THEME
Leading School Change
UPDATE
LeadScape Summer Institute
NOTICE
Democracy at Risk: The Need for New Federal Policy in Education
PEOPLE IN EDUCATION
Rob Horner
RECOMMENDED READINGS
“New Lessons for Districtwide Reform” by Michael Fullan, Al Bertani, Joanne Quinn
Instructional Leadership for Systemic Change: The Story of San Diego's Reform by Linda Darling-Hammond, Amy M. Hightower, Jennifer L. Husbands, Jeanette R. LaFors, Viki M. Young and Carl Christopher
TOOLS YOU CAN USE
On-Point: Principals of Inclusive Schools
RESEARCH BASED PRACTICE
Teacher Research
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UPDATE
Jefferson County Schools in Louisville, Kentucky
FEATURED NCCRESt STATE WORK
Tennessee State Profile
FEATURED NIUSI DISTRICT WORK
State Performance Plan (SPP) Analysis on the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)
FEATURED NIUSI-LeadScape PRINCIPAL WORK
New Principals in Community of Practice
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
César Chávez
FEATURED WEBSITE
http://www.annenberginstitute.org/index.php
DID YOU KNOW …
Benefits of Professional Learning
UPCOMING EVENTS
Call for Manuscripts: Action in Teacher Edcuation
FOR PARENTS
Beach Center on Disability
FOR STUDENTS
Race: Are We So Different?
For over ten years, the staff at NCCRESt, NIUSI, and NIUSI-Leadscape has been leading states, districts, and schools as they work to transform their policies and practices to ensure that every child has opportunities to learn in inclusive classrooms, schools, and communities. As this has always been the focus of the work we do, we thought it important to renew this commitment by dedicating the theme of our July newsletter to the people, the policies, and the schools that have continued this challenging work by choosing this theme: Leading School Change. The results of our school, district, and state collaborations have demonstrated that transformational change occurs when diverse teams of committed people work collaboratively toward clear and transparent, just outcomes. Sustainable, scalable change represents the work of communities: families, students, practitioners, administrators, teacher educators, researchers and scholars. We dedicate this issue to all of you.
In April 2004, Educational Leadership published an issue on leading school change: “Leading in Tough Times.” Four years later we believe this title and the articles within continue to resonate with all leaders who have been tirelessly working to create a more inclusive curriculum, fight for student access to the least restrictive environment, advocate for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse, and manage the process transparently, accepting praise and criticism. In the introduction to this issue1, Marge Scherer (2004) claims, “Sustainable leadership must be a shared responsibility” (p. 7).
We hope, within this issue of eQuiNews, that you find stories that articulate the very tough work of leading change. We are optimistic. We are hopeful. But we are not naïve; this work is neither quick nor simple. And it is never complete or done as long as there are students and families who are marginalized, poorly understood, or refused opportunities to learn and participate. Our July issue is about spotlighting sustainable school change: Leadership that matters, lasts, spreads, is socially just and resourceful, promotes diversity, and is activist.2
1Scherer, M. (April, 2004). What Do Leaders Do? Educational Leadership, 61 (7), p. 7.
2Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (April 2004). The Seven Principles of Sustainable Leadership. Educational Leadership, 61 (7), pp. 8-13.
Professional learning is one of the major tenets of sustainable school reform, especially for the principals who are committed to leading school change. LeadScape’s participating principals from Alamance-Burlington, North Carolina, Memphis, Tennessee, Orlando, Florida, and Arizona met in Seattle, Washington July 14th - 17th to continue their own learning around systemic transformation for inclusive schools. Highlights of the Institute included a day-long focus on school-wide instructional design with the Madison Metropolitan School District's team of Sue Abplanalp and Jack Jorgensen, Shelley Zion's work on student voice, and Rob Horner’s overview of School-wide Positive Behavior Support.
