The critical question, at least for me, is clear: How do we raise an entire state to be one of the highest performing school systems in the world? This question takes up nearly every moment of my being, to the point of near fixation. I consume volumes of books, journal articles, news stories, reports, editorials, opinions, conversations, charts, tables, and diagrams. I visit schools and talk to educators, looking and listening for parts of the answer to the question. I spend hours and days in airports and airplanes to attend meetings where educational strategies and tactics are espoused and debated, all in pursuit of bettering our schools.
I believe we can take it as granted that everyone (or at least most everyone) wants our schools to be better, much better, than they are now. Where we come unraveled is in getting agreement on the specific actions we will undertake, as a system, to improve. In looking to the lessons of the world’s highest performing education systems, getting to some level of agreement on the tactics we will collectively take clearly matters. It matters in that whatever approach we undertake we will need to sustain it through the swings of the political pendulum and we will need to adequately resource the effort to give it the chance to succeed. A fractured approach does not lead us to that end and is also unlikely to lead us toward having one of the world’s best education systems.
So what tactics and strategies should we undertake? Where should we place our efforts? In my studies on how one might raise an entire education system (not a few schools or districts, but the entire system), I am increasingly convinced that both a continuation of past reform efforts (lower class size, incremental annual spending increases, and accountability) or the relatively new breed of American reform strategies (elimination of job protections, individual level evaluations linked to test scores, and school choice) are unlikely to work if our goal really is building an American school system that stands alongside the world’s highest performers.
So we face some choices. One is to continue the (often) politically motivated infighting and factionalism that dominates the current debate and see who ultimately bludgeons the other side into (temporary) submission. Another is to do nothing; paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake. Perhaps the right path is to reject these two options and converge on a set of strategies that is most likely to deliver us at that goal of a world-class education system.
I’d like to propose four lenses to frame that debate. If the strategy or approach passes through all four lenses, then it fits in the discussion. If it doesn’t, then it’s out. Note that being “in” shouldn’t mean it’s in forever – just that the approach makes sense in the current context. Similarly, being “out” doesn’t mean it’s out forever – it just means that either the timing isn’t right or we need more testing and empirical validation of the approach before we take it to scale across the entire education system. So, “what are these four lenses that SHOULD frame our education reform agenda,” you ask?
1. Is it related to the instructional core? Harvard professor Richard Elmore rightly points out that if you aren’t doing things that have an impact on the relationship between the teacher and the student in the presence of content, you aren’t doing anything that’s going to positively change performance. Using this first question as a lens is incredibly constructive in helping us sort the wheat from the chaff in where we should place our efforts. The danger in using this lens in isolation is that there are lots of things that affect this relationship between teachers and students in the presence of content; especially if you allow yourself to birdwalk out on a few limbs. We can’t just rely on this lens alone.
2. Is it strongly supported by the evidence? This lens can be a bit tricky as one can find some evidence to support just about anything. But we stand a much better chance of being “right” with whatever approach we take if are aligned with evidence that reaches the caliber of being peer-reviewed, journal quality work. Further, we should pursue approaches that have a preponderance of evidence that supports it. This helps prevent us from chasing the latest thing or being led astray by a singular research finding that contradicts the larger body of evidence on any particular strategy. The danger of using this lens in isolation is being paralyzed by analysis, wanting more and more empirical validation before actually doing anything. Good implementation begins with using evidence to calibrate your shot, but ultimately taking action.
3. Is it scale-able? If our goal is really to get a whole education system to improve, we must reject efforts that do not scale as the primary drivers for improvement. Efforts that do not scale show up dressed in one of two outfits. One is in the form of small-scale pilots and projects, where we have a few schools or districts undertake some effort. Pilots and projects are incredibly important for experimentation and empirical validation but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking these are going to do anything that will make the whole system move; especially if, at the end of the pilot or program, we never do anything to grow the validated approach. The second form of efforts that do not scale comes in the guise of attempts at small scale excellence. Suspects here include many school choice efforts and alternative educator licensure pathways. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a fan of charter schools as a mechanism for innovation and a fan of approaches like Teach for America in their efforts to bring top talent into education. But we are badly fooling ourselves if we think either of these efforts has the capacity to raise the quality of our entire education system. Don’t believe me? Refer to question #2 above. The danger of using this lens in isolation is that there are lots of things we could take to scale. But if it’s not related to the instructional core or if it isn’t supported by evidence we run the risk of creating big, expensive, and ineffective distractions that don’t result in a world-class education system.
