Teaching the educators

Jal Mehta, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education wrote recently that we “have an almost endless list of things that we would like the next generation of schools to do: teach critical thinking, foster collaboration, incorporate technology, become more student-centered and engaging. The more skilled our teachers, the greater our chances of achieving these goals.” Building teacher capacity is both a school and system responsibility.

The role of the teaching educator in our system is similar to what Michael Fullan refers to as coaches.  They are experts in literacy and numeracy who work with the lead teacher to plan, model, observe, reflect and challenge with the intent of improving the learning outcomes of all students.

In the early days the arrival of a TE in schools was often met with resistance and in some cases, their expertise was under utilised.  Over the past few years we have worked tirelessly to articulate and communicate the what, why and how of the TE in schools.  Their role is not to obstruct schools but to build instructional capacity.  The focus shifts from building individual capacity to community capacity.  Once we build community capacity, our schools will be able to link into an ever bigger system of inquiry, learning and knowledge.

We now understand that the most powerful way of building capacity is in situ, in context around the real problems and challenges that arise on a daily basis.  Previous models of withdrawing teachers from their context and transmitting information did little to improve their practice and only served to further frustrate them.  The best approach is to learn the work by doing the work and having someone that you can share and reflect with.  I think teachers respond well to the immediacy and collegiality of this approach.

In 2011, Michael Fullan and Jim Knight wrote an article titled Coaches as System Leaders.  They state that if “teachers are the most significant factor in student success, and principals are second, then coaches are third.  All three, working in coordinated teams, will be required to bring about deep change.”

Some may call it the power of three – we refer to it as the instructional triad (TE, principal and lead teacher) or the teacher-learning triad (teacher, lead teacher and TE).

Our TEs are an important part of our system strategy to improve the learning outcomes of all students and ensure a professionally rewarding working life for teachers.  The how and why of their work represents a shift in education from “I know to we learn” and success for some learners/schools to success for all learners/schools.

Learning leaders

As I’ve mentioned previously, our focus as a system this year is on good teaching and good teacher practice.  We know what the research tells us about good teachers and student learning outcomes.  This of course is based on a very important assumption – the quality of leadership. Michael Fullan calls the principal the “nerve centre of school improvement” and while they may not have a direct impact on student learning outcomes, what they do is critical to large scale and lasting improvement.

Schools without quality leadership are like orchestras without conductors.  Sure teachers can teach but an effective leader knows the research, develops the knowledge and collaborates with others to bring it all together.  Clive Gillinson writing in the Guardian in 2009 reflects on the role of the conductor:

Any player who has worked with great conductors knows that what they bring to their performances is the difference between competence and inspiration. It diminishes and completely misunderstands great music-making not to think there is any difference between the two.

Sometimes when we talk about effective teachers, we assume that we already have effective leadership at the helm.  This is not always the case.  Fullan in his paper Quality Leadership, Quality Learning states that reviews of research literature on school improvement highlights the “key role of the principal, for better or worse, i.e there are no examples of school-wide success without school leadership; all examples of school failure include weak or ineffective leadership.”

How do principals account for a lack of school wide success?  How do we deal with this as a system?  Past attempts to improve leadership have been ad hoc or too focused on individual attributes.

Over the weekend I began reading Leading with Inquiry and Action by Matthew Militello, Sharon Rallis and Ellen Goldring.  The foreward was written by Richard Elmore.  I have always respected Elmore’s grounded approach – a good mix of common sense and encouragement.  In reflecting on the American education system, he says this:

Every generation of American educational leaders, from the end of the 19th century onward, promises that it will be the generation to transform the practice of leadership into the practice of instructional improvement, and so far, every succeeding generation has failed at that fundamental task.  The leadership of instructional practice has been consistently and systematically displaced, generation after generation, by the bureaucratic demands of “running” schools and the by the “real-world” demands of school bureaucracy.

This summation could equally apply to education systems in other parts of the world.  Why?  Elmore says the answer lies in the observation that “education is a profession without a practice” or more accurately, “an occupation aspiring to be a profession that has not yet discovered its practice”.