School-wide PBS epitomizes the kind of evidence-based, effective, inclusive practices that LeadScape principals are implementing to improve student performance and take the lead in school reform. Rob spent a full day working with our principals to understand how to implement an effective School-wide PBS program, what kinds of commitment and follow-through are required, and how the program will be used differently at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
This was a great opportunity for our LeadScape community of practice to begin exploring systematic and school-wide approaches to building social and academic cultures that embrace inclusivity, sustained effort, and social/emotional growth. Principals strategized how they might be able to incorporate this practice in the transformative work they're doing in their schools. Rob’s two anchoring questions really encompassed the philosophy of these inclusive principals, and they’ll help guide many LeadScape principals as they reflect throughout the year:
- Are we doing what we said we would do?
- Is it benefitting kids?
Democracy at Risk: The Need for New Federal Policy in Education
The Forum for Education and Democracy, an education think tank comprised of nationally recognized educators, is leading the way for a renewed commitment in America’s public school by politicians and federal policy-makers.
In their landmark report, Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Policy, published on the 25th Anniversary of the 1983 report Nation at Risk, these prominent educators and policy-makers show that the state of schooling in the United States is even more at risk than it was twenty-five years ago.
Their goal in this report is to convince policy-makers to create “a federal policy strategy that equalizes access to school resources, creates a 21st century, curriculum for all students, and supports it with thoughtful assessments and access to knowledgeable, well-supported teachers”.
Please take the time to read this important report by clicking here. Knowledge only strengthens our ability to lead.
For twenty-five years, Rob Horner, the Alumni-Knight Professor of Special Education at the University of Oregon, has been leading the field in school reform through research, grants management, and systems change efforts. His work with George Sugai on School-wide Positive Behavioral Supports has helped thousands of schools to become inclusive, effective learning environments, and his work with his University of Oregon colleagues to develop the School-Wide Information System program has helped to establish data-driven decision making systems around school discipline.
Like Edwin H. Friedman’s belief that “leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future,” Horner has defined his career with a vision for education that has resulted in “positive, durable, and scientifically validated change” in the lives of students and their families. Rob also has directed over $20 million dollars in federal grants, and currently co-directs the OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and the OSEP Research and Demonstration Center on School-wide Behavior Support. To further his contribution to the field, Horner also co-directs the Positive Behavior Research and Support research unit at the University of Oregon.
During the last ten years, Horner has focused his work around positive behavior research, working directly with schools and school administrators in the development of systems for embedding school-wide systems of positive behavior support. Our LeadScape principals were fortunate to spend a day with him this past month, and Rob’s dynamic presentation demonstrated that he understands day-to-day life in a classroom in addition to research-based, systemic improvement processes.
Rob Horner’s leadership is invaluable to our work for systems change. He continues to push the entire field to research and write and practice a pedagogy that serves all students in all environments.
“New Lessons for Districtwide Reform” by Michael Fullan, Al Bertani, Joanne Quinn
Fullan, Bertani, and Quinn (2004) ask a very compelling question at the beginning of this article published in Educational Leadership: How can school districts implement systemic reforms that will last, especially during tough times? Working with several districts around the country, these authors were able to identify 10 components that make improvements possible-a compelling conceptualization, a collective moral purpose, the right structure, capacity building, lateral capacity building, ongoing learning, productive conflict, a demanding culture, external partners, and focused financial investments.
Although the authors have thoroughly conceptualized these components, they also raise some important long-term issues. First, policymakers must not act hastily to judge school improvement. Initially, when schools make progress, they may experience a lull in achievement rates, meaning they may need to add “more-robust strategies.” The authors also argue that high schools need more attention since districtwide success has mostly been confined to elementary and middle schools. Moreover, successful districtwide must be predicated on a collaborative effort between schools, districts, and state levels. The last issue Fullan, Bertani and Quinn highlight is the importance of balancing two seemingly opposed positions: centralization and decentralization. While schools need to function more autonomously, schools must also be prepared to participate in “cross-school learning,” and if the school continues to underperform, districts must reserve the right to intervene.
Districtwide reform is necessary to affect systemic change. To read this important contribution to the literature on reform and school leadership, you can download this article.
