity building so that cultures of learning and evaluation through the proliferation ofleadership can create their own patterns of coherence on the ground.

Change knowledge is not about developing the greatest number of innovations, but rather about achieving newpatterns of coherence which enable people to focus more deeply on how things interconnect.

The Eighth Driver: Cultivating Tri-Level DevelopmentThe eighth and final driver lies in the realization that we are talking about ‘system transformation’ at threelevels. Those interested in change knowledge must realize that we are not just talking about changingindividuals, but also about changing systems – what we call the tri-level model.

A tri-level lens on this problem:

What has to happen at the school and community level? What has to happen at the district level? What has to happen at the level of the state?

We need to change individuals, but also to change contexts. We need to develop better individuals while wesimultaneously develop better organizations and systems. This is easier said than done, and it involves what wehave recently called developing ‘system thinkers in action’ (Fullan, 2005).

For our purposes, we need only say ‘beware of the individualistic bias’ where the tacit assumption is that if wechange enough individuals then the system will change. It won’t happen. We need to change systems at thesame time. The single guideline we will provide here is that in order to change individuals and systemssimultaneously, we must provide more ‘learning in context’, that is, learning in the actual situations we want tochange. Mintzberg (2004) focuses on this when he says,

Leadership is as much about doing in order to think as thinking in order to do (p. 10). We needprograms designed to educate practicing managers in context (p. 193). Leadership has to be learned…not just by doing it but by being able to gain conceptual insight while doing it (p. 200).

In any case, tri-level development involves focusing on all three levels of the system and their interrelationships,and giving people wider learning opportunities within these contexts as a route to changing the very contextswithin which people work.

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Lived Action

Think about the drivers.What two things do you want to do in your role to act on these ideas?

Give One and Get One

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Follow-Up Reading10 Do and Don’t Assumptions About Change

Fullan, 2001b, pp. 108-110

1. Do not assume that your version of what the change should be is the one that should or could beimplemented. On the contrary, assume that one of the main purposes of the process of implementation isto exchange your reality of what should be through interaction with implementers and others concerned.Stated another way, assume that successful implementation consists of some transformation or continualdevelopment of initial ideas.

2. Assume that any significant innovation, if it is to result in change, requires individual implementers to workout their own meaning. Significant change involves a certain amount of ambiguity, ambivalence, anduncertainty for the individual about the meaning of the change. Thus, effective implementation is a processof clarification. It is also important not to spend too much time in the early stages on needs assessment,program development, and problem definition activities — school staff have limited time. Clarification islikely to come in large part through reflective practice.

3. Assume that conflict and disagreement are not only inevitable but fundamental to successful change. Sinceany group of people possess multiple realities, any collective change attempt will necessarily involve conflict.Assumptions 2 and 3 combine to suggest that all successful efforts of significance, no matter how wellplanned, will experience an implementation dip in the early stages. Smooth implementation is often a signthat not much is really changing.

4. Assume that people need pressure to change (even in directions that they desire), but it will be effective onlyunder conditions that allow them to react, to form their own position, to interact with other implementers,to obtain technical assistance, etc. It is alright and helpful to express what you value in the form ofstandards of practice and expectations of accountability, but only if coupled with capacity building andproblem-solving opportunities.

5. Assume that effective change takes time. It is a process of “development in use.” Unrealistic or undefinedtime lines fail to recognize that implementation occurs developmentally. Significant change in the form ofimplementing specific innovations can be expected to take a minimum of two or three years; bringing aboutinstitutional reforms can take five or ten years. At the same time, work on changing the infrastructure(policies, incentives, capacity of agencies at all levels) so that valued gains can be sustained and built upon).

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6. Do not assume that the reason for lack of implementation is outright rejection of the values embodied inthe change, or hard-core resistance to all change. Assume that there are a number of possible reasons:value rejection, inadequate resources to support implementation, insufficient time elapsed, and thepossibility that resisters have some good points to make.

7. Do not expect all or even most people or groups to change. Progress occurs when we take steps (e.g., byfollowing the assumptions listed here) that increase the number of people affected. Our reach shouldexceed our grasp, but not by such a margin that we fall flat on our face. Instead of being discouraged by allthat remains to be done, be encouraged by what has been accomplished by way of improvement resultingfrom your actions.

8. Assume that you will need a plan that is based on the above assumptions and that addresses the factorsknown to affect implementation. Evolutionary planning and problem-coping models based on knowledgeof the change process are essential.

9. Assume that no amount of knowledge will ever make it totally clear what action should be taken. Actiondecisions are a combination of valid knowledge, political considerations, on-the-spot decisions, andintuition. Better knowledge of the change process will improve the mix of resources on which we draw, butit will never and should never represent the sole basis for decision.

10. Assume that changing the culture of institutions is the real agenda, not implementing single innovations.Put another way, when implementing particular innovations, we should always pay attention to whethereach institution and the relationships among institutions and individuals is developing or not.

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The change process, as we have seen, is complex, but can be understood. Module Iprovides insights in the form of essential change knowledge.

If change is complex, the remaining modules represent strategies for addressingchange effectively.

Notes

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Leadership for Changeii

It has become increasingly clear that leadership at all levels of the system is the keylever for reform, especially leaders who (a) focus on capacity building and (b) developother leaders who can carry on.

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The Change Puzzle

Framework forLeadership

— Fullan, 2001a

Collins’ Hierarchy ofLeadership

Level 5 → Executive(builds enduring greatness)

Level 4 → Effective Leader(catalyses commitment to vision and standards)

Level 3 → Competent Manager(organizes people toward objective)

Level 2 → Contributing Team Member(individual contribution to group objectives)

Level 1 → Highly Capable Individual(makes productive contributions)

— Collins, 2001

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Collins’ Flywheel

— Collins, 2001

CharismaticLeadership

… is negatively associated with sustainability.

Sustaining LeadersHave

… deep personal humility and intense professional will.

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Dealing with Resistance/Emotional Intelligence

Think of a situation where you encountered strong resistance. What actions did you take initially? Using the worksheet below, pair up and interview your partner.

WorksheetDealing with Resistance

The Situation Initial Action/Reaction

Person 1

Person 2


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Making Matters Worse

Making MattersWorse

“When we face resistance to our ideas, most of us react with an assortment ofineffective approaches. These are our default positions.” Use power Manipulate those who oppose Apply force of reason Ignore resistance

Play off relationships Make deals Kill the messenger Give in too soon

— Mauer, 1996

Why DefaultStrategies Don’tWork…

…and may often escalate and strengthen opposition to your goals They increase resistance The win might not be worth the cost They fail to create synergy They create fear and suspicion They separate us from others

— Mauer, 1996

Getting Beyond theWall: FiveFundamentalTouchstones

1. Maintain clear focus Keep both long and short view Persevere

2. Embrace resistance Counterintuitive response Understand voice of resistance

3. Respect those who resist Listen with interest Tell the truth

4. Relax Stay calm and stay engaged Know their intentions

5. Join with the resistance Begin together Change the game Find themes and possibilities

Consider strategies that incorporate most (or all) of the touchstones!— Mauer, 1996

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Emotional IntelligenceGoleman et al., 2002, Appendix B, pp. 253-255

Self AwarenessEmotional self-awareness. Leaders high in emotional self-awareness are attuned to their inner signals,recognizing how their feelings affect them and their job performance. They are attuned to their guiding valuesand can often intuit the best course of action, seeing the big picture in a complex situation. Emotionally self-aware leaders can be candid and authentic, able to speak openly about their emotions or with conviction abouttheir guiding vision.

Accurate self-assessment. Leaders with high self-awareness typically know their limitations and strengths, andexhibit a sense of humour about themselves. They exhibit a gracefulness in learning where they need to improve,and welcome constructive criticism and feedback. Accurate self-assessment lets a leader know when to ask forhelp and where to focus in cultivating new leadership strengths.

Self-confidence. Knowing their abilities with accuracy allows leaders to play to their strengths. Self-confidentleaders can welcome a difficult assignment. Such leaders often have a sense of presence, a self-assurance thatlets them stand out in a group.

Self ManagementEmotional self-control. Leaders with emotional self-control find ways to manage their disturbing emotions andimpulses, and even to channel them in useful ways. A hallmark of self-control is the leader who stays calm andclear-headed under high stress or during a crisis — or who remains unflappable even when confronted by atrying situation.

Transparency. Leaders who are transparent live their values. Transparency — an authentic openness to othersabout one’s feelings, beliefs, and actions — allows integrity. Such leaders openly admit mistakes or faults, andconfront unethical behaviour in others rather than turn a blind eye.

Adaptability. Leaders who are adaptable can juggle multiple demands without losing their focus or energy, andare comfortable with the inevitable ambiguities of organizational life. Such leaders can be flexible in adapting tonew challenges, nimble in adjusting to fluid change, and limber in their thinking in the face of new data orrealities.

Achievement. Leaders with strength in achievement have high personal standards that drive them to constantlyseek performance improvements — both for themselves and those they lead. They are pragmatic, settingmeasurable but challenging goals, and are able to calculate risk so that their goals are worthy but attainable. Ahallmark of achievement is in continually learning — and teaching — ways to do better.

Initiative. Leaders who have a sense of efficacy — that they have what it takes to control their own destiny — excelin initiative. They seize opportunities — or create them — rather than simply waiting. Such a leader does nothesitate to cut through red tape, or even bend the rules, when necessary to create better possibilities for the future.

Optimism. A leader who is optimistic can roll with the punches, seeing an opportunity rather than a threat in asetback. Such leaders see others positively, expecting the best of them. And their “glass half-full” outlook leadsthem to expect that changes in the future will be for the better.


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Social AwarenessEmpathy. Leaders with empathy are able to attune to a wide range of emotional signals, letting them sense thefelt, but unspoken, emotions in a person or group. Such leaders listen attentively and can grasp the otherperson’s perspective. Empathy makes a leader able to get along well with people of diverse backgrounds orfrom other cultures.

Organizational awareness. A leader with a keen social awareness can be politically astute, able to detect crucialsocial networks and read key power relationships. Such leaders can understand the political forces at work inan organization, as well as the guiding values and unspoken rules that operate among people there.

Service. Leaders high in the service competence foster an emotional climate so that people directly in touchwith the customer or client will keep the relationship on the right track. Such leaders monitor customer or clientsatisfaction carefully to ensure they are getting what they need. They also make themselves available asneeded.

Relationship ManagementInspiration. Leaders who inspire both create resonance and move people with a compelling vision or sharedmission. Such leaders embody what they ask of others, and are able to articulate a shared mission in a way thatinspires others to follow. They offer a sense of common purpose beyond the day-to-day tasks, making workexciting.

Influence. Indicators of a leader’s powers of influence range from finding just the right appeal for a givenlistener to knowing how to build buy-in from key people and a network of support for an initiative. Leadersadept in influence are persuasive and engaging when they address a group.

Developing others. Leaders who are adept at cultivating people’s abilities show a genuine interest in those theyare helping along, understanding their goals, strengths, and weaknesses. Such leaders can give timely andconstructive feedback and are natural mentors or coaches.

Change catalyst. Leaders who can catalyse change are able to recognize the need for the change, challenge thestatus quo, and champion the new order. They can be strong advocates for the change even in the face ofopposition, making the argument for it compellingly. They also find practical ways to overcome barriers tochange.

Conflict management. Leaders who manage conflicts best are able to draw out all parties, understand thediffering perspectives, and then find a common ideal that everyone can endorse. They surface the conflict,acknowledge the feelings and views of all sides, and then redirect the energy toward a shared ideal.

Building bonds. Leaders who are effective cultivate a web of relationships. They relate well to diverseindividuals, establishing trust and rapport within the organization and with external partners and networks.

Teamwork and collaboration. Leaders who are able team players generate an atmosphere of friendly collegialityand are themselves models of respect, helpfulness, and cooperation. They draw others into active, enthusiasticcommitment to the collective effort, and build spirit and identity. They spend time forging and cementing closerelationships beyond mere work obligations.