4. Is it supported by international benchmarking? A great place to start for information on how we might grow our education system into one of the world’s best is by asking questions of what the world’s best education systems actually do. A comparative analysis of these systems, looking for common approaches and strategies in their rise to greatness, is perhaps our best evidence of what’s going to work to raise our education system to top performing status. As a contrast, the discussions about pure local control, or the even more rabid version of this which advocates the complete elimination of state authority and state departments of education, is completely absent as a strategy of improvement in studies on the rise of the world’s best education systems. More directly, there are no examples of world-class education systems that have used this approach and achieved greatness. The key here is balance, a topic I’ve explored before. So, using the lens of international benchmarking, seeing what approaches the best performing school systems actually use, can be an incredibly constructive lens in helping us decide which approaches to take. The danger in using this lens in isolation is that you can fail to take into account that each school system has history, culture, and context – and all of these must strongly be taken into account in choosing a strategy that makes sense.
It’s never too late for us to change tracks and choose approaches and efforts that are much more likely to actually work in pursuit of a better education reform agenda. In fact, I’d argue it’s too late not to make this change. No one of these four lenses gets us there completely, but I’m arguing that using all four together gives us a powerful framework from which to make decisions about where we should put our efforts and which approaches to avoid.
Jason Glass
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June 4, 2012 at 3:15 am
jasonellingson
If I can simplify, the work we need to engage in is based on the instructional core, which is supported by evidence, is internationally benchmarked, and is scale-able? For example, AIW would need evidence, connect to the Core, match international standards and be scale-able for the entire state to be considered as a reform effort? CBE?
I like the four lenses as a way to move the discussion forward as well as ground it. As I read your post, I keep thinking of different efforts and ideas. I appreciate your ideas being out there for us to consider and challenge us.
June 4, 2012 at 3:26 am
Jason Glass
Thanks for the response Jason.
Regarding AIW, it clearly would meet the first two lenses: Connected to the core & evidence-based. It would fail on the second two: I’m not aware of any high performers that use AIW as a key strategy and the reason we unplugged it as a state initiative was that we had no viable pathway to scale it to every district in the state. CBE hits the mark on the first lens (connected to the core), but struggles with all the others.
As I mentioned, this does NOT mean we shouldn’t pursue these as innovations – I clearly we believe we should and are.
It does mean, however, where we need to focus our efforts are on those things that pass all four lenses. Ideas on what those might be???
June 4, 2012 at 10:19 am
Scott McLeod (@mcleod)
Let me start by saying FANTASTIC post. You’ve given us lots to think about here. And yet I am struggling with it…
1. In most districts that have employed it, AIW is resulting in numerous changes by teachers that move toward creating more cognitively-complex learning environments for students. That’s exactly what we need and yet we’re jettisoning the initiative as a state.
2. Digital technologies are transforming EVERYTHING around us, including how we learn, teach, and school. And yet there’s no ‘evidence base’ for them in the traditional sense. Indeed, by the time we ever obtain peer-reviewed research on digital learning technologies, the technology has changed into something new and the research is fairly obsolete. In other words, our evidence-collecting and -reporting mechanisms are outdated and can’t keep up, and yet we know what technology is permeating everything that we do. So now what do we do? Ignore digital technologies because they don’t meet someone’s evidentiary standard?
3. The McKinsey report to which you refer identifies ‘high-performing’ school systems as those that do well on standardized tests such as TIMSS, NAEP, PIRLS, Brazil’s Index of Development of Basic Education, the California Academic Performance Index, etc. With the exception of some of the critical thinking components of PISA, there’s very little assessment in these assessments of higher-order thinking skills. So essentially we’re saying “Which school systems do really well on tests of lower-level cognitive work?” and then we’re trying to identify system characteristics that lead to that result. That’s what we’ve been doing for the last 100 years and it doesn’t lead to our students’ acquisition of the higher-order thinking skills, knowledge, and practices that they need for life, citizenship, and the hyperconnected, hypercompetitive global information economy in which we all now live.