He goes on:

We do not, as a field, define a set of practices that everyone who enters the sector has to master as a condition of being able to practice, nor do we insist that people who practice in the field continue to learn their practice at ever-increasing levels of competence and expertise over time.

I agree with Elmore’s observations.   Systems have failed because there has been little investment in school leadership.  We have focused our resources and efforts on the periphery without seeking to change the culture and structure of schools.  We haven’t insisted or enabled leaders continue to learn their practice.  Building system leadership capacity leads to greater accountability.

In addressing the core issue of leading schooling too often we start from the outside and work in. Right on the edge, we usually find things like judging school leaders using blunt instruments like student performance, data and rankings. Further in you find things like “taking things off” leaders to allow them to do their job. This may free up time but it does little to address the inherent problem. Such approaches only serve to demean the complexity of the leadership challenge.

A more constructive approach is to start from the inside out. This means a sharp focus on the core requirements for leading a contemporary school. The research and data show us that the key responsibility of leading has to be around the work of teachers, how they teach, how we know they are effective and how we can continue to build their capacity. If the leader doesn’t know how to do this then they have to be taught how. It requires leaders to be effective practitioners with a deep understanding of learners and pedagogy.

Last year our system focus was learning by inquiry.  Inquiry is critical to how we understand our learners and their contexts in what and how we teach.  Yet there is little point in learning by inquiry if we don’t apply it.  Leaders need to be inquiry minded AND action oriented. This is how we become a profession with a practice.

It’s a matter of trust

When Billy Joel wrote the lyrics to It’s a Matter of Trust, he probably wasn’t thinking about the Finnish education system.  Yet the more I read the literature on high performing systems, I am convinced that trust is at the core of the cultural change needed to reshape schooling.  It’s not new nor is it rocket science.

Michael Fullan says that you build trust through behaviour.  John Hattie tells us that the ability for teachers to develop trust within the classroom is key to making students feel OK about making mistakes and asking questions.  In Visible Learning, the highest “effect sizes within teacher student relationship came from empathy, warmth and encouragement of higher order thinking.”  A report on a teacher education model for the 21st century by Singapore’s National Institute of Education emphasises the need for teachers to create cultures of care and trust.

As noble a calling as teaching is, the profession has been tarnished by a lack of trust, suspicion of teachers’ work and a top down approach to school improvement.  Richard Elmore wrote in 2007 that a “non-professional teaching force is a compliant and easily managed workforce.”  This view of teaching according to Elmore grew out of the late 19th and 20th century.

What differentiates high performing systems from others is trust.  Trust permeates from the highest to the lowest levels: governments trust schools to deliver quality education, parents trust teachers to meet the learning needs of their children and teachers trust students to set and achieve their own learning goals.

I know Finland is the system du jour and some may be tiring of hearing about the Finnish way but I read a superb reflection in February’s Phi Delta Kappan magazine by its editor in chief, Joan Richardson.  When I re-read the passages I highlighted in the article I am still astounded by the culture of trust that has been built not in one school but in every single school.  How is this done?  By driving responsibility down to the classroom and school level.  This is similar to the principle of subsidiarity and it’s a term we don’t often hear in discussions about school improvement or teacher quality.  Teachers have control over what they teach and how they teach and how they assess students.

The rationale behind Finland’s competitive teacher education program is quite simple: there are no mentoring or teacher evaluation programs and that’s the way they want it. Teachers are trusted to do their best not in their first year of teaching but throughout their careers.  This is a quote from an education official from the Finnish National Board of Education:

We trust our teachers. They will find the best solutions, or they will create their own.  They are doing very well without inspections and testing. If students are not happy, they go home and tell their mothers, and the mothers call the principal. That’s a fine inspection system.”

It exemplifies the level of trust between schools and parents and reinforces the critical role parents play in education.  It is not just the responsibility of teachers or parents or governments – it is a collective responsibility in which the accountability lies with the professionals – teachers and leaders.  Imagine knowing that if you sent your child to any school in Finland they would receive the same level of care and personalised learning regardless of academic ability, learning style or background.