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EmotionalIntelligence

Personal Competence (how we manage ourselves) Self-awareness Self-management

Social Competence (how we manage relationships) Social awareness Relationship management

— Goleman, et al, 2002

RATINGSelf-Awareness Low HighEmotional self-awareness (reading one’s own emotions and recognizing their impact;using “gut sense” to guide decisions)

1 2 3 4 5

Accurate self-assessment (knowing one’s strengths and limits) 1 2 3 4 5Self-confidence (a sound sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities) 1 2 3 4 5

Self-ManagementEmotional self-control (keeping disruptive emotions and impulses under control) 1 2 3 4 5Transparency (displaying honesty and integrity; trustworthiness) 1 2 3 4 5Adaptability (flexibility in adapting to changing situations or overcoming obstacles) 1 2 3 4 5Achievement (the drive to improve performance to meet inner standards of excellence) 1 2 3 4 5Initiative (readiness to act and seize opportunities) 1 2 3 4 5Optimism (seeing the upside in events) 1 2 3 4 5

Social AwarenessEmpathy (sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking activeinterest in their concerns)

1 2 3 4 5

Organizational awareness (reading the currents, decision networks, and politics at theorganizational level)

1 2 3 4 5

Service (recognizing and meeting client or customer needs) 1 2 3 4 5

Relationship ManagementInspiration (guiding and motivating with a compelling vision) 1 2 3 4 5Influence (wielding a range of tactics for persuasion) 1 2 3 4 5Developing others (bolstering others’ abilities through feedback and guidance) 1 2 3 4 5Change catalyst (initiating, managing, and leading in a new direction) 1 2 3 4 5Conflict management (resolving disagreements) 1 2 3 4 5Building bonds (cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships) 1 2 3 4 5Teamwork and collaboration (cooperation and team building) 1 2 3 4 5

How could you improve on these dimensions? Identify 3-5 items on which you are relatively high (4 or 5) How could you sustain your strengths on these dimensions?


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Emotional Blueprint: Managing You: Applying Your Emotional Intelligence Skills:

Step 1 Objective What to Do

Identifying Emotions Stay open to youremotions and those ofothers around you.

Observe, listen, askquestions, confirmunderstanding.

Using Emotions Reflect on theseemotions and considertheir influence onthinking.

Determine how thesefeelings influencethinking. Change thetone if necessary.

Understanding Emotions Examine the causes offeelings and what mayhappen next.

Consider reasons for thefeelings and how theywill likely change ifvarious events occur.

Managing Emotions Don’t minimize thefeelings, and don’t blowthe feelings out ofproportion.

Include rational, logicalinformation withemotional data for anoptimal decision.

— Caruso & Salovey, 2005

Objective: The four parts of this section can help you to become more aware of yourconfidence and understanding of your emotional intelligence skills.

Instructions: Simply read each question and select one response — A, B, or C — that you feelbest describes yourself.

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Part 1. Identifying Emotions: Assess our emotional awareness1. Awareness of emotions

A [ ] Almost always aware of how I feelB [ ] At times am aware of my feelingsC [ ] Don’t pay much attention to my feelings

2. Expression of feelingsA [ ] Can show others how I feel through emotional expressionB [ ] Can show some of my feelingsC [ ] Not good at expressing my feelings

3. Reading of other people’s emotionsA [ ] Always know how someone else feelsB [ ] Sometimes pick up on others’ feelingsC [ ] Misread people’s feelings

4. Ability to read subtle, nonverbal emotional cuesA [ ] Can read between the lines and pick up on how the person feelsB [ ] At times, can read nonverbal cues such as body languageC [ ] Don’t pay much attention to these cues

5. Awareness of false emotionsA [ ] Always pick up on liesB [ ] Usually am aware of when a person is lyingC [ ] Can be fooled by people

6. Perception of emotion in artA [ ] Strong aesthetic senseB [ ] At times can feel itC [ ] Am uninterested in art or music

7. Ability to monitor emotionsA [ ] Always aware of feelingsB [ ] Usually awareC [ ] Rarely aware

8. Aware of manipulative emotionsA [ ] Always know when a person is trying to manipulate meB [ ] Usually knowC [ ] Rarely know


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Part 2. Using Emotions to Facilitate Thought: Assess your ability to generate emotions and use them to think

1. When people describe experiences to me,A [ ] I can feel what they feelB [ ] I understand what they feelC [ ] I focus on facts and details

2. I can generate an emotion on demandA [ ] Easily, for all emotionsB [ ] For most emotionsC [ ] Rarely, or with great difficulty

3. Before an important event,A [ ] I can get into a positive, energetic moodB [ ] I may be able to psych myself up for itC [ ] I keep my mood just the same

4. Is my thinking influenced by my feelings?A [ ] Different moods affect thinking and decision making in different waysB [ ] It may be important to be in a certain mood at certain timesC [ ] My thinking is not clouded by emotions

5. What is the influence of strong feelings on my thinking?A [ ] Feelings help me focus on what’s importantB [ ] Feelings have little impact on meC [ ] Feelings distract me

6. My emotional imagination isA [ ] Very strongB [ ] Mildly interestingC [ ] Adds little value

7. I can change my moodA [ ] EasilyB [ ] UsuallyC [ ] Rarely

8. When people describe powerful emotional events,A [ ] I feel what they feelB [ ] My feelings change a bitC [ ] My feelings stay the same

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Part 3. Understanding Emotions: Assess your emotional knowledge1. My emotional vocabulary is

A [ ] Very detailed and richB [ ] Above averageC [ ] Not very large

2. My understanding of why people feel the way they do usually yieldsA [ ] Excellent insightsB [ ] Some insightC [ ] Some missing pieces

3. My knowledge of how emotions change and develop isA [ ] SophisticatedB [ ] Somewhat developedC [ ] Limited and of little interest to me

4. Emotional what-if thinking yieldsA [ ] Accurate prediction of outcome of various actionsB [ ] At times, good prediction of feelingsC [ ] Tend not to project how people will feel

5. When I try to determine what causes emotions, IA [ ] Always link the feeling to an eventB [ ] Sometimes link a feeling to a causeC [ ] Believe that feelings don’t have a cause

6. I believe that contradictory emotionsA [ ] Can be felt, such as love and hate at the same timeB [ ] May be possibleC [ ] Make little sense

7. I think emotionsA [ ] Have certain patterns of changeB [ ] Sometimes can follow other emotionsC [ ] Usually occur in a random order

8. My emotional reasoning could be described this way:A [ ] I have a sophisticated emotional vocabularyB [ ] I can usually describe emotionsC [ ] I struggle for words to describe feelings


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Part 4. Managing Emotions: Assess your emotional management1. I attend to feelings

A [ ] UsuallyB [ ] At timesC [ ] Rarely

2. I act on my feelingsA [ ] ImmediatelyB [ ] At timesC [ ] Hardly ever

3. Strong emotionsA [ ] Motivate and help meB [ ] At times take overC [ ] Should be controlled and forgotten

4. I am clear about how I feelA [ ] UsuallyB [ ] At timesC [ ] Rarely

5. The influence feelings have on meA [ ] Is usually understood in terms of how feelings affect meB [ ] Is understood at timesC [ ] Is rarely processed or felt

6. I process strong emotionsA [ ] In order not to exaggerate or minimize themB [ ] At timesC [ ] So as to either minimize or maximize

7. I am able to change a bad moodA [ ] UsuallyB [ ] At timesC [ ] Rarely

8. I can keep a good mood goingA [ ] UsuallyB [ ] At timesC [ ] Rarely

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What Does It Mean? A minute or so more of your time can help you better understand your relativeemotional intelligence skills and confidence level.

Indicate how many times you selected A, B, C responses for each of the four setsof questions. Then create a score for each of the four parts of the self-assessmentsurvey by giving yourself 2 points for every ‘A’ response, 1 point for a ‘B’response, and 0 points for a ‘C’ response.

Area A(2)

B(1)

C(0)

YourScore

Identifying Emotions

Using Emotions

Understanding Emotions

Managing Emotions

Let’s say that a lower score is one that is around 7 or less, and a higher score onethat is around 9 or above. This is meant only as a means to stimulate yourthinking and feeling about these issues, not to measure your actual skills.You can interpret these scores as follows:Identifying Emotions: Your score indicates how you feel about identifyingemotions accurately. Do you attend to this source of data, or do you ignore it?And if you do try to figure other people out, are your guesses accurate or not?Using Emotions: Your score gives you an idea of whether you use your feelings tohelp you gain insight into others or to enhance the way you decide and think.Understanding Emotions: Your score for this set of questions helps you betterunderstand the depth of your emotional knowledge.Managing Emotions: Your score on managing emotions indicates the extent towhich you allow your feelings to positively affect your decision making.

Consider your highest area and ask yourself: What strengths do I have? How might I approach a situation?Consider your lowest area and ask yourself: What obstacles do I face? What possible problems might I have in a given situation?

— Caruso & Salovey, 2005


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Seven Surprises for School Leaders:1. You can’t run the companyWhile new CEOs generally have had plenty of experience running large and complicated components of theirbusinesses and relish the chance to run the whole organization, they are often surprised by the fact that theycan’t monitor everything – and don’t know everything – anymore.

2. Giving orders is very costlyPower may be concentrated in the hands of the CEO, but even judicious unilateral use of it comes at a stiff price.By the very exercise of power, a business leader loses it because progress is slowed. So the effective CEO mustmake sure that the mechanisms for shared power and consultation are finely tuned.

3. It’s hard to know what’s really going onCEOs are flooded with information. But finding it is impossible to know everything, they sense how difficult it isto assess which pieces of information are reliable.

4. You are always sending a messageIt is often a surprise to new CEOs that their every move, inside and out the company, is scrutinized andinterpreted (or misinterpreted). Moreover they find different constituencies respond to the same message invarious, sometimes confounding ways.

5. You are not the bossWhile the CEO may be the top dog within the company, he or she still reports to a board that has the ultimatepower. They, in the end, hire and fire the CEO, set evaluation and compensation schedules, countermandstrategic directions, and more. The wise CEO makes board meetings an exercise in developing a shared visionand shared responsibility for strategy-making.

6. Pleasing shareholders is not the goalWhen new on the job, CEOs tend to assume that pleasing shareholders is what counts most. Unfortunately,defining the job this way may not be in the long-term interests of the company, either financially or strategically.The CEO has to lead the board to a mutual agreement about the long-term strategies and goals – and mustknow when board members’ short-term second-guessing can be ignored.

7. You are still only humanCEOs are seen as, or expected to be, superheroes. The power and prestige of the job can be seductive, and canencourage overly ambitious goals. Power can even lead to acts of hubris. Ambitious new CEOs can seriouslyunderestimate the demands of the job and the toll it can take on personal and family life. Top leaders have tocome to grips with the fact that they can’t do everything well, and that the job is more bruising (physically,psychologically, and emotionally) than they ever imagined. Finding outlets outside of work is essential to theirwell–being and balance.

— Bassett, 2005

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Reflections onLeadership

What is the most important thing about leadership, related to your situation, thatyou learned from this module?

Worksheet

Notes

Notes

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Learning Communities atthe Local Leveliii

All change is successful or not at the local level. In most cases this involvesestablishing new cultures for learning.

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The Change Puzzle

Influences on SchoolCapacity and SchoolStudent Achievement

— Newmann, King & Youngs, 2000

School Capacity The collective power of the full staff to improve student achievement.School capacity includes and requires:1. Knowledge, skills, dispositions of individuals2. Professional community3. Program coherence4. Technical resources5. Shared leadership

Learning Communities at the Local Level

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Activity Letter off A-EIn viewing the Montview video what evidence do you see of the five capacityfactors in action? Person A – Watch for knowledge, skills, dispositions of individuals. Person B – Watch for professional community. Person C – Watch for program coherence. Person D – Watch for technical resources. Person E – Watch for shared leadership.

Worksheet – Montview Video

Assessment LiteracyDefinition

1. Ability to gather dependable student data.2. Capacity to examine student data and make sense of it.3. Ability to make changes in teaching and schools derived from those data

including involving pupils in their own learning.4. Commitment to communicate effectively and engage in external assessment

discussions.

Assessment Assessment FOR learning is to assessment OF learning what the annual physicalexamination is an autopsy.

— Reeves, 2002

Effective Schools Effective schools are ones in which principals and teachers focus on studentlearning outcomes and link this information to improvements in teaching andlearning strategies.

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Assess your school on the components. Where are you strong? What areas do you need to work on?

Assessing Your School’s Capacity

SCALE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

To a small extent To a great extent

1. Knowledge, skills,dispositions of individuals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2. Professional community 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

3. Program coherence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

4. Technical resources 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

5. Principal/shared leadership 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Notes:

Notes

Notes

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Role of the Districtiv

Our research and that of others shows that you cannot develop strong learningcommunities by schools and communities working on their own. Other levels of the systemhave a role to play in developing school and community capacity.