Instructional Leadership for Systemic Change: The Story of San Diego's Reform by Linda Darling-Hammond, Amy M. Hightower, Jennifer L. Husbands, Jeanette R. LaFors, Viki M. Young and Carl Christopher
As part of a larger series-Leading Systemic School Improvement Series-published by Rowman and Littlefield Publishing, formerly ScarecrowEducation, Instructional Leadership for Systemic Change: The Story of Sand Diego’s Reform addresses how to create and sustain systemic school improvement.
In this study, the authors explore the integral place of instructional leadership quality in successful school reform, arguing that “instructional quality is one of the most important factors in effective teaching.” To guide the study, the researchers ask, “How can leaders develop and implement strategies to improve faculty quality and then manage the process of school reform in today's complex school environments?”
The study took place in San Diego, where a systematic reform initiative was launched in the early 1990’s. This book offers much insight into how an urban school reform initiative is sustained and managed, including a description of the “political conflicts and implementation issues that occur in real world reform.”
To order this book, please visit the publisher’s website.
OnPoint: Principals of Inclusive Schools
If it takes a collective effort of key leaders to create, manage, and sustain school reform, then one of the main catalysts for these stakeholders is the principal. Once principals commit to leading school change, replacing current practices with more inclusive ones, their leadership acts as a guide to help students, staff, parents, and faculty to think and act more inclusively.
To support a school’s capacity to reform their practices to create a system that serves all students, one which will reflect the diversity of society and the needs of all learners, including students with disabilities, students who are culturally and linguistically diverse, the National Center for Urban School Improvement has created an OnPoint: Principals of Inclusive Schools.
In this OnPoint, you will find many helpful suggestions for principals who are successfully leading their schools to be more inclusive. The authors discuss characteristics of effective principal leadership, as well as essential variable to sustained school reform. The authors also introduce the steps in a comprehensive action plan. Please click here to download this important resource.
Teacher research is a research paradigm used by practitioners to systematically and intentionally study their practice, allowing them to take on a much more leadership role in addressing inequities in the curriculum and their own pedagogical style. To develop a theory of teacher researcher, Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993) wrote Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge.
This methodology re-defines teachers as intellectuals who can generate knowledge by using their expertise to guide school reform. In the almost two decades since the teacher research movement began, many scholars argued that teacher research can help teachers be more critical of a one-size fits all approach, be more willing to engage in learning communities, reject a methods fetish so prevalent in many teacher education programs and professional development curriculums, and engage in authentic, relevant professional development.
Teachers need to be involved in the very difficult process of school reform. To do this, they need to engage in practices that allow them to re-imagine teaching from a more socially just position, one that requires them to reflect and research their assumptions, ideologies, and incongruous positions within communities and schools.
To be a leader, teachers need to see their work like Cochran-Smith (1995), as “fundamentally interpretive, political, and theoretical as well as strategic, practical and local” (p. 118).
Cochran-Smith, M. (Autumn, 1995). Color blindness and basket making are not the answer: confronting the dilemmas of race, culture, and language diversity in teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 32 (3), pp. 493-522.
Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. (1993). Research on Teaching and Teacher Research: The Issues that Divide. In M. Cochran-Smith & S. Lytle, (Eds.), Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge. New York: Teacher College Press, pp. 5-22
Jefferson County Schools in Louisville, Kentucky
In June, NCCRESt began working with Jefferson County Schools in Louisville, Kentucky to address disproportionate representation of minority students in special education. We met with groups of special education administrators, general and special education senior administrators, and school principals to build a shared language and shared understanding of the nature of disproportionality and the role of general education in providing prevention and early intervening services. The NCCRESt Rubric for assessing district practice was used as a tool for understanding current procedures and identifying target areas for improvement.
The Tennessee state profile is now complete and available online at nccrest.org! This report reveals a snapshot of the efforts made by Tennessee to provide for the education of students with disabilities and students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. We use the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems’ (NCCRESt’s) conceptual framework to focus on the connections between people, policies, and practices, which provides a schema for analyzing the relationships between federal, state, district, and school policies.