For me, the gold standard is the fact that teachers are free to work from home when they are not teaching.  As Richardson observes, the working conditions of Finnish teachers are closely associated with being professionals instead of the highly regulated working environment of American teachers.  Can you imagine this happening in our schools!

Where does trust begin? With our students; believing that each one is capable of learning and will become life-long learners.  It is on this belief that teaching begins.

If we are to build the same culture of trust then we need to face the facts and look at the evidence.  This is a call to be courageous; to recognise that what was once off limits or sacred is now open to critical reflection and change. All this represents the fact that interdependence has to be the new norm. Isolation and mistrust are death to innovation and change.

To paraphrase an old song, “trust changes everything…..”

Enterprise schooling: towards interdependence

One thing that seems to annoy educators is the intrusion of “business” terminology into the work of schooling.  When terms like key performance indicators and data driven are introduced, we fear that business is going to take over the work of schooling, which has its own unique language and narrative.

For too long we’ve seen the “business of schooling” as unique to each school or system; a stand- alone process. We have operated as some sort of small cottage industry and worked to provide schooling within its own context. As we know, this isn’t sustainable in a world that has become connected and flatter.

Michael Fullan and myself on his recent visit to meet with our school and system leaders.

If we’re going to find ways to continuously improve schools, we have to move from a cottage understanding of schooling to an enterprise understanding of schooling. Michael Fullan has been working with us recently and made this point when he talked about the need for interdependence not independence.

I’ve been thinking about this point in relation to the history and growth of technologies in our schools. One of the reasons we’ve been able to link schools together and take advantage of the world wide web is that we understand the need for standards. These standards reflect a universal agreement on what it takes to run the system and run it efficiently.

Standards in technology can also be applied to the business of schooling.  As I’ve said before, we need an agreed set of standards around the fundamentals of learning and teaching to ensure all schools move forward.  I call this enterprise schooling– the move from isolation to connectedness, from local to global, from pockets to widespread engagement, from some schools to all schools sharing success.

Michael refers to it as common sense approach and shared five points or standards when it comes to widespread improvement of learning and teaching.

1. Literacy and numeracy is the bread and butter of primary schools
2. Capacity building must be continuous
3. There has to be a consistency of practice in how literacy and numeracy is taught
4. Momentum builds when we learn from each other (within schools and increasingly across schools and clusters)
5. Leadership teams must be obsessed with ‘making it happen’

While these points may be simple enough, the execution isn’t always. ‘Making it happen’ is complex work – it relies on school leaders building a cohesive group and teachers being ‘irresistibly engaged’.  Engagement happens when there is ‘buy in’ – when every member of the team accepts the standards and takes responsibility for improving the learning and teaching.

According to Michael, we tend to do a lot of work on collaboration and teamwork but without traction – without results.  Teamwork comes with an obligation to continuously drill down to get better learning to engage students, which engages teachers at the same time.

In thinking about schooling as ‘enterprise’, we should think about school implementation plans as mini ‘declarations of interdependence’. Written by the people and for the people and when successful, the work is shared among the people.

Good practice is good theory

Too often, educators fall into the theory-practice trap. How many times have you heard a teacher say, ‘All that theory’s fine, but it doesn’t work in my classroom,’ or the theoretician say, ‘It’s a shame teachers don’t use the theory to inform their work.’ So it was refreshing to meet with a school leader who understands that good teaching involves both sides of the coin – you can’t have good practice without good theory.

Michael Fullan, Lyn Sharratt, James Bond with myself.

Yesterday we met with Michael Fullan and Lyn Sharratt from the University of Toronto and James Bond, who is the principal of Park Manor Public School. The work James and his staff are doing to improve the learning outcomes of students is one of the case studies profiled in Fullan and Sharratt’s new book, Putting faces on the data.

I have written about this in an earlier post, but it was great to meet with James and discuss his approach in detail.

James has an interesting background. He originally trained as a teacher but when he couldn’t find a position, spent several years working in industry where he gained an insight into cultural change, particularly the application of both good theory and practical strategies to deliver sustained change.

What was really fascinating in listening to James describe his school’s approach, was the space he created to do the work – the staff learning centre – where, regardless of what teaching area they work in, teachers come together to share the data, analyse it and collaborate.