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The Change Puzzle

Re-Creating a SchoolSystem:

7 Lessons(from 1988-1996)

1. It is about instruction, and only instruction2. Instructional change is a long, multistage process3. Shared expertise is the driver of instructional change4. Focus on systemwide improvement5. Good ideas come from talented people working together6. Set clear expectations, then decentralize7. Collegiality, caring, respect

— Elmore & Burney, 1999

Re-Creating a SchoolSystem:

10 Lessons(from 1998-2004)

1. Internal leaders with a clear, coherent driving conceptualization2. Collective moral purpose that extends to everyone3. The right bus4. Leadership and capacity building for those on the bus5. Lateral capacity building6. Deep learning7. Productive conflict8. Demanding cultures9. External partners10. Growing financial investments over time

— Fullan, Bertani, & Quinn, 2004

New Lessons forDistrict-Wide Reform:Activity

All read ‘The District Context’ and ‘Conclusion’ Person A: Read Lessons 1-2 Person B: Read Lessons 3-5 Person C: Read Lessons 6-8 Person D: Read Lessons 9-10

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New Lessons from District-Wide ReformFullan, Bertani, & Quinn, 2004

The District ContextIn Change Forces with a Vengeance (Fullan, 2003a), we argued that we need a tri-level reform model for large-scale, sustainable educational reform, namely: (1) what has to happen at the school and community level (2)what has to happen at the district level, and (3) what has to happen at the state (state/federal) level. This paperencompasses the first two levels, and is based on the work in which we and others are engaged in districts inCanada, the U.S. and England.

The new work in school districts is more systemic and coherent, more deep, and more nuanced in itssophistication. While it is still a work in progress there are some key lessons that are emerging. In this paper wepresent ten of these lessons. Our definition of district-wide reform is when all or the vast majority of schools ina district are engaged in continuous, interactive improvement of student learning with a collective focus onbuilding individual and organization capacity.

Our current work involves the following districts. In Canada: York Region School Board (Ontario), TorontoDistrict School Board (Ontario), Edmonton Catholic Schools (Alberta); the U.S.: Chicago Public Schools, GuilfordCounty (Greensboro, N.C.), Baltimore Public Schools; in England: Bristol Local Education Authority. The lessonsin this article are a composite of the experiences in these districts, and in the literature more generally. Thelessons are not presented in order of priority — all ten working in concert are required.

The lessons are:

1. Internal leaders with a clear, coherent driving conceptualization2. Collective moral purpose that extends to everyone3. The right bus4. Leadership and capacity building for those on the bus5. Lateral capacity building6. Deep learning7. Productive conflict8. Demanding cultures9. External partners10. Growing financial investments over time

When these lessons are employed with rigor they have a powerful affect on school capacity and in turn onstudent learning. The following examples offer proof even though they were not necessarily using all tenlessons. In England, achievement levels for 11 year olds in literacy and mathematics increased from 63% to75% in 19,000 schools in the 1997-2001 period. In the Toronto District, achievement in literacy increased by 9percentage points in four years. In Edmonton, student results on province-wide assessment have risen 11.5% infour years. In Chicago, schools are demonstrating improvement in (i) the emergence of strong professionallearning communities at the school level; (ii) the development of school leadership on the part of principals andschool leaders; and (iii) school gains on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. In short, the lessons do make a difference.

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1. Leaders and the Driving ConceptualizationThe terms — professional learning community, capacity building, assessment for learning — travel easily, theunderlying conceptualization does not. Icebergs don’t travel well if you are just trying to move the visible part.Many leaders try to take short cuts by slicing off the visible part of the iceberg assuming they have captured itsfull power.

Deep district reform requires leaders at or near the top who can conceptualize the direction, both in referenceto teaching and learning, and in terms of change strategy. Expertise in pedagogy and expertise in change aretwo different domains which must be integrated (for an example, see our work in the Toronto District,Rolheiser, Fullan & Edge, 2003). The knowledge base for teaching and learning, and for change is increasinglyadvancing. Top leaders must grasp this knowledge base and build a coalition of leaders who constantly pursueit in practice. While success cannot be accomplished only from within (see lesson 9) it must be driven daily fromwithin.

Internal leaders (at or near the top) have several key advantages in articulating a strategy. First and foremost,they typically have the mandate from the Board that appointed them. Second, they have the "big picture" ofthe organization because of their unique position in the organization. Third, they usually have a high degree ofpublic visibility, which provides them the platform for communicating the strategy. Finally, they have access tofinancial and human resources as well as the authority to make the strategy a reality. In short they have theimprovement charge, systemic view, public forum, and control over resources to drive the conceptualization.Just as we have identified the importance of distributed leadership at the school level, large-scale reform needsto be driven by a model of pluralized leadership with teams of people sharing in creating and driving a clear,coherent strategy.

2. Collective Moral Purpose that Extends to EveryoneThe moral purpose of educators has been around since the beginning of teaching, but it has often been anindividual phenomenon — the heroic teacher, or principal or superintendent who succeeds (for brief periods)against all odds. This moral martyrdom is great for the individual’s soul, but does not add up. We need insteadto think of the moral imperative as an organizational or system quality (see Fullan, 2003b).

Collective moral purpose has at least three components. First it makes explicit the goal of “raising the bar andclosing the gap” with respect to higher and lower performing individuals and schools. This must be stated andpursued in the collective consciousness and corresponding actions.

Second, moral purpose must extend to the adults not just the students. Many passionate, morally drivensuperintendents have failed badly because they blindly, even courageously committed to students, runningroughshod over any adults that got in the way. This is one of our nuanced findings. We do not mean thatpersistently uncaring and incompetent teachers should be tolerated (see lesson 8), but to be successful, leadersmust treat the development of students and adults co-equally when it comes to the moral imperative. Youcannot advance the cause of students without attending to the cause of teachers.


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Another new finding: the moral imperative must extend vertically as well as horizontally throughout the socialenvironment. District leaders must foster a district culture where school principals are concerned about thesuccess of other schools in the district, not just their own (lesson 5). Districts must be concerned about otherdistricts and the overall environment in which they are working. Everyone has a responsibility for changing thelarger context for the better.

Part and parcel of lesson two is the realization that competition among schools within districts or even acrossdistricts leads to counter productive behaviors. Pfeffer and Sutton (2000) refer to this problem as “when internalcompetition turns friends into enemies” (p 180). Such competition undermines interdependence, trust and loyalty,and related characteristics of strong knowledge sharing organizations. The authors argue that in successfulorganizations “competitive juices are aimed at external competitors rather than at people from other locations,units, or departments within the firm” (p 202, emphasis in original). Lessons two (and five) foster identity beyondone’s school to other schools in the system which makes district-wide improvement more likely.

3. The Right BusJim Collins (2001) talks about getting the right people in the right seats on the bus. We want to start one stepback with the question of what is the right bus (structure and roles). We are not great fans of restructuringbecause too often it is used to create the illusion of change. But structure and alignment are crucial to success.We use the Chicago Public Schools only for illustrative purposes, and then spell out the underlying principles.Chicago has some 600 schools and has evolved over the past fifteen years through a centralization-decentralization reconciliation. Its recent reorganization contains the following features:

24 clusters (18 elementary, 6 high schools) ranging in size from 12 schools (high need) to 43 schools (wellperforming).

Each cluster is headed by an Area Instructional Officer (AIO) — formerly Region Education Officer whose jobit is to focus relentlessly on teaching and learning.

Each cluster has a Management Support Director (MSD) who is responsible for all managerial tasks and crisesthat normally divert AIOs from focusing on teaching and learning.

Each cluster contains key instructional staff — coaches for reading, math-science, specialized services, atechnology coordinator, and in some areas a coach for English Language Learners. .

Each school within the cluster is lead by revamped school teams headed by the principal and supported byteacher leaders (e.g., literacy and math and science specialists).

All leaders at the cluster and school level are engaged in multiple forms of ongoing capacity building (lessons 4and 5).

The principles underlying these developments include:

The structure must be driven and refined by the values and thinking in lessons one and two. There must be a laser like focus on teaching and learning (for adults and for students). The structure and roles are aligned which means creating an infrastructure that:

(i) identifies a direction and all parts of the system pursuing the same direction;(ii) maintains a synergy where many people are working in a coordinated effort toward the same purpose; and(iii) aligns ideas, people, and financial resources to support the directions and goals.

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Alignment reinforces focus and coherence. Embedded in this “infrastructure building” is the difficult human resource work that is required. This means

changing the structure to match the challenges at hand, and also adjusting the structure periodically toensure that it is working and to maintain sensitivity to changing conditions.

In short, there is much more to structure than the typical organization chart reflects. Indeed, the other ninelessons feed into structure.

4. Leadership and Capacity BuildingLeadership is to this decade what standards based reform was to the 1990’s if you want large-scale sustainablereform (Fullan 2003a, b). There are several nuanced sub lessons here. First, the main mark of a successful leaderis not his or her impact on the bottom line of student learning at the end of their tenure, but rather how manygood leaders they leave behind who can go even further. These two aspects, of course, are not mutuallyexclusive; leaders need to focus on both achievement and the development of leaders for the future.

Second, it is not turnover of leaders per se that presents problems, but rather discontinuity of direction. Aligned,collaborative organizations foster continuity of direction. Third, ongoing professional development is requiredfor those in the roles including relational coordination — how different roles in complex, uncertainenvironments work in tandem (Gittell, 2003). Here, learning in context is key i.e., learning not just throughworkshops, but also through daily interactions in cultures designed for job-embedded learning andcoordination. Capacity building is essential for everyone: school level, area level, and system level including themost senior executives. Explicit processes for building capacity of leaders is fostered at all levels.

Capacity building requires that the organization be very clear about where they want the capacity to reside:what capacity they were trying to build for the short term as well as the long term; and how to coordinatecapacity building across organizational boundaries. In Chicago for example, people learn in weekly meetings,study groups, focused institutes, extended academies, and walkthrough site visits (in which teams visit schoolsto learn from and react to strategies underway). If a system wants to ensure alignment and coherence, it has tobuild structures and cultures where coordinated learning occurs and where messages and actions becomeconsistent within and across roles and organizational levels — not a sealed off consistency but one in whichproblems are confronted and new learnings are incorporated as you go.

STARS sidebar example to illustrate capacity building:

STARS (School Teams Achieving Results for Students) is an innovative program focused on building thecapacity of school leadership teams to increase instructional capacity and improve results. Launchedwith 150 schools in Chicago in 2002 and in Guilford County with 115 schools in 2003, thecomprehensive strategy includes both school level teacher-principal teams, and district level Area orInstructional Improvement Officers. The sustained multiyear effort includes weeklong institutes andsustained follow-up of five days annually. The transfer of skills to classrooms and schools is enhancedby cycles of application and regular examination of student results in follow-up sessions. The fosteringof deep professional learning communities and lateral networking across the district are continuallybeing reinforced.


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5. Lateral Capacity BuildingAnother nuanced finding — the role of the district is not just to foster vertical alignment (between the districtand the schools) but equally important to promote horizontal exchanges and collaboration across schools. Thislateral capacity building is one of those high leverage strategies that has enormous multiple payoffs for theinvestment required. What is lateral capacity building, and what are its benefits?

Lateral capacity building involves any strategy that connects schools within a district (and more broadly) for thepurpose of developing new ideas, skills, practices that build the ability to bring about improvements. Twoexamples. The Bristol Local Education Authority in England has 19 high schools. Ten of the schools are abovethe national norm on various measures of performance; nine are below. Over the past year the districtleadership along with the 19 principals have developed a strategy that pairs schools and departments (e.g., amath department in one school working with a math department in another school to improve mathematicslearning such as raising the bar, closing the gap). This new way of learning is a feature of the district’s evolvingculture. There are several other examples in districts in England of schools working with each other to improvestudent learning, and of leaders networking across districts to improve capacity.

A second example is the Walkthrough utilized in Chicago with small groups (principals, coaches, area officers)conducting site visits to examine what given schools are doing and with what results in order to learn from thestrategies and contribute feedback to the visited school.

When done well, the payoffs are considerable. The most prominent result as mentioned in Lesson Two is thatindividual school principals become almost as concerned about the success of other schools in the district asthey are about their own. Teams working together (principals, coaches, and area officers) develop clear,operational understandings of the driving conceptualization and attendant strategies. New ideas, skills andcapacities are developed along with a shared sense of purpose, coherence, commitment to district-widedevelopment.

