ERIC ED349664: Changing Schools: Insights.

116 Pages·1992·2.6 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 349 664
EA 024 267
TITLE
Changing Schools: Insights.
INSTITUTION
Office of Policy and Planning (ED), Washington,
DC.
REPORT NO
ED/OPP92-12
PUB DATE
[92]
NOTE
116p.
PUB TYPE
Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.)
Collected
Information Analyses (070)
(120)
Works
General (020)
EDRS PRICE
MF01/PC05 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
*Change Strategies; College School Cooperation;
*Educational Change; Educational Innovation;
Elementary Secondary Education; Government
Publications; Higher Education; High Risk Students;
*Public Schools; Resistance to Change; School
Community Relationship; *School Effectiveness;
*School Restructuring
IDENTIFIERS
*America 2000; *National Education Goals 1990;
Partnerships in Education
ABSTRACT
Over 1,000 communities in 45 states, territories, and
the District of Columbia, are mobilized under the AMERICA 2000 banner
to reach the 6 National Education Goals. This collection of papers,
written by those who have wrestled with the process of school reform,
offers useful insights to communities as they begin their process of
transforming education. Following an introduction by Lamar Alexander,
Secretary of Education, are the following papers: (1) "The Process of
School Transformation" (Jane L. David); (2) "Overcoming Barriers to
Educational Change" (Michael G. Fullan);
(3) "AMERICA 2000 and U.S.
Education Reform" (Richard F. Elmore;
(4) "The Need for Systemic
School-Based School Reform" (Sophie Sa);
(5) "Learning from
Accelerated Schools" (Henry M. Levin);
(6) "Key Lessons from the
School Change Process in Prince George's County (Maryland)" (Michael
K. Grady and John A. Murphy);
(7) "Real Change Is Real:Hard: Lessons
Learned in Rochester" (Adam Urbanski);
(8) "The California
Partnership Academies: Design and Implementation" (Marilyn Raby);
(9)
"The Boston University/City of Chelsea Public Education Partnership"
(Peter Greer); (10) "Restructuring Categorical Programs for Low
Performing and Handicapped Students" (Stephen Fink); (11) "The Ten
Schools Program: A Comprehensive Intervention for Children of Color"
(Melba F. Coleman); (12) "Learning Lessons: The Process of School
Change" (Beverly Caffee Glenn); and (13) "Achieving Fundamental
Change in Education Within an American Indian Community: Zuni Public
School District, New Mexico" (Hayes Lewis). (MLF)
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Office of Educational Research and Improvement
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)
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eceived Irom the person or organization
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CONTENTS
Page
Introduction
1
The Process of School Transformation
2
Jane L. David
Overcoming Barriers to Educational Change
Michael G. Fullan
11
AMERICA 2000 and U.S. Education Reform
Richard F. Elmore
21
The Need for Systemic School-Based School Reform
27
Sophie Sa
Learning From Accelerated Schools
34
Henry M. Levin
Key Lessons From The School Change Process in
Prince George's County (MD)
45
Michael K. Grady and John A. Murphy
Real Change is Real Hard: Lessons Learned in Rochester
Adam Urbanski
53
The California Partnership Academies: Design
and Implementation
59
Marilyn Raby
The Boston University/City of Chelsea Public
Education Partnership
Peter Greer
67
Restructuring Categorical Programs for Low Performing
and Handicapped Students
Stephen Fink
74
The Ten Schools Program:
A Comprehensive Intervention for Children of Color
Melba F. Coleman
81
Learning Lessons: The Process of School Change
Beverly Caffee Glenn
93
i
CONTENTS (Continued)
Page
Achieving Fundamental Change in Education Within an American Indian
Community: Zuni Public School District, New Mexico
104
Hayes Lewis
ii
LIST OF AUTHORS
Melba F. Coleman, Associate Professor
California State University at Dominguez Hills
Jane L David, Director
Bay Area Research Group
Richard F. Elmore, Professor
Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
Stephen Fink, Executive Director
Student Services Division, Edmonds (WA) Public Schools
Michael G. Ful lan, Dean of Education
University of Toronto
Beverly Caffee Glenn, Former Dean
Howard University
Michael K. Grady, Senior Research Analyst
Annie E. Casey Foundation
Peter Greer, Superintendent ad Interim
Chelsea (MA) Public Schools
Henry M. Levin, Director
Center for Educational Research, Stanford University
Hayes Lewis, Superintendent
Zuni (NM) Public Schools
John A. Murphy, Superintendent
Charlotte (NC) Public Schools
Marilyn Raby, Director
Curriculum Services, Sequoia Union High School District (C4
Sophie Sa, Executive Director
The Panasonic Foundation
Adam Urbanski, President
Rochester Teachers Association
INTRODUCTION
In April 1991, President Bush launched a strategy to help America, community-by-
community, reach six ambitious National Education Goals by the turn of the century. AMERICA
2000, that national strategy, has helped to establish a radical new agenda for rethinking our
educational system from top to bottom.