So I think you’re dead on with #1 and #3. You may recall that the reason I was so critical of last year’s Blueprint was that its proposals basically ignored the ‘black box’ of the learning-teaching process. But I think we have to reconsider #2 and #4 in light of our new information, economic, and learning landscapes which clearly indicate that we need to move toward learning environments that focus on higher-level thinking skills and are technology infused (because all knowledge work in ‘the real world’ is done with computers, not notebook paper and ringbinders). We don’t want to be evidence-free – and we should be learning from international and other leading systems that have things to teach us – but we need to be fairly flexible when it comes to transformative changes that don’t easily fit under established ways of thinking…
June 4, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Trace Pickering
Jason,
A great post and a great trigger for thought and discussion! Clear and thoughtful – its wonderful that you post these things so we can visibly see your thinking and learning. That alone is something transformational and future-creating!
One thing I’m continually reminded of from systems theory is that, “When one game states the rules for all games, it does not matter how many games you create, they are all the same kind.” -J. Gharajedaghi Of course, in our profession this refers to the way we “score” schools through international tests and comparisons. That’s the “game” and it, by default, defines all the games. Until we redefine the game we’re playing and how we will keep score, we are going to continue to struggle to scale and sustain.
I agree with Scott’s analysis. Research is a tricky one. While it is important, it isn’t very informative or valuable in turbulent times. In times when the road is pretty straight and we are seeking to continuously improve what we have, “Following the research” makes sense. When the road is twisty and treacherous, its hard to make progress by looking back at what was in a different context and time. I think this is what you are saying – be informed by the research but not confined by it.
These are challenging but great times. As Jamie Vollmer says, “This is education’s most hopeful time.”
June 4, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Sue Runyon
Great post and I agree with the idea of lenses to view the work of education reform. Scale-able is important as we look at equity across the state. Many initiatives pass the instruction at the core and providing evidence lenses, but are not going to bring the whole system along. I believe that AIW and CGI are both good examples of this. There are “pockets of excellence” with both of these but they are not, in their present form, a systems reform approach. I believe this begs the question, can their present form be altered to make them scalable but keep the strong evidence and instruction at the core?
Do all lenses carry the same weight? Standardized tests allow comparison across systems and I am hoping that the SMARTER Balanced assessments will indeed assess high order thinking skills! Scott is right to question our present national/international tests. I don’t want to become bogged down here, as this is what we have now to examine what works.
As an AEA Math Consultant and President of the Iowa Council of Teachers of Mathematics, my greatest challenge the next few years will be basic core instruction in mathematics for PK-12 teachers. Our schools and teachers need to focus on the Iowa Core. Teachers need both content and pedagogy in many of the areas that they are responsible for teaching.
If pockets of excellence or innovations that are promising arise, then lets encourage them but let’s not put our efforts at reform into areas that don’t in some way meet the lenses that are on the table.
I am a strong believer in integrating technology into instruction. Should there be a fifth lens – technology integration or should this be considered part of core instruction and even part of an initiative being scale-able?
June 4, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Jason Glass
Hi Sue,
Specific to your last point, technology integration doesn’t pass the first lens – related to the instructional core. Again, this isn’t to say that it isn’t important and that we shouldn’t be working to improve broadband access and improve personal device access in schools. Just as stand alone efforts, these are not likely to impact the instructional core.
Fullan called out technology, among others, as one of his wrong drivers for whole system education change. As with the other wrong drivers, it’s important and you don’t ignore it – but its also not what you lead with.
June 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Andrew Wermes
I believe the technology issue must be included in our education reform quest. I commented on this in my email comments to the STEM “Technology Enhanced Learning.” (I copied you on 5/20/12 @ 9:54AM). I believe this must be an all-education effort – not just a STEM focus
June 6, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Jason Glass
Hi Andy,
As a stand alone effort “technology” for it’s own sake would not meet the 4 lens test. However, if there were specific technological strategies that met the four (and I think you can make an argument that there are), then a more specific technological/education strategy could be considered.
June 4, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Jason Glass
Hi Scott, Trace, and Sue,
Thanks much for reading and for responding. I’m humbled that you took the time and were so thoughtful in your remarks.
On the evidence-based or research lens, Trace is quite right that I’m saying you should dig into that hard and let it inform your choices but not cause paralysis and inaction. Grounding decisions in research can help prevent us from firing what Collins and Hansen (2011) call “uncalibrated cannonballs,” meaning that large scale efforts that are not calibrated to have a positive effect on the outcome are wasteful, distracting, and possibly dangerous. We are far better off calibrating our efforts through evidence.
More directly, if we are going to subject hundreds of thousands of kids to something, we’d better have a very high degree of certainty it’s going to work and work in the manner we expect.