6. Deep LearningBelief systems like moral purpose should not change, but the details of the vision to get there should bemalleable. The districts we work with employ Lessons One and Two to develop and articulate a compellingvision but they recognize that the vision will continually evolve during implementation. Political pressures,policy shifts, financial conditions, and field realities all impact realizing the vision. Effective districts do not somuch get the strategy right to begin with as much as they continually refine it based on collecting and usinginformation systematically during implementation. Because of alignment, relational coordination and theimplementation of the other lessons these districts maintain close contact with problems, promote and inviteregular feedback, and engage in problem-solving actions. It is this disciplined inquiry and focused learning asyou go that fuels deeper and more sustainable improvement.

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Starting at the student level, assessment literacy or assessment for learning is a powerful school improvementstrategy. How to gather/access student performance data? How to make sense of (disaggregate) data? How tolink data to instructional improvements? These are all key basic questions and capacities. One also needs toknow whether teachers, administrators and other staff are growing; whether professional learning communitieswithin and across schools are evolving; whether capacity building strategies are effectively impacting teacherand principal learning; whether district staff and the system are relentlessly pursuing ways to better serve theneeds of staff schools, and the area; and whether students and parents are satisfied.

In this scenario information becomes shared knowledge through a social process of data collection,interpretation and application within and across levels of the system in order to continually understand theimpact that initiatives are having. Finally, what is clear in this work is that the learning for both students andeducators needs to become deeper. For students this means going beyond literacy and numeracy into the kindof learning we saw from Claxton. For adults the use of ‘assessment for learning’, and focusing on changing theculture of the school represents more fundamental changes in ongoing learning, and problem-solving.

7. Productive ConflictThis is the hardest lesson of all to implement. All changes worth their salt reveal differences. District-widereform, because it is complex involving many levels and people, produces even more questions anddisagreements. Successful districts must engage in a difficult balancing act. If they give in too soon in the faceof conflict and fail to stay the course, they will not be able to work through the inevitable implementationbarriers. On the other hand, if they show an inflexible commitment to a vision (even if based on passionatemoral purpose) they can drive resistance underground and miss valuable lessons until it is too late. What can bedone?

First, as leaders in districts get better at implementing the other nine lessons they become more effective atidentifying ‘good” and ‘bad” conflict. Indeed, these cultures, because of their built-in checks and balances helpsort out productive from dysfunctional conflict. They use the productive conflict to catalyze refinements andmake mid-course corrections while minimizing the effects of dysfunctional conflict.

Second, successful organizations explicitly value differences and do not panic when things go wrong. Pfefferand Sutton’s (2000) study of organizations that close the knowing-doing gap found that these organizations“learn from mistakes” and “drive out fear” while still being disciplined about what is being learned.

Third, districts that are going to move forward take the orientation that disagreement is “normal” in all changesituations, and that it is what you do with conflict that is the crucial capacity. Successful districts arecollaborative, but they are not always congenial and consensual. They value and work through differences,which can only be done if you have a high trust yet demanding culture. Finally, we can say that some issues arenon-negotiable — raising the bar and closing the gap, ongoing development of capacity, transparency ofresults. The non-negotiables reduce the areas of conflict, and channel differences into areas that are essentialfor solving problems necessary to move forward.


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8. Demanding CulturesThe tip of the iceberg problem misleads those examining successful districts from afar. Yes they arecollaborative, and committed to the development of students and adults alike; but they are also highlydisciplined cultures. The discipline is built in through the implementation of the ten lessons. Moral purpose istoo important to leave to chance. The highly interactive cultures being developed essentially incorporate highpressure and high support, virtually seamlessly as the lessons unfold and interrelate. Whether you are doinggreat or bad work it is impossible to go unnoticed in these cultures. As we have seen in the previous lessonpeople in these cultures know that improvement is tough going, know that disagreement is a normal part ofany change process, and thus are more inclined and prepared to confront it.

As Bryk and Schneider (2002) found in studying ‘high trust’ school cultures in Chicago, these cultures are morenot less likely to take action against persistently uncaring or incompetent teachers. They give people greatsupport, but only to a point; they take action not just because an uncaring teacher is bad for the children in hisor her class, but also because failure to act in a bad situation poisons the whole atmosphere. Students, parentsand colleagues know when bad teaching is being tolerated.

High trust organizations combine respect, personal regard, integrity and competence - yes competence. Youcannot trust even well intentioned people if they are not good at what they are doing. Note especially the fourorganizational consequences of high trust schools identified by Bryk and Schneider: enables risk and effort;facilitates problem solving; coordinates clear collective action; sustains moral and ethical imperative.Improvement involves great effort and difficult work. Low trust cultures do not have the capacity to engage insuch work. High trust cultures make the extraordinary possible. They energize people and give them thewherewithal to be successful under enormously demanding conditions. These cultures are disciplined andconfident that staying the course will payoff; they are tough on competence and professional ethics.

Finally, we note that Bryk and Schneider are talking about high trust schools; we are raising the bar to say thatwe need high trust districts in which the entire set of schools are motivated and supported to engage indemanding work, able to withstand frustrations along the way, persisting as they make reform doable andworthwhile.

9. External PartnersWe don’t know of any improving district that does not have active external partners. On the other hand, weknow of districts that have substantial external partners and additional resources and are going nowhere. Thekey is who is driving the bus and do they know what they are doing. Leading in tough circumstances is complexpartly because there are many opportunities to obtain external resources and work with external partners. Ifyou don’t have your act together (the previous 8 lessons) external partners can worsen the situation by addingto overload and fragmentation.

External partners do two things in relation to districts on the move. First, they act as catalysts to do things thatmight not otherwise be pursued with vigor. Again change is hard and sometimes external pressures (combinedwith internal potential) can be the stimulus — the external excuse — to tackle something that might nototherwise be addressed. In this sense districts use external partners to stir the pot (in purposeful directions).

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Second, external partners can provide the additional expertise to help build and/or complement internalcapacity building. Chicago for example utilized the resources of the business community through the McKenzieGroup to lead the planning effort for its Human Capital Initiative. McKenzie staffed and coordinated the processfor nine months producing a series of reports and recommendations through five different task forces. Anotherexample has Chicago engaged in a reading demonstration project with six metropolitan universities with thesupport of a local foundation. This project is producing recommendations outlining how different models can beused to build instructional capacity in reading at the school level. The McKenzie Group work was done probono, and the demonstration project was funded by the Chicago Community Trust.

External partners can include business, foundations, community-based organizations, universities andincreasingly other school districts, as long as the initiatives are guided by an overall plan consistent with thelessons learned in this article. In England, for example, 4,000 elementary school principals who have hadsuccess in leading the improvement of literacy in their schools are being paired with 4,000 principals who areinterested in learning more about how to do this. Partners are essential, but only if they help build capacity.

10. Growing Financial InvestmentThere is another new lesson emerging. Governments, the public (and foundations, businesses etc.) are willingto put more money into public education, not just because there is need, but rather when they perceive that theinvestment will payoff. Last year’s success is next year’s new money. New investments will not yield results (asthe Annenberg Challenge found out) unless they are coordinated with the capacity of districts to use the moneyeffectively.

In terms of public (government) investment two things have to happen. One is that existing resources must beruthlessly redeployed in the service of teaching and learning (again the previous nine lessons). Over a two-yearperiod, the Chicago Public Schools have significantly increased their allocation of resources for system-widecapacity building through professional development. For example, the Chicago Reading Initiative investmentgrew from twelve million dollars in 2001-2002 to twenty-one million dollars in 2003-2004. For most districts“investment growing” will require the organization to redirect resources from prior programs (stop doing) tothe emerging priorities (start-doing) in order to support the new vision.

Second, we need to figure out what it will take for responsive governments to have the confidence to riskinvesting new additional money — confidence that the investments will eventually payoff politically, morally,through improved performance in the judgment of the public.

This is critical. Foundations should not substitute for government spending but rather should amplify it. DavidMiliband, the Minister of Education in England put the case for growing public invest in these words:

To show that increased investment will lead to changes in the life chances…. that is what I want to beable to argue: that investment in education should be the top priority not just because education is themost important investment for the future of the country, but that education will put investment to besteffect when it comes to changing the life chances of young people. (Miliband, 2003)

In brief, one of the major rewards of implementing the previous nine lessons is the growing financial investmentin education from the public purse, amplified by additional private money enabling schools to go even further.


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ConclusionOur knowledge of district-wide, large-scale improvement is still in its relatively early stages, but it isincreasingly deeper and more sophisticated. Three issues remain (in addition to doing more of what weadvocate in the ten lessons).

First, it is becoming apparent that initial gains in student achievement (e.g., literacy and mathematics) whichare significant, tend to plateau (i.e., with the right strategies you can increase achievement but only to a point).What might be required to go further will likely involve stronger strategies (such as supporting collaborativecultures with more resources, investing in leadership, improving teaching conditions, etc.). Furthermore, theincreased trajectory of success as measured by student achievement will stall, causing policymakers to concludefalsely that schools are failing to improve when in reality more time (and more robust strategies) are needed togo deeper. This is a complex point and we mention it as the next frontier of improvement work (Elmore, 2003,draws a similar conclusion).

Second, district-wide success, so far has been confined to elementary and to a certain extent middle schools.We do not know of any example of district-wide success involving all high schools in the district. High schoolreform is now being addressed more systematically, so we should see some valuable developments and lessonsover the next few years, such as the Bristol initiative, and the Gates Foundation strategy to build professionallearning communities at the high school level (provided that this strategy fosters development of all highschools within given districts). Most of the districts we are working with are now tackling high school reformwith a district-wide orientation.

Third, and beyond the scope of this paper, Michael Barber (the chief architect of the successful British strategyto improve literacy and numeracy) and Michael Fullan, are developing a similar article to this one focusing onlessons learned about state level policy and strategies which are needed for large-scale, sustainable reform.This third (state) level of reform in the tri-level reform model (Fullan, 2003a) is the most complex, but morejurisdictions are realizing that without a more coherent state/federal level infrastructure any district success willbe short-lived.

In the meantime, we are encouraged by the growing number of districts that are becoming seriously engaged inthe ten lessons. District-wide reform has never been more vibrant as more and more districts reach out to learnfrom one another in the process.

ReferencesBryk, A. & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools. New York: Russell SageCollins, J. (2001). Good to great. New York; Harper Collins.Elmore, R. (2003). Doing the right thing, knowing the right thing to do. Harvard University Consortium for PolicyResearch in Education.Fullan, M. (2003a). Change forces with a vengeance. London: RoutledgeFalmer.Fullan, M. (2003b). The moral imperative of school leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.Gittell, J. (2003). The southwest airlines way. New York: McGraw Hill.Miliband, D. (2003) School leadership: the productivity challenge inaugural lecture. National College of SchoolLeadership: University of Nottingham, October, 2003.Pfeffer, J. & Sutton, R. (2000). The knowing-doing gap. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Rolheiser, C., Fullan, M. & Edge, K., (2003). Dynamic duo. Journal of Staff Development, 24(2), pp. 38-41.

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Rate Your District/Lea/Region/Country

SCALE

1 2 3 4 5

To a small extent To a great extent

1. Driving conceptualization 1 2 3 4 5

2. Collective moral purpose 1 2 3 4 5

3. The right bus 1 2 3 4 5

4. Leadership and capacity building 1 2 3 4 5

5. Lateral capacity building 1 2 3 4 5

6. Deep learning 1 2 3 4 5

7. Productive conflict 1 2 3 4 5

8. Demanding cultures 1 2 3 4 5

9. External partners 1 2 3 4 5

10. Growing financial investment 1 2 3 4 5

SCORESBelow 30 - Get to Work!

30 - 39 - Increase Focus

40 - 50 - Keep Going, But Celebrate— Fullan, Bertani, & Quinn (2004)


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Knowsley:A Case Study of Innovation Across an LEA (School District)

Munby, 2004

Knowsley ContextKnowsley Local Education Authority (LEA) is a metropolitan authority just east of Liverpool. It is the 3rd mostdeprived authority in England. Four out of every ten children in Knowsley live in homes where there is noearned income and no role model of successful work. There is a culture of low aspiration and self-esteem.Historically, student achievement is low, and the take-up of further education is poor.

The LEA consists of 59 primary schools, eleven secondary schools, and seven special schools with a totalstudent population of 28,000, and 1,500 professional staff.