Since ii's a nine-year strategy and not a seven-second soundbite, AMERICA 2000 won't
have instant results. Most of it is about helping Americans do things for themselves, in their own
families, schools, and hometowns. But it has developed it's own energy and agenda. And now
over 1,000 communities in 45 states, territories, and the District of Columbia are mobilized under
the AMERICA 2000 banner to reach the six National Education Goals.
This collection of papers, written by those who have wrestled with the process of school
reform, offers useful insights to communities as they begin their process of transforming
education. This process is difficult and complex. There is no magic formula or silver bullet. The
bottom line is that it involves patience and tenacity and a lot of hard work. Yet, as these papers
make clear, once the plans are developed and the wheels put into motion, transforming education
can be an exciting and rewarding proposition.
Lamar Alexander
Secretary of Education
1
THE PROCESS OF SCHOOL TRANSFORMATION'
Jane L David, Director
Bay Area Research Group
Jane David draws upon 25 years of research on education reform
efforts to describe the ingredients critical for reform to succeed. These
ingredients include (1) faculty support for change, (2) a realistic
timeframe, (3) a source of innovative ideas, (4) ongoing access for
faculty to new knowledge and training (5) time during the workday
for new responsibilities, (6) appropriate assessment (ie., performance-
based or portfolio assessment), (7) authority and flexibility at the
school level, and (8) support systems that serve children's basic health
and psychological needs.
David emphasizes that teacher-student interactions are just one piece
of the structural change puzzle and that successful reform requires
many parallel changes in the environment surrounding schools,
including policies set by local administrators and school boards, state
and federal regulations, and college admission requirements.
In this paper I draw on my own studies of restructuring schools and districts as well as on
the last 25 years of research on education reform effortsamplified by research in organizational
change (public and private), cognitive science, and policy analysis. These bodies of research
provide a strong foundation for understanding the process of improving schools. After briefly
discussing the context for education reform today, I describe a set of critical ingredients for
schools attempting to transform their organization and instructional program. I then point out
the importance of devoting equal attention to changing those aspects of the larger system that
present barriers to school-level restructuring and prevent even the best models from spreading to
very many schools.
THE CONTEXT FOR RESTRUCTURING
From the curriculum projects of the sixties and the planned variation experiments of the
seventies, we learned the limitations of top-down prescriptions and the importance of local
context and culture in determining how reforms areand are notimplemented. The late
seventies and eighties brought wave after wave of 2- to 3-year "projects" to schools as well
as
more state requirements involving curriculum and course offerings, testing, and length of the
school day or year. From these experiences we learned that reforms with visible impact on school
'This paper was written for the U.S. Department of Education. The views expressed, however,
are mine.
2
practices tend to be those that are relatively easy to do and fit well with current operations; for
example, direct instruction and new reading series are more likely to be implemented than efforts
to increase teacher collaboration and introduce hands-on learning opportunities. A corollary
finding is that most mandates are implemented without affecting teaching and learning. In fact,
even school-initiated improvement efforts have rarely been successful in creating changes in
curriculum and instruction.
In the context of the national goals, the governors' commitments to restructure education,
and AMERICA 2000, the goal of transforming schools is much more ambitious than previous
reform efforts. It is to educate all students to high levels of performance. This goal requires
fundamental change in what is taught and how it is taught. Moreover, it is change in the
direction of something much more difficult to do. It is far easier to lecture, hand out worksheets,
and administer multiple-choice tests than it is to plan and organize multiple activities that actively
engage students, to create projects that require both individual and team efforts, and to assess
progress in a variety of performance-based ways.
This ambitious goal for reform places the process of school change in a very different
context. It is no longer a matter of determining the degree to which teachers have faithfully
implemented a particular project or approach. For students to learn to communicate effectively,
identify and solve problems, and work cooperatively, schools must operate differently. Curriculum
and instruction must change; staff roles must change; how teachers and students spend their time
must change; how students are grouped must change. The challenge now is to create the
conditions that make it possible for school faculties and communities to transform their
organizations from artifacts of the past to organizations of the future that are capable of
continuous learning and improvement. This is a new agenda.