James didn’t start this work by leading a discussion on educational theory, rather he focused at the very centre of the teaching process, asking his teachers how they could improve their students’ learning.

He clearly values his staff and knew they had the answers. It was his role as the leader to help them find the answers by ‘putting faces on the data’; starting with the practice and ensuring it reflects good theory is what good leaders need to know how to do.

So what does the data look like?

There is a data panel for every student which is personalised and displayed on the data wall according to their levels of achievement in such a way that staff can see and take collective responsibility for each and every child (see below).

A personalised data panel for each student.

The data wall records:

1. Student achievement at varying intervals
2. Hypotheses for student performance
3. Suggestions for change in teacher practice
4. Verification process for effectiveness of change

Michael Fullan describes this as a powerful ‘pull and nudge’ model.

We can’t ignore the evidence of James’ student achievement data. For us it is a great example of how theory and practice come together to the direct benefit of each student at Park Manor Public School. It is also evident that his theory-practice model is changing the whole culture of the school.

Of course this approach is deeply rooted in good theory. Interestingly though, James never once referred to it.

Extending mathematical understanding

Why is it that so many students struggle with mathematics?  It’s one of the questions I’ve been pondering after reading the work of  MIT mathematician, Dr Seymour Papert.  For me, Papert is becoming a modern John Dewey and his assessment of why children struggle is persuasive:

I think part of the trouble with learning mathematics at school is that it’s not like mathematics in the real world. In the real world, there are engineers, who use mathematics to make bridges or make machines. There are scientists, who use mathematics to make theories, to make explanations of how atoms work, and how the universe started. There are bankers, who use mathematics to make money — or so they hope.

But children, what can they make with mathematics? Not much. They sit in class and they write numbers on pieces of paper. That’s not making anything very exciting. So we’ve tried to find ways that children can use mathematics to make something — something interesting, so that the children’s relationship to mathematics is more like the engineer’s, or the scientist’s, or the banker’s, or all the important people who use mathematics constructively to construct something.

We know that providing students with a solid foundation in literacy and numeracy sets them up for life-long learning.  We also know that the gap between the performance of Australian students and their East Asia counterparts is widening and has been for the past twelve years.  According to the report released by the Grattan Institute, Australian students are on average two years behind Shanghai students in maths and at least one year behind students from Singapore and South Korea.  As a system, we can learn from other systems such as Ontario Canada, which has made significant investment in improving literacy and numeracy.  As Michael Fullan continues to remind us whenever he visits, they have focused relentlessly on literacy and numeracy and it has become the work of school principals, lead teachers, teachers and even parents.

I invited Tim Hardy, Team Leader in System Learning to share the context of our K-12 numeracy strategy.  My thanks to Tim for his guest post below.

In 2008, COAG released its National Numeracy Review Report (NNRR), and for many, the issues highlighted are not surprising.

“While the overall levels of numeracy / mathematics achievement in Australia are quite good by international standards, there is an unacceptable proportion of Australian students (particularly but certainly not only amongst Indigenous students) who are not achieving acceptable standards of proficiency. Many students also lack confidence in the subject, do not see personal relevance in it and are unlikely to continue its study voluntarily.” (National Numeracy Review Report 2008 xii)

With the moral imperative well established, ‘Numeracy Now’, an initiative of our system, came about as a strategic response to the fifteen recommendations from the NNRR to ‘improve numeracy outcomes for all’. The recommendations specifically reflect the issues that were identified from the available research and include directions for teaching standards, school expectations and system organisation.

An example of these recommendations include: the development of pedagogical content knowledge of teachers; that mathematics be taught in context and ‘beyond the mathematics classroom’; the use of diagnostic tools such as interviews for mathematical assessment; systemic assessment programs to provide a research base to inform pedagogy; that an emphasis be on developing conceptual understandings rather than routine procedural tasks; specialist teachers regularly working shoulder to shoulder with classroom teachers; needs of cultural and minority groupings be identified and understood; and the building of leadership capability

An initial priority of our strategy was the development of instructional leadership capability within our schools. In collaboration with our academic partner, Dr Ann Gervasoni from the Australian Catholic University, over one hundred leaders including primary and secondary principals, lead teachers and system leaders have completed the Leading Mathematics Learning and Teaching program. The focus of the learning includes: the Mathematical Assessment Interview; identification of the most vulnerable learners; creating productive learning environments; developing pedagogical content knowledge of teachers; researched based teaching strategies; tracking and monitoring of student progress and implementation planning.