In 1999, Knowsley LEA was inspected as part of the regular cycle of inspections conducted by OFSTED (Office ofStandards in Education). The 1999 assessment found weaknesses on most dimensions of performance: studentachievement, capacity to improve, the strategy for school improvement and relationships between the LEA andschools. A second inspection was conducted in June 2003. This report stated:

“Recent developments and the implementation of well thought through initiatives have resulted inKnowsley establishing itself as an LEA of some significance. It has improved over the past three yearsand shown how vision and leadership together with excellent relationships with schools, can revive aneducation service” (p. 2);

“The new administration has developed further the existing strengths in partnerships and collaborativeworking and has taken them to an unusually high level. Headteachers of individual schools seethemselves as part of a wider-team with responsibility for the education service throughout theborough” (p. 2);

“Together with schools, they have embarked upon a series of carefully considered and very well-funded initiatives that are intended to transform education … The productive partnership with schoolsgoes beyond the changes being wrought at the classroom level” (p. 2).

In 2001 Knowsley was in the bottom quartile nationally in test results for eleven year-olds. In 2004, test resultsin mathematics for eleven year-olds are above the national average and science and English results are almostin line with the national average. At GCSE in 2001, Knowsley had the lowest percentage in the country ofstudents achieving five or more A*-C grades at GCSE (examinations for 16 year-olds). During the period 2001 to2004 the national improvement rate was approximately 3%. During the same period Knowsley’s overallimprovement rate was 11.4% almost four times the national improvement rate.

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What were the drivers for change in Knowsley?

There were a number of drivers for change which helped us to be successful. These included:

1. Low student performance – everyone knew and accepted that we had a problem and that we hadto try to do something different to address it;

2. New leadership – there was a new Chief Executive, a new Director of Education and LeadershipTeam and a significant number of new headteachers;

3. External funding (Neighbourhood Renewal Fund) which was not ring-fenced but could be usedflexibly and strategically;

4. Political support – the elected councillors were prepared to take risks and to back a bold approachprovided there was evidence of some progress quickly; and

5. The narrow gap between the highest and lowest performing school – no school was so differentfrom the others that it wanted to isolate itself.

What were the strategies that made it successful? How was it possible to introduce the necessaryinnovation?

1. An ongoing focus on building and sustaining relationships with key stakeholders, especiallyheadteachers. Frequent sampling of the environment – “crafted gossip”.

2. Clear moral purpose based upon putting the needs of the students first, rather than the needs of aparticular institution.

3. Promoting mutual accountability, collective ownership and distributive leadership – “managingchange together”. At first the innovations came from outside the schools but after the first 18months there was a deliberate strategy to make schools responsible, along with the LEA, for theinnovation. This proved to be a very powerful way of working.

4. A relentless drive to achieve – developing a high ambition culture. Confidence and self-beliefneeded to be developed and we also needed some quick wins to help build that confidence.When I first arrived in Knowsley I spoke to all the headteachers at a conference and informedthem that in three or four years’ time people would be coming from all over the country to findout how we’ve managed to be so successful. This has proved to be the case. Within a few monthsof my arrival in Knowsley we had introduced an innovative programme called the Plus OneChallenge – designed to raise achievement quickly at GCSE. This programme has been remarkablyinnovative with some aspects of it failing badly and others being very effective in raisingstandards.


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5. Being prepared to make mistakes and to evaluate outcomes honestly. We ensure that our keyprogrammes for change are evaluated externally and lessons are learned. We also have a fullaction research programme in schools, with a full-time researcher and regular publications ofpractice. As Thomas Edison said, “ You must learn to fail intelligently (Thomas Edison). Some ofour innovations, such as the first mobile phone students using text messaging as the mediumdeveloped a great deal of student interest but had virtually no affect on their GCSE results.

What is innovation? A working definition of innovation might be: ‘The productive implementationof new ideas’. Corporate plans, mission statements and budgets do not innovate; people do. Innovators makeplans but try to avoid becoming paralysed by planning. Practical experimentation and the opportunity to learnfrom mistakes is preferred to agonising over possible approaches. Creativity produces a new idea butinnovation takes an existing idea and puts it to work. In organisations, bright new ideas are far more commonthan bright new applications.

Innovations do not always turn out as planned. Often the benefits and costs are unanticipated.Individuals with talents for innovation are available at all levels, the difficulty is to identify them and empowerthem.

Towards a sustainable innovation culture. If innovation is to make an on-going difference tostudent outcomes it must address capacity building and sustainability. That is why we have focused so much oncollaboration and distributive leadership. Collaboration, though often very challenging and time-consuming (wedescribe it as a “gravelly road”) is the only way to ensure that the whole system, as opposed to individualschools, improve. As Michael Fullan has written:

“There is no chance that large-scale reform will happen, let alone stick, unless capacity building is acentral component of the strategy for improvement” M. Fullan, Leadership and Sustainability, CorwinPress. 2005.

Our aim is for innovation to become the norm, and for the organisation (be it the school or the LEA) toadapt to it as it would any function. We are currently developing a Test Model Learning Centre (TMLC) in one ofour schools in order to carry out further innovation, for application across the rest of our secondary schools. Ourcurrent plans include knocking down all eleven of our secondary schools and building eight new “learningcentres” as part of our commitment to system-wide reform.

Knowsley is an excellent example of what can be accomplished with respect to district wide reformwhen leaders use the change knowledge to inform their strategies and actions. Progress can be made under themost difficult circumstances if leaders take explicit action to build capacity with a focus on results.

Prepared by Steve Munby, Director of Education, Knowsley Local Education Authority, UK2004

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Turnaround Schoolsin the U.S.

Letter off A, B, C, D Read your assigned section and note the strategies used by successful

schools• A – Teacher Leadership• B – Principal Leadership• C – District Office Leadership• D – Programs and Practices

Use the ‘life preserver’ to record your notes.

How Schools Sustain Success Chrisman, 2005

Showing improvement in student achievement is one thing. The challenge is sustaining ityear after year.Under the microscope of increased accountability, a growing number of U.S. schools have been identified asunderperforming on the basis of their low test scores. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation demands thatlow-performing schools improve their students' academic achievement annually. Yet sustained increases instudent achievement are problematic for underperforming schools. A case in point: Only 83 of the 430 schoolsthat participated in California's Immediate Intervention Underperforming Schools Program met their students'test score growth targets for two consecutive years (Just & Boese, 2002).

To better understand the differences and similarities between the 83 low-performing schools that sustainedimproved student test scores and the schools that were unable to sustain this improvement, I conducted a studyof California's primary and secondary reform program schools. I compared the 83 schools that sustained growthon California's academic program index for two consecutive improvement program years with the 273 schoolsthat showed growth for only one of the two years. (The remaining 74 schools in the program showed no growthin either year and were not included in the study.)

I compared the successful and unsuccessful schools according to three criteria: analyses of test scores andschool characteristics; interview responses from four teachers and the principal at each of eight representativesample schools, four from each group; and questionnaire responses from the 356 principals whose schoolsexperienced growth in at least one of the two years of the reform program.

Analysis of sample school characteristics revealed that the successful schools actually had higher levels ofstudent mobility and a smaller percentage of fully credentialed teachers than the unsuccessful schools. Largerschools were also more successful than smaller schools at sustaining improved student test scores.

This is not to suggest that schools should advocate for increased student mobility, uncredentialed teachers, orlarger enrollments to improve student achievement. Neither specific characteristics of schools nor qualities ofstudents seemed to account for the striking differences between successful and unsuccessful schools in thisstudy. Rather, improved student achievement seems to be the product of how well a school operates anddepends on the quality of leadership and the effectiveness of instructional programs and practices.


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Teacher LeadershipStrong teacher leadership was apparent in each of the four successful sample schools. Teacher leadershipappeared to develop when three conditions were present. First, the teachers had ample opportunities to makedecisions about teaching and learning. Successful schools provided teachers with time to meet as grade-level orsubject-matter teams. Moreover, teachers at successful schools reported that they regularly used thiscollaborative time to review student work and to discuss how to strengthen their classroom instruction.

Second, teachers engaged in various forms of informal action research. They used the results of their students'assessments to compare different instructional strategies and different classroom environments to see whichstrategies and environments encouraged student learning. Working together in this way enabled them to createa continual improvement cycle for their instruction.

Third, teachers developed their own internal leadership structures such as team teaching, mentoring newteachers, and collaborating to share lesson designs to support one another's resolve to improve studentachievement.

Teacher leaders at the successful schools also made policy decisions. These decisions included the design ofstudent intervention programs, the creation of student learning groups based on the individual student's skillweaknesses, the implementation of new standards-based grading systems, and a new focus on instructionalstrategies, such as reciprocal teaching. The teachers implemented these new programs themselves. To ensureconsistency of implementation, they met informally to monitor teacher usage of the programs. When askedwhich changes contributed to sustained increases in student achievement, teachers at the successful schoolscited these kinds of teacher-initiated changes in teaching and learning.

Teacher leadership was strengthened in the successful schools when teachers made decisions regardingprofessional development. To select appropriate professional development, teachers analyzed student data anddetermined where students needed academic support. For example, in one middle school, students testedpoorly on reading comprehension. Teachers arranged for professional development for all staffmembers—including mathematics, science, and social studies teachers in how to teach reading usinginformational text. After receiving the professional development and implementing specific instructionalstrategies in the classroom, teachers reassessed the students to see whether their test scores had improved.

In three of the four successful sample schools, teachers sought professional development that focused onimproved pedagogy. Their selection of professional development for staff members focused on learning how touse Marzano's nine effective teaching strategies (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001) and on increasing therigor of their instruction by asking questions that required students to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate newconcepts. The teachers believed that their focus on pedagogy strengthened their collaborative teams.

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Teachers at successful schools spent between one and four hours weekly in collaborative lesson planning. Thistook place informally, during lunch or after school, as well as in formal weekly planning meetings. Informalconversations focused on successful lessons or problems in teaching specific concepts. In the formal weeklyplanning meetings, teachers shared student assessment data, analyzed student work, and monitored their ownprogress toward teaching the standards. Most of the successful schools hired substitutes to provide teacherswith regular collaboration time. Teachers from unsuccessful schools reported that they collaborated "when theprincipal scheduled it in place of a staff meeting." These meetings generally focused on planning for field trips,special events, and state testing.

Increased teacher leadership also created challenges. Teacher leaders cited personality conflicts with colleaguesand perceived resentment from those teachers who were not in leadership positions. All teachers weresubsequently offered professional development to improve their leadership skills. Staff development includedvideo models of effective teacher-team meetings that foster collegial and professional relationships.Professional development included training in creating an effective agenda and conducting productivemeetings. Teachers experienced in meeting management and creating consensus coached and mentoredteachers who were new to leadership positions.

Principal LeadershipThe successful schools in the study, as opposed to the unsuccessful ones, more often had the same principal forthe last three years. Principals from successful schools believed that their previous experience in high-performing schools helped them hold higher expectations for students in their state improvement programschools. Principals stated that few colleagues, however, voluntarily sought principal positions at such schools.One experienced principal recently assigned to a state improvement program school said that when hiscolleagues learned of his new assignment, they asked, "Who did you tick off?"

Principals at the successful schools were more likely to create time for teachers to collaborate and to providethem with structured support. This included the principal's frequent attendance at grade-level or departmentmeetings and the expectation that teachers provide feedback on the meetings and let the principal know whathe or she could do to help them. As a result, teachers at these schools said that they regularly reviewed studentwork, created rubrics and assessments, modeled lessons, and monitored how they used the professionaldevelopment in the classroom.

When asked what they did to improve student achievement at their schools, principals from successful schoolsproduced lists of programs, interventions, and professional development opportunities that contributed to thisgoal. These principals were comfortable using data and making changes when the data demonstrated thatstudent achievement had not risen. "You can't feel sorry that something doesn't work; you just have to trysomething different," explained one principal after determining that the school would have to abandon anunsuccessful after-school program.

The principals from the unsuccessful schools were far less comfortable with data. One principal from anunsuccessful school described his attempts to use data to improve his school's effectiveness in raising studentachievement as "shooting at moving targets." He claimed that the school could not achieve its state growthtargets because "the failing group just keeps changing."


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District Office LeadershipWhen asked to list three factors that were most likely to improve test scores, surveyed principals from bothsuccessful and unsuccessful schools included district leadership. All the unsuccessful sample schoolsdemonstrated a lack of strong district leadership.