I do want to push back against all three of you on the international benchmarking component and your dismissal of assessment results. We can identify high performers using an assessment like PISA, which I don’t think you can rightly slap the “low-skill-content-regurgitation” label on. PISA is a sophisticated writing based assessment that asks for the student to apply content to a problem – this is not your grandfather’s bubble test.
Further, tests of reading and mathematics (despite their shortcomings) do matter as indicators of student achievement and are highly correlated with system performance and national wealth. If your measures indicate your system isn’t doing a very good job getting kids to read and do math, you do have a problem to address.
While we should always be asking and pressing for our assessments to be better than they are now, it is a symptom of our national overuse and over-reaction to assessment that we want to be dismissive of all of them and the powerful inferences they can allow. It is just as wrong to toss out all assessment results because of their imperfections as it is to try and use the assessment results as if they were flawless and impeccably precise.
June 4, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Scott McLeod (@mcleod)
Thanks, Jason, for YOUR thoughtful reply.
If we don’t create technology-infused learning environments in schools, we relegate them to irrelevance in a digital world. So lead with technology or follow with technology or whatever verb we’d like to use, it had better be there in ways that are transformative and core, not replicative and marginal, to the learning-teaching process. We are learning and communicating and working and doing and BEING with technology daily, and increasingly it is MORE so, not less. So either our school systems step up or else…
Fullan’s correct that we should lead with instruction, not technology. But we ignore technology at the system’s peril (as so many organizations / societal institutions have found). Anyone that is arguing these days that good instruction can and should occur without deeply-embedded, rich uses of learning technologies is sadly mistaken.
As someone who 1) cut his professorial teeth helping districts with data-driven instruction and leadership, 2) has created several popular data-driven white papers, and 3) was invited to be on the What Works Clearinghouse team that ultimately created (without me, sadly, due to scheduling conflicts) its Using Student Achievement Data to Support Instructional Decision Making Practice Guide, I don’t think I’m reflexively dismissive of standardized tests. I, too, noted that parts of PISA are the exception to the assessment issue. And if PISA was the main assessment McKinsey used for determining ‘high-performing’ educational systems, I’d feel better about its report. But PISA was just one of many assessments used, meaning that many ‘high-performing’ educational systems were chosen because they were good at getting students to do well on assessments of low-level cognitive work. As you note, that’s fine and also necessary, but primarily aligning ourselves around system characteristics that lead to success on low-level mental activities is not a recipe for success, at least not for a country in the developed world. In general, as a state and nation we’re not working toward basic literacy and numeracy. We’re working toward trying to maintain a cultural and economic standard of living and way of life that depends on a greater percentage of our graduates being able to do higher-level knowledge work. So, sure, we need to take care of the basics. But, as NCLB has shown us, when we ALIGN ourselves toward achievement of the basics (i.e., using characteristics of systems that do well at the basics), what should be a foundational floor instead often (usually?) becomes a ceiling instead. We can do that if we think that’s necessary to achieve the basics for more students, but we better also learn from systems that do higher-level thinking work well. And I’m not sure that the McKinsey report – or your post – gets at that…
June 4, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Mike Peterson
As a principal, and now as a superintendent, a source of frustration has been what I perceive to be a lack of coherence among the different AEAs. For example, when I was a principal, my AEA was very strongly involved in CGI. When I moved to my current district as a superintendent, CGI was nowhere to be found. If an approach is worth focusing on in one AEA, shouldn’t it be important enough to focus on throughout the entire state. I find the idea of “scale-ability” very encouraging. Districts are warned to avoid the shotgun approach to professional development. It is nice to see the same approach being taken at higher levels.
I cringe when I hear school leaders say that any reform needs to be tailored at the district level in order for it to be effective. After all, “every district has its own unique set of needs.” While there is some limited merit to that statement, leaving reform up to individual districts will only resulted in haphazard approaches that will yield very little in terms of sustainable results.
June 5, 2012 at 1:35 am
SAMK
I have read your post and the very lengthy and thoughtful comments and I have been mulling over my response. There is so much I would like to say, although I believe Dr. McLeod addressed several of my concerns. I would like to add to some of those concerns.
I think a quote attributed to Winnie the Pooh is appropriate:
‘I think,’ said Pooh, ‘that if you don’t pick the right problem, it’s the wrong problem which means that you still have to solve the right problem after you’ve solved the wrong problem, if you do. Right?’ ” (from Winnie-the-Pooh on Problem Solving (Dutton, 1995), by Roger E. Allen and Stephen D. Allen).