While the NNRR specifically recommends that the focus needs to be on the early years of schooling, our strategy has included secondary schools, initiating an authentic K-12 structure. The collaboration between primary and secondary teachers, specialists, lead teachers and principals has been profound, creating a shared understanding about quality teaching and learning with a collective responsibility for all learners.

In conjunction with the leadership program, the Extending Mathematical Understanding (EMU) – Specialist Teacher Intervention program, facilitated by Dr Ann Gervasoni, trains nominated teachers from each school to teach a daily intervention program for the most mathematically vulnerable Year 1 and Year 7 students.  The aim of this program is to equip teachers with the knowledge and skills to provide accelerated intervention that promotes students learning and a  positive and confident disposition. To further build on our system capability, we have a teaching educator currently training to become an accredited professional learning leader in order to facilitate the accredited EMU intervention program. The ‘behind-the-screen’ facility to observe teachers facilitating an EMU group, is a feature of the program.

Schools showing parents how to support children with maths at home.

The most important outcomes of the initiative are:  all Year one students assessed with ongoing tracking and monitoring; the most vulnerable students are identified in Year 1; a decline in vulnerable students in the second and third year of the project and that leaders are equipped to lead implementation plans based on credible data. An encouraging observation by our academic partner Ann Gervasoni is that of teachers applying their new knowledge into innovative practice to include the effective use of digital technologies e.g. teachers using iPads with a clear mathematical purpose, students using digital manipulatives to develop conceptual understanding, recording their thinking, with the ability to share beyond the classroom.

Parents of participating schools have expressed appreciation for the opportunity to learn about what is happening at school and importantly how best to support their children at home when it comes to mathematics.

Tim’s summary of our strategy reflects a fundamental principle from which we work – moving from an ‘I think’ mentality of teaching to ‘We learn’.  This approach uses the best research and data as a base line.  We focus on what works, why it works for each student and how we can continually extend teachers, students and even parents in their mathematical understanding.

Crossing the social media divide

The listing of Facebook on the stock exchange (now valued at $100 billion) highlights how social media has become serious business.  As we conceptualise organisations differently as dynamic, porous and self-learning, we must recognise that social media has be part of the expanded tool kit of leaders. This is no where more pressing than for school leaders and I don’t think we can be observers anymore, we must be participants and contributers to the educational narrative.

In a news article last week, principals in South Australian public schools will be encouraged to ‘blog, tweet and use a school Facebook page to communicate with parents and the local community.’  It’s part of a broader strategy developed by the SA Education Department to improve leadership in public education.  While the initiative is timely, it does leave out a critical aspect of social media – the opportunity to collaborate and connect with peers.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to address our newly appointed leaders and explained that if leaders are not socially aware and social media literate, then it’s difficult to understand the context in which we are learning and teaching.  Social media such as blogs and tweets are powerful tools to enable and empower school leaders.  When you are continuously sharing, reflecting and engaging with people, it stretches your thinking. You learn by sharing, you learn by learning, you learn by connecting with others.

It’s this ability to connect that gives leaders the confidence to draw from the wisdom of the crowd in order to share and solve problems.  When leaders are networked into other, more expanded, learning communities (physical and virtual), you see best practice being shared freely and connections develop so that there is an ever expanding understanding of what is achievable.

Michael Fullan in Change Leader has a chapter on collaboration.  Fullan cites a study of Stanford business graduates which found  the ‘most creative individuals had broad social networks that extend outside their organisations and involved people from diverse fields of expertise..were three times more innovative than uniform vertical networks.’(p99).