District leaders in successful schools provided more services than their counterparts in unsuccessful schools did.The successful schools benefited from focused districtwide professional development on pedagogy. Moreover,each summer the district office delivered follow-up professional development for new hires so that all teacherswould have the opportunity to learn the same teaching strategies.

At the start of each school term, successful schools more often received assessment data disaggregated byteacher and by individual student than did unsuccessful schools. Teachers and principals also received trainingon how to use these data to improve instruction and academic achievement. In successful schools, teacherswere more likely to find value in the district-provided benchmark assessments designed to track a student'slearning. Teachers talked about how they used the assessment results to modify their instruction, such ascreating student intervention and enrichment groups. The teachers sometimes agreed to alter their pacingcalendars when they learned that the students were grasping new concepts either more quickly or more slowlythan they had anticipated.

Principals from both successful and unsuccessful schools discussed their districts' practice of assigningexperienced principals to schools with the greatest parent involvement and the greatest potential for parentconflicts. These schools tended to be in the highest socioeconomic areas of the district. New principals wereplaced in schools in which parent demands and conflicts were expected to be fewer. These schools tended to bein the lowest socioeconomic areas of the district. This practice contributed to a belief that ultimately becamepart of the culture — that assignment to low socioeconomic schools was either an entry-level position for newprincipals or a way of penalizing them for being unable to effectively handle parent conflicts. Transferring fromlower to higher socioeconomic areas naturally represented a promotion.

A few districts changed this negative perception by placing principals alternately at high-achieving schools andat state improvement program schools. Experience at both types of schools helped principals develop highexpectations for their students' academic achievement and increased the number of principals who hadfirsthand knowledge of both types of schools. The practice also fostered a new belief that both kinds of schoolsoffer opportunities for professional growth.

Each of the eight principals interviewed for the study stated that the workload and pressure was greater forprincipals at low-performing schools. Principals from the successful schools said that their districts scheduledmonthly cohort meetings with all the district's state improvement program schools. The principals so valuedthese meetings that they have continued to meet two years after leaving the state improvement program. Saidone principal,

For the first time, I went to a meeting where I felt safe to share all the problems I was having. I saythings in our cohort meeting that I would never say when all the district principals get together.

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Some districts implemented a policy for state improvement program schools to receive additional districtservices. These services included additional professional development, additional visitations and support incurriculum and instruction from district personnel, district-provided grant writers, more comprehensive dataanalysis, and greater on-site visibility of the district superintendent. Unsuccessful schools did not receive theseservices.

Programs and PracticesStudents who are learning English as a second language and students who are academically below grade levelattending the successful schools had quite different experiences from those of comparable students whoattended unsuccessful schools.

At the successful schools, teachers presented instruction that directly reinforced the students' understanding ofhow the English language works instead of teaching students conversational English. For example, rather thanuse curriculum that focused on teaching situational vocabulary such as how to order a meal in a restaurant,teachers at successful schools used curriculum that focused on academic English and taught students how touse root words, suffixes, prefixes, and verb endings. Teachers believed that their focus on academic Englishgave all their students — both native and nonnative speakers of English — an advantage on the state test.

Teachers from the successful schools reported that students were grouped by their English language levels. Thestudents received at least 40 minutes of instruction daily in how to read, write, and speak English. In contrast,teachers at the unsuccessful schools did not always group students by language levels and said they taughtEnglish language development "when they had time." At successful schools, students not making adequateprogress in English language acquisition received personal intervention and additional instruction in a pulloutprogram.

In the successful schools, principals and district office personnel were instrumental in supporting all newlyadopted district programs. At one successful elementary school, a new English language development programreceived far greater district support than the unsuccessful schools received. In this particular school, the districtoffice paid for teacher training in the first year of program implementation and repeated the training yearly forall teachers new to the district. Administrators also made frequent classroom visits to verify consistentimplementation and provide additional materials or training if needed.

Students who performed below grade level in language arts and mathematics at successful schools were farmore likely to receive intervention in addition to their regular instruction than were students attendingunsuccessful schools. This additional instruction occurred during the school day with credentialed teachers. Oneteacher in a successful school stated, "We used to have para-educators running the intervention groups untilwe realized that we needed our strongest teachers with our most at-risk students." When students showedproficiency in the targeted skills, they either exited the intervention programs or received additional instructionin other weak skill areas.


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Encouraging NewsThe results of this study support the research studies of Mintrop (2003), Darling-Hammond (1997), and Barth(1990), which suggest that the solutions to improving education lie inside the schoolhouse. Schools anddistricts can replicate the successful strategies discussed here if they are willing to change in crucial ways.

One of the study's sample schools did just that. The overcrowded urban elementary school, with a studentpopulation of 1,119, is on a year-round multitrack and has a staggered schedule for 1st and 2nd grade. Thisschedule requires two teachers and 40 students to share a classroom for nearly two hours daily. Each 3rdthrough 6th grade class has 40 students enrolled. Eighty percent of students are English language learners, and95 percent receive free or reduced-price lunch. In the last four years, the school has had three principals and a40 percent turnover in teaching staff. In 2003, the school moved to a temporary school site to allow for theconstruction of new classrooms. The school is scheduled to return to the original site sometime this year.

Despite the challenges, the school made its growth targets for four consecutive years.

When asked how they transformed their school from one that had the lowest test scores in the state to onenoted for sustained improvement in student achievement, teachers credited changes in the district office'ssupport of the school and changes in the school's instructional practices and programs. "We became veryfocused," said one teacher. Another teacher cited evidence that these efforts are working. "Now the teacherswant to be here," she said. "Last year we only lost two teachers." A telling comment made by a teacherrevealed the staff's optimistic view of the school's future:

When we return to the original school site in 2005, we won't be overcrowded and sharing classrooms.We're going to make even bigger jumps in student learning.

Schools and districts can bring about student achievement and sustain that achievement if they are willing toexamine their practices and embrace change. All schools can replicate these strategies and make improvededucation available to everyone.

ReferencesBarth, R. S. (1990). Improving schools from within. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Darling-Hammond, L. (1997). The right to learn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Just, A. E., & Boese, L. E. (2002). Immediate intervention/underperforming schools program: How California'slow-performing schools are continuing their efforts to improve student achievement (Research Summary).Sacramento, CA: California Department of Education Policy and Evaluation Unit.

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Mintrop, H. (2003). The limits of sanctions in low-performing schools: A study of Maryland and Kentuckyschools on probation. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 11(3), 32.

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Life Preserver

— Adam, E., 2004

Notes

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Case Studiesv

Case studies are available as a separate handout.

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Sustaining Reformvi

Sustaining reform is clearly the most difficult aspect of all change efforts. Carefulattention to the issues raised in the other modules increases the chances that theconditions for sustainability will be enhanced. In addition, direct attention to sustainabilityin its own right is essential.

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The Change Puzzle

Sustainability(Fullan Definition)

Sustainability is the capacity of the system to engage in the complexities ofcontinuous consistent improvement with values of deep human purpose.

— Fullan, 2005

Sustainability(HargreavesDefinition)

Sustainability does not simply mean whether something will last. It addresseshow particular initiatives can be developed without compromising thedevelopment of others in the environment now and in the future.

— Hargreaves & Fink, in press

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England – Literacy:Percentage Level 4or Above

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— DfES, England, 2004

Informed Prescription

— Barber, 2002

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Tri-LevelDevelopment:8 Guidelines forSystem ThinkersCommitted toSustainability

1. Moral purpose2. Get the basics right3. Communicate the big picture while providing opportunities to influence it4. Intelligent accountability5. Incentivize collaboration and lateral capacity building6. The long lever of leadership7. Design every policy whatever the purpose to build capacity too8. Grow the financial investment in education

Tri-LevelDevelopment:It’s the System -Activity

Letter off A, B, C, D All read the Introduction.

Person A: Read Guidelines 1 & 2 Person B: Read Guidelines 3 & 4 Person C: Read Guidelines 5 & 6 Person D: Read Guidelines 7 & 8

Use the graphic organizer to record your notes (following page). Each person share your guideline notes with the group to complete all eight

guidelines. Thinking about tri-level or system development, use flip chart paper to

identify the strengths and weaknesses in your own system.

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Graphic Organizer

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Tri-Level Development: It’s the SystemBarber & Fullan, 2005

IntroductionOur recent work is based on two interacting assumptions. One is that in order for educational reform to besustainable we must focus on tri-level development, namely, what has to happen at the school and communitylevel; at the district level; and at the state level. The second assumption is that we need initiatives thatdeliberately set out to cause improvement at the three levels and in their interrelationships.

Both assumptions represent a ‘systems’ perspective. Many authors have called for ‘systems thinking’. We seelittle evidence that systems thinking has led to systems action. Our call is for systems action that is strategic,powerful and pursued in practice. At this time, state level examples are few and far between. Most federal statepolicies focus primarily on accountability. They need instead to integrate accountability and capacity building ina systemic manner. This means changes in the way that system leaders conceptualize the problem, formulatecorresponding policies and strategies, and allocate resources. No Child Left Behind incidentally is a classicexample of an accountability scheme which as yet has no grounding in the reality of capacity building.

We are calling for live experiments where policy makers commit to tri-level development, learn from it, and godeeper. We are currently associated with four such examples, namely, England, Ontario, Canada, New SouthWales, and South Australia. These are examples in which system leaders are deliberately and self–consciouslypursuing tri-level development. As governments pursue this agenda they have an obligation to learn from andcontribute to others elsewhere. Ontario, Canada for example has recently launched a major system-widereform. Their policies and their strategies are being influenced by the lessons of the Blair government’sexperiences since 1997 in improving literacy and numeracy.

Our early work in this domain has generated eight guidelines for system leaders committed to sustainability.

1. Moral PurposeMoral purpose is the link between systems thinking and sustainability. You cannot move substantially towardsustainability in the absence of widely shared moral purpose. The central moral purpose consists of constantlyimproving student achievement and ensuring that achievement gaps, wherever they exist are narrowed. Inshort, it’s about raising the bar and narrowing the gap. It also involves treating people with demanding respect,and contributing to the social environment (e.g., other schools). We need governments that are serious aboutmoral purpose, that constantly espouse it in the day-to-day reality of working with school systems; and thatdraw it out and reward it until a critical mass of leaders is in place to put it into practice.

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2. Get the basics rightThe basics are literacy and numeracy in elementary and high schools. Despite a variety of reforms over manyyears, literacy performance in England remained stable for almost 50 years. One published report in 1996reached the startling conclusion that the average levels of performance in literacy remained much the samesince 1948. The first thing that governments need to do is focus intensely on the basics to overcome the awfulinertia of past decades. This will bring rewards across the system, not just in the basics. We know that benefitsin literacy and numeracy flow to other cognitive areas like science. With a little effort they bring benefit to thearts and drama. The two-way relationship between cognitive and emotional development is well known. As thework unfolds one can get more and more ambitious about the connections. Above all, they underpin success inall school subjects in the future. Doing the basics is never-ending; doing them better and deeper is the goal. Theagenda for the immediate future involves raising the floor in literacy and numeracy, especially in those schools,districts, states, countries where performance is unacceptably low.It means raising the bar and closing the gap,until high standards really are being achieved as near universally as possible. In short, if you don’t get thebasics right there is little foundation for doing all the other things that matter.

3. Communicate the big picture while providing opportunities to influence itThe advice to system leaders is to communicate, communicate, communicate. Written words are not enough.Lots of interaction will be required. By doing this leaders learn to sharpen and refine the message as they arepushed to become clearer, and to take into account objections and suggestions from the field. If they areconnected with practice they also discover examples of local success that connect to the bigger picture. It’s notjust a question of explaining the big picture; it’s a matter of actively and constantly seeking feedback, wherenecessary refining the strategy, and making the big picture come alive on the ground. As system leaderscommunicate they are being influenced by the responses they receive. The hypothesis is that as frontlinepractitioners understand and identify with the big picture, they increase their system thinking capacity and cantherefore contribute more. This involves three interrelated activities: (1) putting the underlying principles andstrategies out there for public consumption; (2) establishing learning opportunities around these plans so thatpeople understand their deeper meaning (it is especially important that people see their roles in the context of abigger agenda, and not just as a fragmented cog); and (3) providing periodic opportunities to review progress inorder to generate recommendations for revising policies and strategies.

