New Study and My Observation Go Hand in Hand

A new study reported by Caralee Adams of College Bound in Education Week provides us with supporting information as to why Linked Learning is a critical piece in the secondary education reform efforts around this country. This blog is worth visiting. As a nation we are continuing to grow in population, and we are continuing to grow in the percent of our population earning at least a BA degree (this was unexpected good news to me).

As is reported in this study, in 2010 the difference in income between ending your education at high school and ending it with a BA is the difference between $31,000 and $58,000 a year. This by itself tells us why our education system needs to provide every child with the opportunity to continue their education beyond high school, and at the same time prepare them with the 21st century skills needed for success in the world of work.

As educators, we need to continually review this type of data and re-commit ourselves to preparing our students for a world that none of us can predict what it will look like. For those who wish to continue to teach as if the world were the 1920s, they have to join the change or move out of the way. It is our students and their future that we have to be thinking about, not what is our plan for making our life as a teacher as easy as possible.

Last week, I visited a middle school that I have worked closely with and known well since 2000. I saw a new culture instituted by all of the staff and community so that students were engaged in every class that I visited. I saw teaching strategies that were similar in each class (Kagan Strategies). I saw students learning content and 21st century skills side by side. I saw dedicated teachers who have worked together with the community to create a new culture that will better prepare these students for college and careers. It was exciting to see a culture completely change in less than one school year. There is no question that they have a lot of work left to do, but they are now collaborative and in agreement moving forward for the good of their students. I was so proud to see that the efforts of a staff working in unison can make such a big difference, and much more quickly than I expected.

I feel confident that these middle school students will continue to succeed both in high school and in their post-secondary educational years. They will gain jobs that will benefit them, their families, and their community.

Please share some of your success stories around reform efforts so that we can all learn from each others' work.

The Vision is Revolutionary, The Implementation is Evolutionary

I have continued to learn a lot about the process of change in schools since my retirement several years ago. Very recently a new issue was presented to me and led me to think about my actions and the actions of other leaders when put in a similar position at a school site.

I am working with a wonderful writing team on developing a plan for opening a new school in their district. They have worked very hard, reading literature, searching for best practices, and continuously making improvements on their plan, before its submission to their Board of Education in the very near future. They have an excellent and well thought out plan. Like all of the plans being submitted for the opening of new schools, this plan appears long and harsh to read. But it follows the guidance given to all writers by the Superintendent. So, it is not any longer or confusing than any of the other plans that will be submitted, I believe.

One of the lead writers was proactive and shared the proposed plan with teachers that he felt would be strong and caring teachers and who would look at this as a wonderful and rare opportunity to open a new school with a special student centered vision. To his surprise, many of the teachers read the plan, and said that it was too much work. My belief is that they thought that this plan was to be 100% in place on the first day of school.

After holding some follow up conversations with him regarding this subject, it became clear to me that there are two different things going on at the same time, and the teachers, and writers may not have noticed the differences when writing or reading their plans. It is actually easy to understand once considered. My explanation began by saying to him that I was not surprised what these excellent teachers responded to him. His response is now very different. So, let’s look at a way to win over excellent teachers who could thrive in a reform minded school model, very different from the traditional teacher isolation model that they currently work within. The parallel areas of discussion are:

1. What do we want for our students? What are the outcomes that we will expect? (The Vision)
2. How will we prepare ourselves to alter our practices in order to help our students reach the outcomes we want for each of them? (The Implementation)

The vision is revolutionary, but the implementation is evolutionary is what I shared with him as a clear and concise statement of the reality of planning and implementation. In order to fix the situation, the writing team created a one page summary of their plan, including expected student outcomes, professional development models to be put into place, and the teaching strategies that would support the Standards Based Curriculum and the 21^st century skills development that we want all students to leave with from this new school.