I have never proclaimed to be a tech guru but I do use social media and have benefitted enormously from the depth of professional conversation and feedback on twitter and bluyonder.  Despite trying to engage and encourage my colleagues, the response has been luke warm. I believe this is reflective of a growing gap between those who are connected and those who aren’t; leaders who are taking responsibility for their own learning and growth and those who are happy to continue along the same path.

Mary Beth Hertz wrote an insightful post recently about the social media divide in education. Reflecting on her experience at a recent teaching conference, Hertz noted that she was part of a ‘small group of educators who were tweeting and blogging about the sessions’ and how her virtual colleagues had developed a common language, drawing from a common canon of books, articles, blog posts and thought leaders.

In recognising the growing gap between teachers, Hertz says:

We are part of a community of learners that knows no walls, that our learning has no boundaries. We can meet someone face to face for the first time, draw from the same knowledge base and even continue a conversation that may have spanned thousands of miles.  These conversations are also based on current research, and on articles written by leaders in the education world.  We take these conversations and this knowledge back to our classrooms and our schools, impacting our students and our colleagues.  Teachers who learn together grow together. And teachers who grow together teach children in powerful ways.  This silent gap, should it remain unclosed, will only widen the existing, perceptible gap in our schools.

Leaders have a responsibility to look for ways of  closing the gap.  As Fullan says in Change Leaders effective leaders in whatever field walk into the future through examining their own and others’ best practice, looking for insights they had not previously noticed.  Social media is one way of allowing leaders to do this.  How many of your colleagues have crossed the social media divide?

Putting a face to data

I believe data is critical to the work of improving schooling and how well we use data to improve student outcomes and teacher learning is a challenge that some of the best performing systems have had to address.  I sometimes think the fear we have in using data stems from the fact that we aren’t trained in how to use it effectively or systematically as part of our practice and planning.

As Lyn Sharratt and Michael Fullan say in their new book Putting Faces on Data – ‘ some educators are really good at breaking down the data, but most are not trained or experienced at chipping away the marble in their system-reports.’  They argue that in order to build success in schools, we need to see the data not as numbers but as the names and faces of every single student. Simple concept with powerful outcomes.

Lyn Sharratt spent two days in Parramatta with our leaders during the school holidays discussing how we go about doing this. Lyn was the former superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Services in the York Region District School Board, Canada so she understands the challenges at every level: classroom, school and district.

According to Lyn, systems have great visions on paper but most don’t have a strategy for getting there.  In their 2009 book ‘Realization‘, they  identified the 14 parameters that made a difference to school and student improvement. These are:

1. shared beliefs and understandings among all staff
2. designated staff member for literacy/numeracy
3. daily sustained focus on literacy/numeracy instruction
4. principal as literacy/numeracy leader
5. early and ongoing intervention
6. case management approach to monitoring student progress
7. job-embedded professional learning
8. in school team meetings as an example of collaborative examination of student work
9. literacy/numeracy resources located in a designated area
10. commitment of school budget to these priorities
11. action research – staff committed to learning
12. parental involvement in supporting literacy/numeracy
13. appropriate  instruction in all areas of the curriculum
14. shared responsibility and accountability

The only parameter Lyn says is prioritised is the fundamental belief that all learners can learn.  If we share this belief, then we share the responsibility and accountability for our students’ learning. I’m still not sure why this belief is not universally shared by all teachers but as John Hattie says it requires us to believe ‘that intelligence is changeable rather than fixed.’  If we believe intelligence is changeable, then we are empowered to look for better ways of continually moving students forward on the learning journey. Surely this is at the heart of our work as teachers?

Moving students forward is about knowing them as individuals through the use of data walls. Lyn provided some excellent examples of schools using data walls such as Park Manor Public School.  Its principal set up a small private room enabling teachers to see and collaboratively discuss the progress of every student.  The data wall allowed them to ‘narrow their focus to the key areas for effective countermeasures, or instructional interventions, and then to verify all students’ improvement through data.’ (p85) It is critical to identify the point of need for the learner if we are to design learning experiences targetted at student improvement.