4. Intelligent accountabilityIntelligent accountability is a phrase used by David Miliband, former Minister of State for School Standards inEngland, and now Minister for the Cabinet Office. Intelligent accountability recognizes that there are twoaspects to accountability and, despite a degree of tension between them, both have to be accomplished. Oneinvolves transparent, external accountability to the public and to government as the public’s agency (sometimescalled assessment of learning or summative assessment); the other concerns the use of data on student learningas a strategy for directly improving teaching and learning (called assessment for learning or formativeassessment).

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Governments typically over-emphasize assessment of learning at the expense of assessment for learning.Teacher unions often do the opposite. Surely it’s time to agree that both are necessary. After all, assessment forlearning is a vital high yield approach. Moreover, the methodology for developing this capacity is increasinglyspecific. There are now scores of teacher leaders, principals and district staff with whom we and others areworking who are increasingly proficient at using data collaboratively to improve results.

Similarly, governments do have a moral obligation to provide evidence to taxpayers and the users of publicservices of whether they are delivering the results that should be expected. They also need to be able tointervene across a system where results in priority areas are not good enough. Our view is that when they dointervene directly in classroom practice they should do so rarely, do it well, actively involve expert practitionersand draw powerfully on the evidence base. The dual goal is to increase capacity as you assure and inform thepublic. This is the way to both focus on and get results.

5. Incentivize collaboration and lateral capacity buildingYou can’t develop systems directly. Again we have a high yield strategy. Invest a little to help leaders to leadbeyond their schools, and reap the benefit. Some forms of lateral capacity building occur within the school orwithin the district. System leaders can establish explicit expectations that these kinds of intra-organizationprofessional learning communities are deep and valuable. The evidence suggests that lateral capacity buildingworks best when it has a clear purpose, a means of measuring whether progress is being made in achieving thepurpose and a clear evidence-based definition of best practice to inform action. The key is not to enforcecollaboration but to offer incentives which reward it. Beyond this, system leaders have a special responsibilityto foster and support cross-system networks where people across a region, state or country learn from eachother. When done well this has significant payoffs for sustainability. First, people are able to learn directly fromother practitioners. Second, people begin to identify with larger parts of the system beyond their narrowinterest group.

6. The long lever of leadershipThe longest lever we have at our disposal is leadership — leadership at all levels; leaders who deliver resultsand leave behind a legacy of leaders who can go even farther. Leadership standards can help to orient leadersin the right direction and give them individual experiences and development but they suffer from anindividualistic bias. The assumption is that if you produce enough individual leaders with the new desiredcharacteristics then the system will change. Not so. Systems quickly blunt or socialize new members. This is whywe need to work simultaneously on individual development and system change. In addition to strengtheningqualifications frameworks, systems should ensure that leaders and potential leaders have intensiveopportunities to learn in context or on the job, with the help of a mentor or coach. Promote good leadership inall quarters of the system and everyone will be better off.

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7. Design every policy whatever the purpose to build capacity tooThere is a major trap that system leaders fall into: they assume or are oblivious to whether capacity toimplement given policies automatically follows the introduction of supposedly good practice. Here the lesson isdon’t invest a lot of money up front if the capacity to use it effectively is missing.

The more positive version is to ask critical questions before introducing new policies. What capacities would ittake to implement this policy? To what extent do these capacities exist in the system? And how can wepromote greater capacity in the course of implementation? The natural bias of policymakers is toward short-term accountability rather than mid or long-term capacity building.

Every new policy then is an occasion to question current capacity and promote greater capacity in the system.So our proposal is to constantly assess capacity and promote it on every occasion. As citizens becomeincreasingly demanding – and rightly so – in what they expect government to deliver with their money, so itbecomes more and more important for governments to maximize the productivity of every dollar or pound theyspend. If each investment is designed simultaneously to deliver a specified short or medium-term objective andgreater capacity, then the productivity gain is immense. System leaders must focus simultaneously on shortterm and long term results.

In short, accountability and capacity go hand in hand and you have to invest consistently in both.

8. Grow the financial investment in educationSome new investment is needed upfront, but after that this year’s success is next year’s new money. The publicpotentially wants to invest more in education because intuitively people know that better education meansmore prosperity and well-being for everyone. But all too often, they are not confident that the investment willyield results. The new system thinkers are pleased to enter the quid pro quo world of delivering results in orderto secure more resources. They are willing to take the risks, and to make the extra effort on the promise thatsuccess breeds success.

The culmination of the previous lessons in action is greater investment toward sustainability. It may notrepresent largesse in the short run, but the direction will be unmistakable. It is about working smarter not justharder; but it is also about accruing well-deserved resources that enable us to go deeper and further.

There you have it. Politicians and policymakers need to create the conditions for others around them tosucceed. The good news is that we now have a small number of examples where tri-level development is beingdeliberately attempted. Progress is always made through the crucible of purposeful action where people learnfrom their own experience and from each other.

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Bridging theGeneration Gap

The retiring generation The new generation

Challenges/Opportunities

Hiring as first step of induction New teachers alongside experienced teachers Scheduling time More than one-to-one mentoring School-based induction Ongoing PD on the curriculum Encourage teacher leadership

Bridging the Generation GapMoore Johnson & Kardos, 2005

Veteran teachers nearing retirement and teachers in their first few years of service differ in their goals andexpectations. To improve teaching and learning, principals must bring these two groups together.

Traci Edwards, principal of Jefferson Elementary School, was determined to make the school a place where all studentswould succeed. Located in a low-income community, Jefferson had long been known as a stable and safe school — butnot as a school whose students scored well on standardized tests. In fact, Jefferson had recently been put on the state'slist of low-performing schools, raising concern among parents and district administrators.

Because Traci believed that student learning depended on having outstanding teachers, she did her best to recruitexcellent candidates and support them in their early days of teaching. New teachers attended the district's orientationprogram, and each novice was assigned a mentor on the Jefferson faculty. But in spite of these supports, many of thenew teachers who had initially seemed so talented and dedicated left within a year or two, saying that they wereexhausted, discouraged, or disillusioned.

This turnover took a toll on the students, on the teachers who stayed, and on Traci. It also interfered with the school'simprovement efforts. Three years earlier, Jefferson had adopted new goals and a schoolwide curriculum for both mathand literacy. This change meant that all teachers needed to start coordinating what they taught instead of choosingwhat to teach with little regard for the plans and practices of their colleagues. If everyone worked together, Tracibelieved, the students would develop essential skills, knowledge, and confidence during their six years at Jefferson.

But each year, the coming and going of new teachers disrupted the staff's progress toward establishing shared purposeand practice. The 1st and 3rd grades, staffed mainly by veterans, carried on much as they always had; Traci feared thatmany of these teachers did not believe in schoolwide change. Most of the new teachers were assigned to the 2nd and4th grades, where they worked long and often anxious hours to prepare for the next day, never seeming to get on topof the workload.

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Despite the time and resources committed to school improvement, Traci saw little evidence of increased instructionalcontinuity at Jefferson. Without that, she wondered how students could meet higher standards. Meanwhile, she spentmuch of each fall troubleshooting with the new teachers — and much of each spring recruiting their replacements.

Two Generations of TeachersMany school leaders experience challenges similar to those faced by Traci Edwards. To make substantiveimprovements in teaching and learning, a school must draw on the professional knowledge and skills thatexperienced teachers have accumulated and refined over the years while also capitalizing on the energy andfresh ideas of new recruits. These two vital resources, however, often operate in different pockets of the school.

As principals attempt to better organize their staff for success, they often have difficulty bridging the dividebetween independent, sometimes complacent, veteran teachers and inexperienced, often distressed, noviceteachers. As we consider solutions to this problem, it is helpful to recognize that many schools have withinthem two distinct generations of teachers.

During the last 35 years, the distribution of the teaching force by years of experience has undergone agenerational shift (see Figure 1, Generational Shift in the Teaching Force). The last great period of teacherhiring occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1971, more than half of the U.S. teaching force (57percent) had fewer than 10 years of experience. Fifteen years later, in 1986, this cohort of teachers stillrepresented the largest portion of the teaching force (45 percent); relatively few new teachers were being hired.By 2001, this cohort was approaching retirement. For the first time in three decades, the proportion of newteachers began to grow. This newest cohort would soon become the largest segment of the teaching force.

The U-shaped distribution of teachers shown in the 2001 national data is now apparent in many districts andschools. The valley between the two peaks in the distribution shows the effects of low teacher turnover ratesand declining student enrollments in the 1980s. During these years, schools hired few new teachers and paidlittle attention to the induction of those they did hire. In many schools today, this valley has become a yawninggeneration gap between veteran and new teachers.

Figure 1. Generational Shift in the Teaching Force

Source: Status of the American Public School Teacher, 2000–2001. Table 6, p. 17. Data used with permission of theNational Education Association © 2003. All rights reserved.

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The Retiring Generation of TeachersWhen the cohort of teachers now preparing for retirement entered the profession in the late 1960s and early1970s, public service was respected and long-term careers were the norm. Throughout society, individuals wereexpected to pursue just one career — for example, engineering, accounting, or law — and many evendedicated themselves until retirement to a single employer, such as General Electric, Aetna Insurance, or TheNew York Times. In fact, those who entered teaching at that time were the first cohort to make teaching alifetime career (Grant & Murray, 1999). Most began teaching right after college, having completed a traditionalteacher preparation program. Women and people of color found that the teaching field welcomed them,whereas other professional fields, such as banking and law, presented social barriers to entry. As a result, publicschools attracted a talented and committed cohort of new teachers at relatively low expense.

On the job, these teachers have expressed similar preferences. Most of them have chosen to focus their careerson becoming better teachers within the classroom instead of seeking administrative positions beyond it(McLaughlin & Yee, 1988). As a group, they prize the privacy of their classrooms and rely on their colleaguesprimarily for social support (Johnson, 1990). The egg-crate structure of schools, with each teacher workingalone in a classroom, reinforces these preferences and discourages the development of specialized roles forteachers. The job descriptions for a 30-year veteran and a novice teacher are virtually identical.

The New Generation of TeachersMembers of the new generation of teachers enter the workforce in a different context. Fields that onceexcluded talented women and people of color — such as technology, law, business, medicine, and finance —now actively recruit them. In contrast to public education's low pay and static career path, many of these fieldsoffer high pay, well-resourced workplaces, and opportunities for rapid advancement. The choice to enterteaching today is no longer automatic or obvious.

Earning a traditional teaching license is increasingly becoming optional, and today's recruits follow multipleroutes to the classroom, such as alternative certification programs or appointments by charter schools. Someentrants have prepared through lengthy university-based teacher training programs with yearlong internships inprofessional development schools; others have had only six weeks of preservice training in a fast-trackprogram.

As society's career patterns change, young people now routinely anticipate having several careers over thecourse of their working lives. As one new teacher we interviewed said, “I'm a work in progress. I can't tell youexactly what I'm going to do.” Of 50 new Massachusetts teachers studied by the Project on the NextGeneration of Teachers, only 3 were entering teaching as a first career and planned to remain in the classroomfull-time until retirement (Peske, Liu, Johnson, Kauffman, & Kardos, 2001).

Moreover, many new teachers today are career switchers. Our random-sample surveys of teachers in six statesshow that between 33 percent and 48 percent of those entering teaching today come from another line of workrather than straight from college (Johnson & The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, 2004). Therefore,the conventional image of the new teacher as a young, fresh college graduate fails to fit a significant portion ofthose entering classrooms today.

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Teachers who enter at midcareer often bring with them expectations about their workplace formed on the basisof their experience in other settings. Both they and their younger counterparts tend to be surprised by theisolation of a classroom, expecting instead to learn from colleagues and work in teams. They also hope to havevaried responsibilities and gain increasing influence over time but quickly realize that the egg-crate school —with its separate classrooms and uniform teaching roles — does not encourage this kind of growth.

Challenges and Opportunities for PrincipalsSchool leaders can act to bridge the generation gap and build integrated professional cultures in which newand experienced teachers collaborate regularly and share responsibility for the success of their students andcolleagues (Kardos, Johnson, Peske, Kauffman, & Liu, 2001). The first step is to understand the makeup of thefaculty. Many principals are surprised when they chart the experience levels of their teachers and see the largeseparation between the cohorts of new and veteran teachers. Once the patterns of experience within the facultybecome clear, the principal can employ a number of strategies to integrate the work of new and experiencedteachers.