I believe that quote properly summarizes much of the “reform efforts” we have been witnessing. I would not argue that I have witnessed many practices that have been far from effective – but those practices have occurred at the classroom level, the school level, the district level, and the state level – even the national level. There is so much being done that is completely contrary to what is known to be effective or even valid; so much being done that is direct contrast to ‘what works.’ Yet, people seem to accept invalid or non-nonsensical policies and practices if they appeal to personal opinion or the current political climate.
I just finished re-reading Gene Glass’ book Fertilizer, Pills, and Magnetic Strips. Glass presents a very compelling case that the crises in education are actually non-existent; he also articulates very well the tremendous weakness in what are often presented as evidence-based practices and educational research (and I would add “data-driven decisions”). I believe Glass’ work would also refute your assertion that: ” we can take it as granted that everyone (or at least most everyone) wants our schools to be better, much better, than they are now. ” My reading of Glass and what I have been observing leads me to believe that an education has become a commodity and a higher quality education can be acquired (and should be able to be acquired) by those who have the financial resources necessary. The motivation or willingness to support a high quality education for the good of all and the good of the country has all but disappeared (and that feeling is not limited to education; think about health care).
I think before we can talk about ‘tactics,’ there has to be a clear understanding of the purpose of K – 12 education and how we would measure the outcomes. A decade ago, China’s idea of high-performing students was very narrowly defined and largely based on rote learning. They have made (and are continuing to make) significant changes. If we examine the school systems of other countries to inform our practices (and Linda Darling-Hammond has done an excellent job of this), we cannot ignore the “rest of the story” – that is, the other systems and structures that support their education systems.
I am not sure what a world-class system would look like. I know what type of learning I would like to see (and I think we often ignore great work that has been done in this area by scholars like David Perkins, Linda-Darling Hammond, Deborah Meir, Tony Wagner, etc.). I know some of the attributes and dispositions I would like to see being developed in our students and in our teachers; and I have seen far too few examples of teaching and learning and assessment that is known to create students who think critically and creatively and who learn how to learn and think – and care. Yet, I believe I could be part of a district effort to put in place structures, policies, and practices that would support the type of education that would develop such learners & thinkers.
However, I also know that education is a human endeavor; it is first and foremost about relationships and the value we place on all human beings (and that we insist those directly involved in the education of children place). THIS is the greatest challenge I believe we are facing. I do not think you can “scale up” people’s belief that all children are deserving and capable learners; that teaching is more than just training; that if you are a teacher, you must also be a learner and a reflective practitioner. Sadly, I have not seen nor heard enough people in K – 12 education who have large visions of what a world-class education system needs to be. We seem to focus on what is “easy” to measure – performance on standardized assessment (often claimed to be a needed first step).
I do not see my somewhat scattered thoughts as a desire to take no action or continue the debate. Rather, I think we need more work on defining the problem (I see that you got your doctorate at Seton Hall; if you had the pleasure of having Chuck Achilles for a class or two, I think that was the greatest understanding I gained from him!).
Thank you, though, for providing such a rich discussion.
June 5, 2012 at 1:46 am
Jason Glass
Hi Sam,
Thanks for this response. You give us much to consider. I was among the last students Dr. Achilles taught at Seton Hall. A colorful individual we are all better to have known!
June 5, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Trace Pickering
I agree with Sam that many in the education debate are not focused on the right problem – or even know what those problems are. Fortunately, I think in Iowa we have many educators who are doing strong problem formulations and discussions like this help in that endeavor (we need to keep working with our legilslators and help them better understand the complex “wicked” problems we face in education.. One of my favorite quotes is from the late Russell Ackoff who said, “A curriculum is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.” He further went on to say, “The preoccupation of educators with what students need to know can only be justified if the educators know (1) what students are going to do after graduation, and (2) what they are going to need to know to do it well. Educators know neither.” Of course, he is not advocating that students don’t need to know how to read, write, and do math so don’t read that into the quote.
I’m encouraged to see a stronger focus on pedagogy. We have failed as a profession in the past because we misdiagnosed the problem as one of content: what is taught, when it is taught, the content of teaching, and the messages it delivers. Most of what students learn is derived not from what is taught but how it is taught. (e.g. I’ve forgotten a bunch of what Mr. Koch taught me but will always remember how he taught me – that’s what made the difference in my life).