The data wall is a powerful strategy for empowering and enabling teachers.  It places them in a position where they are supported by the wisdom and experience of their colleagues; where they are encouraged to reflect on their own practice and where they can recognise their own weaknesses in terms of the skills and instructional strategies needed to address a particular learning problem. As Lyn points out, teacher learning needs to be differentiated within and across schools based on the data.  Not only must we personalise student learning, we also need to personalise teacher learning if we are to continually improve the quality of learning and teaching for every student that comes through our system.

For me, the message of our work is simple – it’s not about making assumptions but how we can improve lives through learning. It’s about recognising that behind every data set there is a unique and diverse individual eager to learn.

Why student success makes economic sense

Unfortunately, I missed the evening in Sydney last week with Dr Ben Levin, Canada Research Chair in educational policy and leadership at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Levin has co-authored several books on leadership and system wide reform with Michael Fullan. I’ve always liked their common sense approach, which is why Levin’s article in last month’s Kappan magazine titled ‘Failing Students is a (financial) loser‘ struck a chord.

While systems around the world exist in a climate of economic instability and face increasing financial pressures, the challenge for systems and schools is to meet those challenges by making educationally sound decisions. And such decisions don’t always have to be predicated on spending more money or slashing expenditure.

In the article, Levin says that a retention policy (holding students back a year) is ineffective and expensive.  According to recent research, there is a link between grade retention and lower long term achievement.  As a system, we don’t encourage holding students back because the cohort in which the child finds themselves is not the major factor in improving learning outcomes. Cohort based progression is an artefact of the mass production of schooling based on the further asumption that students of a particular age all learn the same way and at the same pace.

We recognise this is not the case because the focus must be on learner as individual not cohort. This requires a reframing of schooling from the concept of “many” to “one”. Responding to individual differences among students has always been a challenge facing progressing teachers,  However, a commitment to personalised learning can be served by the skilful utilisation of today’s technologies.

Levin makes the point that every organisation including schools should operate on the principle of high quality and low failure.  It requires early intervention and remediation. Early intervention is what highly effective teachers do well. They are able to recognise when students aren’t learning, adapt their teaching style and implement strategies that make a positive impact on the learning.

Effective teachers are always analysing, problem-solving and reflecting on what is happening in their classrooms.  They don’t want to wait until next year to deal with the problem of low achievement. They know when it is obvious and take steps to fix it at the point of need and adopt a just in time approach. The assumption that you have to wait until an end of year assessment to diagnose has been superceded with rich, relevant and timely data on each student. Using that data well is the challenge.

To counter the financial burden of student retention, Levin proposes extending the amount of independent learning students do.  I’ll attempt to summarise his argument:

1. Everyone is passionate about something
2. Allowing every student to work on something of interest means less intensive support from teachers
3. The same number of teachers would have more time to support more students
4. Highly motivated students working on their own projects are likely to be more successful
5. Increasing independent learning would alleviate the financial and social burden of students failing

Levin admits this is not so much about policy change but rethinking schooling in an age of declining resources.  What Levin attempts to illustrate is that more often than not, sound educational decisions make economic sense.

Precision

When Michael Fullan was here two weeks ago, he spent his second day in discussion with our leadership team on how we can get greater precision in our work.  He suggested three key areas as a next step: the coordination of the message across the system, the coordination of work across the networks and a strong instructional focus on literacy and maths.

According to Fullan, the last area is about getting specificity and depth and precision in the instruction.  You see this when principals work inside and outside of their school, teachers work collaboratively and schools see themselves as something bigger.  Building success across the system builds momentum.

Fullan also mentioned the importance of social capital in school improvement and whole system reform.  He explained that social capital is essentially the quality of relationships in a group focussed on the work.   The example Fullan uses is the sports team that is committed to each other and works cohesively actually beating the team with greater individual talent but which lacks cohesion and social capital.

The work of school principals is to help build the social capital in their own learning communities while systems support the creation of professional learning communities across networks. It is the development of a  ”peer culture”, linking into bigger networks where everyone is  focused on improving student learning outcomes.

As Jim Collins says it’s not the destination but the journey that gets you from good to great.  In many respects, Fullan has become our coach – helping to change our own instructional practice in order to become a high performing system.