Like most states working to address disproportionality and disparities that are consequences of systemic factors that have historically marginalized diverse students, Tennessee has made progress in improving outcomes for students, reducing inequities in school funding, and increasing accountability for student outcomes through the state’s Education Improvement Act. As we have acknowledged throughout the newsletter, state leadership is essential if districts are to transcend their individual economic, social, political and cultural histories to work with their communities to make culturally responsive practice a cornerstone of their educational systems. Understanding how different traditionally underserved groups of students fare when educational outcomes are made public is the first step in transforming systems to ensure equity in terms of access, participation, and opportunities.
Our goal in creating this profile is to use a framework to understand how these relationships impact opportunities to learn, equity, and learning outcomes for students and their families as well as how they affect the practitioners employed within the system. Tennessee’s efforts as well as successes are documented using data collection and analysis. Their story could provide insight for others in creating equitable learning experiences for students in other states.
State Performance Plan (SPP) Analysis on the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)
One of the ways we can lead school change is to ensure that policies, programs, curriculum, and support services are created and managed through data-based decision making. Here, at The National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI), we partner with Regional Resource Centers to develop powerful networks of urban local education agencies and schools that embrace and implement a data-based, continuous improvement approach for inclusive practices.
To support this work, the Office of Special Education Programs has assigned us the task of analyzing and summarizing data for Least Restrictive Environment, Indicator 5 of the 2006-2007 Annual Performance Reports (APRs). This State Performance Plan (SPP) analysis presents a review of states’ patterns of placement in the least restrictive environment (LRE) and improvement activities from the APRs of the fifty states, District of Columbia, eight territories, and Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). All of the states and territories reported data for this indicator.
Our analysis shows improvement on Indicator 5, with states reporting a variety of activities for increasing placement in the LRE. States are engaging in a range of activities to improve access to the LRE with particular attention to professional development opportunities for both general and special educators. Much of the efforts acknowledge general education as the place for change. Many states are addressing the need for collaboration between general and special education teachers, but there are still many that have not yet taken this necessary step.
Leading school change means being realistic about improvement, as well as engaging in ongoing growth. Our analysis shows that it is a time for celebration and a time for even greater efforts to serve students in the Least Restrictive Environment, as mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
FEATURED NIUSI-Leadscape PRINCIPAL WORK
New Principals in our Community of Practice
Four of LeadScape’s newest principals, Rea Goklish from John F. Kennedy Day School in Cedar Creek, AZ, Rebeckah Winans from Fuller Elementary in Tempe, AZ, Whitney Oakley from Sylvan Elementary School in Snow Camp, North Carolina, and Laura Suprenard from Shingle Creek Elementary in Orlando, Florida, were able to participate in their first LeadScape Institute this month. These principals have joined our group over the past three months and had worked directly with LeadScape staff, but this was their first opportunity to actively participate in this dynamic community of practice with other inclusive principals.
The principals participated in professional learning activities around school-wide instructional design, positive behavioral supports, self-assessment of inclusive practices, and student voice, as well as ongoing conversations around “what works” in schools. These new principals brought a lot of great ideas and enthusiasm, as well as a fresh perspective to our group. We look forward to supporting their work in developing inclusive schools and we welcome them to the LeadScape community of principals!
"The end of all education should surely be service to others. We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community. Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sake and for our own." -César Chávez
http://www.annenberginstitute.org/index.php
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University is leading school reform, especially in urban communities, by developing, sharing and acting on knowledge that leads to school improvement and increased student outcomes. This mission is driven by one key idea: smart education systems. This concept is predicated on the belief that smart systems are “nimble, adaptive and efficient,” building and maintaining partnerships with the surrounding community, businesses, community organizations, and cultural institutions.
The Institute accomplishes its mission of improving schools by creating tools and products around four essential areas: Capacity building in schools, capacity building in communities, research and knowledge product development, and communications, dissemination and learning opportunities. To learn more about this invaluable leader in the struggle toward sustainable school change and to download their resources, please visit their website.