We are much better off discovering wrong solutions to the right problems that finding and applying the right solutions to the wrong problems.. We usually get good feedback to correct wrong solutions but rarely from wrong problems. As Ackoff says, “Wrong problems are perpetuated by right solutions to them.”
On the testing front, I’m not against PISA or other tests, I’m against them as the primary, first, and/or only measures we use nationally and internationally. Much of this is due to the fact that real learning escapes our abilities to measure it. I would argue that poor test performance is a symptom of a larger problem – one which we’ve largely ill-defined as meaning “they need more and better science, math, and reading courses!” For one, the system we inherited is designed for a very different purpose and continues to produce the results it was designed to produce.
Thanks for this space – there are many, many great things happening in Iowa that is helping us to better “see” what a new educational system might look like and the elements it may contain. As Jason often says, “let’s all keep leaning into it!”
June 5, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Bob Follmuth
Clearly, this is a forum for those who the time and expertise to ponder systems and theories. I humbly defer to you all who are more skilled at doing, reading, and understanding educational research and policy-making. So, I offer these simple comments.
I believe there are very few, if any, teachers who feel that education in Iowa is as good as it can be – that changes and improvements should and must be made. But we are most concerned with students and learning in real time – day to day and minute by minute. Every teacher I know works as hard as they can to enable every student to learn every day, but still cannot escape that inevitable feeling of failure. We do believe that every student can and will learn, but we just don’t get to see it every day.
The feeling of failure comes because, even though teachers do everything they can, within the system and with available resources, some students still are not “proficient” as it is defined by others outside the system. But this failing leads to an unavoidable lowering of teachers’ self-worth as our society is constantly and relentlessly reminded how poorly our public schools are doing. At least in my community, this leads to the general feeling that is is the teachers who are failing.
Please encourage and promote a more positive view of teachers as this discussion of improving education in America continues.
June 5, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Jason Glass
Thanks for this reminder Bob. As the spouse of a teacher, the son of teachers, and a former teacher myself – I can’t imagine having anything but a positive view of teachers. But to your point (and thanks again for the reminder that that we must protect and honor the teaching profession), Fullan and Hargreaves’ recent book Professional Capital gets at this some. A shortened article length version capturing the ideas can be found here: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/06/06/33hargreaves_ep.h31.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mrss
June 6, 2012 at 12:03 am
Pat
You have raised a challenging question and I would like to remind you of one of the reform challenges in the Iowa Blueprint for “a continuous spirit of innovation and learning.” It urges “Continuously trying and evaluating approaches that have the capacity to raise student engagement and achievement must be our goal. We need to pour fuel on Iowa’s spirit of innovation. Every one of our schools should be centers of ideas for improving teaching and learning.”
Now, a year later, you are suggesting four decision-making lenses for deciding on action.
The instructional core is paramount to what goes on in schools given that schools exist for students’ needs. Since we now have an accumulated professional body of knowledge, it is reasonable that we use that evidence. But your fear of being paralyzed by analysis is real, as we can often see. Meanwhile, our students wait for us to get it together so that more than a third of them can demonstrate proficiency as independent learners.
Does your own thinking on reform truly believe what The Blueprint suggests about the spirit of innovation? What if we had one of those “incredibly important” pilots or projects somewhere in Iowa and what if the followup action had been taken “to grow the validated approach”? Would we respect “the history, culture and context” associated with a school enough to nurture that “spirit of innovation” by supporting replication?
This “spirit of innovation” in The Blueprint was a direct result of last year’s summit and here we are a year later still wondering “where we should put our efforts.”
Researcher Michael Fullan defines three levels of reform: the school, the district, and the policy level (state/federal). The spirit of innovation can be clearly aimed at the school level, and it’s about time. How many more years, decades, are we willing to see our talented colleagues working as hard as they can, but still unable to show improved results with our children.
Are we willing to see yet another year’s graduating class of Iowa students—terrific as they are—still not demonstrating the stronger proficiencies we seek?
Could we possibly find McLeod’s “‘black box’ of the learning-teaching process” by nurturing that spirit of innovation, especially one that is born in the system at the school where the student and teacher meet? What if our systems approach at the school level focused on cognitive development, could increase the quality of teaching and learning. Could these results play well globally?
The reform discussions go on, but should we be taking some action now to support that spirit of innovation?