INGREDIENTS FOR SCHOOL CHANGE
What happens when school faculties are invited to make such fundamental changes in
their organizations? There are several ingredients associated with significant change (by which I
mean visible changes in what teachers and students do). School faculties and their communities
are more likely to design and implement fundamental changes in their schools when the following
conditions exist:
Faculty support for change. Teachers as well as principals, and ideally parents also,
recognize the need to change and trust that the invitation to change is
a sincere
one; that is, not simply another project or shift in direction that will quickly pass.
Whether the invitation is a state grants competition or
a local leader's request for
volunteers, its sincerity is communicated by a realistic timeframe
as well as the
resources (assistance and training) and authority needed to transform teaching and
learning. It is difficult enough to launch a major change
process when participants
support it; if teachers are not active partners, this process is impossible.
A realistic timeframe. Restructuring a school is a long-term undertaking. It begins
with one or more leadersusually a principal or small
group of teacherswho have
a vision of effective learning environments. It is a 2- or 3-year process to translate
that vision into a limited plan of action (creating a
new cross-disciplinary course or
3
forming teams of teachers), convince the rest of the faculty and the community,
identify the appropriate training and other resources, and make the necessary
logistical arrangements (e.g., changing lunch or bus schedules). The greater the
departure from current practice, the longer it takes for teachers and administrators
to go through the stages from being aware of a new practice to knowing it well
enough to appropriate and use it in new ways. But the process is more than a
collection of individuals changingit is also about transforming the culture of an
organization from one that is bureaucratic and isolates teachers to one that fosters
and values collaboration, problem-solving, and continuous improvement.
For example:
Teachers in three California suburban schools
participating in a state-funded technology integration
program have gone from no knowledge of
technology to a variety of productive and
demonstrable uses over a 4-year period with
intensive assistance and outside resources. It will
take at least that long for their instructional
strategies to change in ways that foster thinking and
use the technology to its full potential.
The 23 alternative programs in New York's District
4, providing options for all junior high students,
were developed by teachers over a 16-year period.
Beyond schools, superintendents describe
decentralization as a 10-year process; Xerox
Corporation's restructuring was a 10-year
undertaking.
A source for innovative ideas. Educators and the public have limited imaginations
about what schools could look like. Most of us went through 16 or more years of
teacher lectures in schools that looked like egg crates or factories. Teacher and
administrator preparation programs do little to change that image. To launch a
process of change, educators need new ideas and images of effective practices and
school organization. In some districts, this vision is provided by the
superintendent. In some cases, state leaders provide new images. Some teachers
have participated in innovative programs or curriculum and assessment design
projects or are part of networks with other schools, universities, and consultants
that support the exchange of ideas. Educators also pick up new ideas from visiting
innovative schools.
For example:
Maine's Restructuring Schools program provided a
full year's planning time for writing proposals, during
which the state held conferences and information
4
sessions. Many of the successful grantees had been
part of the University of Maine/Goodlad
partnership.
The Coalition of Essential Schools, AFT Center for
Restructuring, NEA Mastery in Learning Schools,
and others facilitate an exchange of ideas among
restructuring schools.
Ongoing access to new knowledge and training. For teachers to teach in ways
different from the ways in which they were taught and trained, they need
knowledge of new content and alternative instructional strategies as well as
awareness of the kinds of tools (including technology) and materials that are
available. Teachers and administrators, as well as parents, also need to acquire
skills for the new roles asked of them in leading, planning, decisionmaking,
consensus building, collaboration, and evaluating progress. These are not skills
learned from the traditional one-shot workshop approach or menus of district
offerings. Teachers need onsite access to expertise and assistancefrom their peers
and from resident or visiting experts. Not every educator needs all these skills; in
fact, combined with the need for time (see below), roles and staffing configurations
need to be reconceived so these opportunities can be built into the working day.
For example:
The Gheens Professional Development Center of
the Jefferson County Public Schools helped with the
transition to ungraded schools in a variety of ways,
including responding to requests for assistance,
acting as facilitators for faculty discussions of plans,
and providing background research on ideas under
consideration. As teacher teams created curricular
approaches, chose the appropriate instructional
strategies and materials, and struggled with new
report cards and appropriate assessment instruments,
district staff met their requests for providing onsite
experts, workshops and retreats outside of the
school, and release time for planning and learning.
A new elementary school in Washington was
designed by a core team of teachers and parents.
They created a professional developmental model
after determining the competencies teachers needed,
and they rely on peer evaluations and peer
assistance to determine and address needed skills.
For example, a teacher with expertise in cooperative
learning taught the approach to the rest of the
faculty. The principal spends her time doing
5
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