Geneva Smitherman writes in this 1995 article:
I bet you a fat man against the hole in a doughnut that Hip Hoppers think they invented "yo momma" jokes. Well, yall better ask somebody cause the game has been around in the Black Oral Tradition for generations, even long before Sista Zora included this little "yo mamma" rhyme in her 1937 novel. "Oral Tradition" which is also a part of the cultural experience of other groups such as Native Americans - refers to verbal games, stories, proverbs, jokes, and other cultural productions that have been passed on from one generation to the next by word of mouth. If I'm Lyin, I'm Flyin: An introduction to the art of the Snap" in Double Snaps by Percelay, J., Dweck, S., and Ivey, M., New York: Morrow and Company.
The NCCERSt team is working with Project LASER to develop a website that will provide a variety of examples of working with students from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Stay tuned for more information as we begin to solicit examples from the field.
Call for Manuscripts: Action in Teacher Education
Reflection is touted, especially in the field of Education, as a bastion of effective leadership.
To explore the impact of reflection on teacher performance, teacher retention, and student learning and to provide greater clarity about what particular kinds of reflections are the most effective, the editors of Action in Teacher Education are calling for manuscripts that “offer information regarding the impact of teacher reflectivity on (1) teacher performance, (2) teacher retention, (3) student learning and (4) other important aspects of teaching, learning and teacher education. The journal is particularly interested in research-based articles related to this topic and will also consider research syntheses, theory to practice articles, etc.”
For more details about the requirements and submission guidelines, please click here.
Leading the field for twenty years, the Beach Center on Disability has made a “significant and sustainable” impact on the lives of families and individuals affected by a disability. The staff has demonstrated its leadership through research, training and technical assistance, providing services in a variety of settings from international to local, all of which is done within a collaborative framework with families, individuals, policy makers and professionals.
Of the many resources provided by the Beach Center, we want to spotlight the story directory, a place to “meet” families, share their stories, and learn from their journey.
Leading can never be a lone act, a story of one person’s heroic action. Leadership is about sharing your story, listening to the tales of others, and then collectively re-imagining a more just narrative. As Azar Nafisi writes, “You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.” To grow your imagination, please visit the Beach Center’s story directory.
In this issue, we have spoken directly about the importance of leadership within a school change framework, but we also need to discuss the social barriers that can sometimes stop change, defying good leadership. Racism, especially in the United States, has been a huge barrier to our ability to sustain change.
To confront this issue, the American Anthropological Association collaborated with the Science Museum of Minnesota to create the RACE Project, which uses history, science and lived experience to explain differences among people. They write, “The story of race is complex and may challenge how we think about race and human variation, about the differences and similarities among people.”
Although this is a traveling exhibit, with a tour schedule that extends to 2011, we are highlighting their on-line games and quizzes. You will be able to confront issues of stereotypes, whiteness, and beauty. These interactive games might help you realize that racism is not about how you look; it is about how someone else assigns meaning to how you look (Robin D.G. Kelley, historian).
To start exploring, click here.
eQuiNews reflects the collaborative relationship between the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt), the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI), and NIUSI-LeadScape. With a new issue every month, eQuiNews can communicate with the broadest audiences and provide the most innovative, vital and current information on issues in education, school reform, cultural diversity, disproportionality, inclusive practices, and much more. eQuiNews will keep you informed of the work of these projects as well as other news and information in related fields.
For questions or comments on this newsletter, please email the editors of this newsletter - Angela Clark-Oates (aclarkoa@mainex1.asu.edu).
To subscribe to this newsletter, please send an email to nccrest@asu.edu with "SUBSCRIBE" in the subject line or visit http://www.urbanschools.org/subscribe.html.
To unsubscribe to this newsletter, please send an email to nccrest@asu.edu with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line.
To view the past issues of eQuiNews, please visit http://urbanschools.org/enews/2008_archives.html