June 6, 2012 at 12:27 am
Jason Glass
Hi Pat,
Thanks much for your considered response.
A careful read of this post clearly indicates an important place for innovation. But it should be carefully constrained and empirically guided before launched on a whole system. Ceaseless and unconstrained whole system innovation is exhausting, wasteful and potentially damaging. Innovate – yes and without question. But do so with prudence.
There are a number of education strategies that do pass these four lenses so this is not a call for inaction. Rather, it is a call for calibrated and proven approaches that get results (more on these in later posts).
In many cases we do not need a new innovation to get to improvement. In many cases, we know what works – the issue is implementing what works with fidelity and low variability. I know of no shortcuts to world-class status.
While there were several aspects of last fall’s education blueprint that do pass these four lenses, it can be fairly criticized as being too broad and not being tightly vetted through these four lenses.
I stand up and own that and acknowledge my own shortcomings. I’ve learned and grown.
I am also increasingly clear that a better path ahead can be found looking through these four lenses. I am ready and resolute to take up this new direction – in fact I already have within the Iowa Department of Education.
I hope I can count you as an ally in that work for a better approach.
Thanks again.
June 7, 2012 at 7:09 pm
Pat
Of course we are allies because we are engaging in professional, collegial discussion in our quest to solve some problems of mutual interest.
There is no criticism here, just efforts to clarify the terms of the discussion. When you speak of “the whole system” I can only guess which system you have in mind. My guess is that you are thinking about all k-12 education at the state level. Thus, your concern about The Blueprint topics of teacher preparation, recruiting, hiring, career paths, salaries, and evaluation are addressed.
“Systems” thinking is a useful way to define the totality of configured pieces that are joined together because of how they must relate to each other to function effectively. A school is the unit that must function effectively for the benefit of a student, therefore it must also be designed as “a system.” The norm, however, is a disjointed, fragmented collection of activities which leaves the student challenged to navigate for his intellectual gain. Our systemic thinking must focus on the core of the chosen system to ensure systemic compatibility and collaboration.
Let me quickly say that, of course, there are many systems which must function effectively beginning with the one that includes all k-12 education in the state is also important. It’s just that we must not lose sight of the primary system, that which is closest to the student.
Attention to this system operationalizes the researched contention that the best decisions are made closest to mission actions. It demonstrates bottom up strength and acknowledges the unique personal characteristics which we value in education in both students and teachers. A careful balance should be maintained with any essential top down requirements from the state system.
We agree. “We know what works.” In truth, many things work, very well. Educators are flooded with good advice which is all clearly linked to some study. There is no shortage of constructs emanating from gurus who will never see the faces of our students. Actually, research has told us it is the school that is the most effective unit of reform. The challenge is to synthesize an operating system that supports continuous professional learning and results in student achievement at that level.
Your own resolve to continue to learn and grow is what needs to be transmitted to each school site. That attitude can confirm the vision and generate the creativity to successfully use differently the existing resources so that Iowa’s students will again be leading learners.
June 10, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Mark Gruwell
Jason,
The list is a good starting point, especially frame one: instructional core.
Frame two: Is it strongly supported by the evidence? Unfortunately, my experience has been “only when it’s convenient.” NACEP accreditation, together with other forms of “specialized” accreditation, comes to mind, as there is no evidence (let alone “strong” evidence) that specialized accreditation “standards” enhance student learning (frame one).
Frame four allows us to compare our performance against others, and the international scope of the frame is appropriate and necessary; however, there is a risk: anytime we benchmark, we tend to imprison ourselves within those particular benchmarks, which may hinder innovation. See Blue Ocean Strategy and, particularly, Southwest Airline’s strategy of creating a successful, high-performing system by “going off the board” and actually redefining benchmarks — some of which no other airline comes close to matching.
Underlying all of the frames should be: “Hire professionals, and then get out of their way, and quickly.” Looking back to my experience in education — including as a high school teacher, as a college professor, and now as a mean college administrator — I can’t help but notice a trend of imposing various bureaucratic requirements in the paths of our educators: exhaustive lists of learning benchmarks, standards, and strands; No Child Left Behind; programs of study; Perkins performance standards and reports; project “this” and project “that,” and the list goes on. An interesting research topic would be to examine the correlation between bureaucracy in education and student learning; it wouldn’t surprise me to see decreased student learning accompany increased bureaucracy.
Mark Gruwell