Treat the hiring process as the first step of induction. Hiring new teachers as early as possible and building in-depth information about the school into the hiring process can both develop novices' understanding of how theschool works and increase veteran teachers' investment in the new recruits (Liu, 2004). One teacher we studiedexperienced this kind of information-rich process, interviewing with the school's search committee, observingclasses, attending the school's math exposition, and interviewing with the principal. She said, “The entireprocess of how they worked impressed me.” In most schools, unfortunately, hiring happens in late summer oreven after the school year has begun, and new teachers start their work unprepared for their classes andwithout having met any other adults in the school except for the principal (Liu, 2004). This approach not onlylimits the exchange of information among prospective colleagues but also conveys to new teachers theunrealistic expectation that the principal will be their primary source of information and support, notexperienced teachers.

Assign new teachers to work alongside experienced teachers. Usually, new teachers are assigned to teachwhichever classes or grades are still open after experienced teachers have stated their preferences. Thisapproach may result in new teachers being bunched together in certain grades or courses, as they were atJefferson. Instead, the principal and faculty should deliberately plan to mix new teachers with veterans acrossgrades or courses. That way, during routine grade-level or departmental meetings, the novices can tap theveterans' knowledge and the veterans can get energized by the new teachers' enthusiasm.

Schedule time for new and veteran teachers to meet. Deliberately coordinating teaching assignments meanslittle unless the school allocates time for shared planning, observations, and feedback. In schools where grade-level teachers rarely confer because they have different planning times, teachers must exchange preciousinformation in the lunch line or while passing in the corridor. Other schools purposely arrange time to ensurethat the teachers who should meet together can do so, thus making joint work and professional exchange notonly possible but also likely.

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Provide more than one-to-one mentoring. When it works, expert mentoring by experienced teachers effectivelysupports new teachers in their work (Ingersoll & Kralik, 2004). Research has provided increasing evidence,however, that one-to-one mentoring frequently fails because of inappropriate matches, too few mentors to goaround, or lack of mentor training. We have found that having a mentor in itself has no statistical relationshipto new teachers' job satisfaction, whereas working in a school with an integrated professional culture isstrongly and positively related to job satisfaction (Kardos, 2004). Recently, Smith and Ingersoll (2004) foundthat new teachers who experienced both one-to-one mentoring and a comprehensive induction program had ahigher retention rate than new teachers who only had mentors.

Develop school-based induction programs led by experienced teachers. New teachers focus intently on theirschools and their classrooms, seldom raising their heads to see what is happening in the district. Thus, the bestinduction programs have a substantial school-based component. Principals should not take sole responsibilityfor induction; with the demands of their job, they cannot provide all the guidance that new teachers seek.Instead, expert teachers should organize the induction program, drawing on the knowledge of their colleaguesand thus further integrating the work of new and experienced teachers.

At one high school in Massachusetts, two veteran teachers are released from one daily class to organize aschoolwide induction program. They meet monthly with the school's 35 new teachers, visit novices' classes tooffer feedback, and arrange for them to observe experienced colleagues (Johnson & The Project on the NextGeneration of Teachers, 2004). The school's program systematically draws on the extensive craft knowledge ofexperienced teachers. For example, as back-to-school night approached, veteran teachers throughout theschool e-mailed advice to the group of novice colleagues about what to expect and how to respond to anxiousparents.

Organize ongoing professional development on the curriculum. A school's or a district's adoption of a newcurriculum usually includes a period of intensive professional development, during which teachers try the newapproaches and discuss what they have learned. All too often, however, that time of sharing and learning is aone-time event. Accepting the reality of ongoing turnover in today's schools, principals can build continuitythrough regular curriculum refreshers and updates. Having such sessions led by experienced teachers reinforcesnorms of collaboration and encourages the school to regularly adapt the curriculum to current realities.

Encourage teacher leadership and differentiated roles. New teachers today repeatedly state that they hopeeventually to assume roles that extend their influence beyond the classroom — for example, as instructionalcoaches, curriculum coordinators, cluster leaders, department heads, or induction coordinators. One teacher weinterviewed explained, “People want the chance to move up and to have different experiences and differentopportunities.” Although such roles have only begun to emerge in public schools, they provide the chance tofurther integrate the work of new and experienced teachers. Schools augment their capacity for continuallearning when they give veterans explicit responsibility and the authority to assume leadership roles, especiallythose that involve advising new teachers. These roles are valuable, not only in the support that theyimmediately provide for less experienced teachers but also in what they signal to new teachers about thepromise of a differentiated career in teaching over time.

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Toward a Learning OrganizationThe retiring generation of teachers is relatively uniform, having prepared in traditional university-basedprograms, entered teaching directly after college, and committed to work in the classroom long-term. Incontrast, the profile of new teachers entering schools today varies much more widely. This cohort includes first-career and midcareer entrants, those who prepared in traditional programs and those who prepared inalternative programs, and many who do not plan to make a long-term commitment to classroom teaching. Toensure that these two cohorts work together, schools must become more flexible and collaborative workplaces.

Much has been written in the last decade about the importance of schools becoming learning organizations.Many schools, however, continue to function without practices or norms that sustain ongoing development forall teachers. The impending retirement of many veteran teachers and rapid turnover rates among new teachersthreaten to disrupt any schoolwide improvement that has taken hold.

Bridging the generation gap among teachers can provide support for new teachers, leading to higher retentionrates. Simultaneously, it can ensure that before they retire, experienced teachers will bestow a legacy of skillsand knowledge on the school and on their successors.

ReferencesGrant, G., & Murray, C. (1999). Teaching in America: The slow revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.Ingersoll, R., & Kralik, J.M. (2004). The impact of mentoring on teacher retention: What the research says.Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.Johnson, S.M. (1990). Teachers at work: Achieving success in our schools. New York: BasicBooks.Johnson, S.M., & The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers. (2004). Finders and keepers: Helping newteachers survive and thrive in our schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Kardos, S.M. (2004). Supporting and sustaining new teachers in schools: The importance of professional cultureand mentoring. Unpublished dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Kardos, S.M., Johnson, S.M., Peske, H.G., Kauffman, D. & Liu, E. (2001). Counting on colleagues: New teachersencounter the professional cultures of their schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 37(2), pp. 250-290.Liu, E. (2004). Information-rich, information-poor: New teachers’ experiences of hiring in four states.Unpublished dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.McLaughlin, M. & Yee, S. M. (1998). School as a place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (ed.), Building aprofessional culture in schools (pp. 23-44). New York: Teachers College Press.Peske, H.G., Liu, E., Johnson, S.M., Kauffman, D., & Kardos, S.M. (2001). The next generation of teachers:Changing conceptions of a career in teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(4), pp. 304-311.Smith, T.M., & Ingersoll, R.M. (2004). Whaqt are the effects of induction and mentoring on beginning teacherturnover? American Educational Research Journal, 41(3), pp. 681-714.

1 � This principal and her school are fictional composites of the real principals and schools we have studied andadvised.

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Moral Imperative/Closingvii

Purpose: The InnerCore of Teaching

Write a personal statement trying to express what is at the heart of your life as ateacher. Consider the following questions (choose one or more in your freewrite).Verbally share your statement with a partner and discuss.

1. Why did I become a teacher?2. What do I stand for as an educator?3. What are the “gifts” that I bring to my work?4. What do I want my legacy as an educator to be?5. What can I do to “keep track of myself” — to remember my own heart?

—Livsey & Palmer, 1999

Worksheet — Purpose: Freewrite

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The Moral Imperativeof School Leadership

Level 4 → Making a Difference in Society

Level 3 → Making a Difference Beyond the School

Level 2 → Making a Difference in the School

Level 1 → Making a Difference to Individuals— Fullan, 2003

The Moral Advantage 1. Find a larger purpose that inspires your work.2. It is never too early to find a noble purpose in your business career — and it

is never too late.3. The path to success in business begins with an act of self-discovery.4. Find mentors who represent models of success and integrity.5. Use your moral imagination to generate creative business solutions.6. Use your moral imagination to transport yourself into the thoughts and

feelings of everyone in your business world.7. Stay humble, especially after gaining financial power and influence over

others.8. Find and sustain your ethical bearings by paying attention to both the ends

that you seek and the means by which you seek them.9. Resist the cynicism and discouragement that may arise with the realization of

how far from perfect you really are.10. When you attain a leadership position, consider it a service rather than a

privilege, and use it to pass your purpose on to others.— Damon, 2004

Hope Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction thatsomething will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense,regardless of how it turns out. It is hope, above all, that gives us strength to liveand to continually try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless.

— Havel, 1990

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PersonalNotes/Freewrite

List in point form what follow-up actions you will take as a result of the Learningto Lead Change modules.

Worksheet

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Change capacity The collective ability to make change happen based on new knowledge, newresources and new commitments or motivation.

Change knowledge Knowledge about how change occurs and the key drivers that cause change.

Change processes Understanding the dynamics of change as it unfolds in a situation, includinginsights into how to manage change.

Coherence-making Change processes that help connect elements of reform so that groups gainshared clarity and shared commitment.

Culture The way we do things around here; behaviors and attitudes.

Cultures of evaluation Behaviors and attitudes that value assessing what is done and acting onsuch assessments.

Cultures of learning Behaviors and attitudes that value seeking new ideas, learning from existingpractices and engaging in continuous improvement and doing so collectivelyor collaboratively.

Implementation dip The inevitable bumpiness and difficulties encountered as people learn newbehaviors and beliefs.

Innovation vs innovativeness Innovation refers to the content of a particular new idea, program, policy orthing; innovativeness is the process of engaging in making change happen inpractice.

Lateral capacity building Strategies and cultures which are based on schools learning from each otherin clusters or other networks, and districts learning from each other inongoing exchanges

Leadership Leaders focus on individuals. Leadership involves developing leadershipthroughout the system. It involves the capacity to lead change, and todevelop others so that there is a critical mass of people working together toestablish new ways.

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Learning in context Learning which is built into the day-to-day culture of the organization asdistinct from learning out of context in workshops or courses. The latter isinput but the real power is whether the daily culture supports learning andapplication.

Moral purpose The human desirability of a goal; in education moral purpose often involvesraising the bar and closing the gap of student learning in the society as awhole.

Organizational capacity-building Improvements in the infrastructure that represent new capabilities ingovernment and non-government agencies to provide support, monitoringand other capacity-building resources for the system.

Professional learning community Usually refers to school cultures which foster learning among teachers withinthe school; cultures in which teaching is less private and more transparentfor feedback and improvement.

Pressure and support The combination of high challenge (pressure) and high support (capacity-

building) required for whole systems to reform.

Strategizing vs strategy Strategy is innovation or content; strategizing is innovativeness or process.Strategizing involves developing a strategy and then continually refining itthrough feedback between thought and action.

Technical vs adaptive challenge Technical problems are ones in which current knowledge is sufficient toaddress the problem (still difficult); adaptive challenges are problems thatare more complex and go beyond what we know. Adaptive work is moredifficult, more anxiety-producing and takes more time.

Tri-level development Movement forward involving all three levels of the system and theirinterrelationships: school and community; district/region; and state.

Library

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Michael Fullan is Professor of Education at the OntarioInstitute for Studies in Education of the University ofToronto. He has developed a number of partnershipsdesigned to bring about major school improvement andeducational reform. He participates as researcher,

consultant, trainer and policy advisor on a wide range of educational change projects withschool systems, teachers' federations, research and development institutes and governmentagencies in Canada and internationally. He has published widely on the topic of educationalchange. His books have been translated into many languages. In April 2004, Michael Fullan wasappointed Special Adviser to the Premier and the Minister of Education in Ontario.

Michael Fullan’s books include:

The What’s Worth Fighting For trilogy (with Andy Hargreaves)The Change Forces trilogyThe New Meaning of Educational Change (2001)Leading in a Culture of Change (2001)The Moral Imperative of School Leadership (2003)Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action (2005)Breakthrough (2006)Learning Places (2006)Turnaround Leadership (2006)

Ann Kilcher is an independent consultant based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The focus of her workis educational change and leadership development Ann has worked with schools, districts,departments of education, and teachers’ organizations over the last two decades helping themto plan and implement various reform initiatives. She has developed the facilitators guide in theMicrosoft PIL project, and provided corresponding training for facilitators.

Claudia Cuttress, Project Manager, Michael Fullan Enterprises, [email protected] Kiraly, Design and Graphics, blinkblink, Toronto, [email protected] McNally, Video Production, I-Level Video Productions, [email protected]

Our thanks to Microsoft for funding this project through Partners in Learning.

June 2006