"Can You See It?"

As many of you know one of the driving forces in my life is the “learning for all mission”. Our adaptation is “All means All”.

Informing the learning for all mission are the correlates of effective schools. These correlates or factors emerged from the school effects research.

What will soon be four decades of research, the correlates continue to be validated for import and utility in classrooms, schools, and school systems in America as well as internationally.

In a recent conversation with Dr. Larry Lezotte, an original researcher of the school effects findings, we discussed how the learning for all mission dominated or drove much of the effort to improve schools in the beginning. The correlates were secondary to the mindset, belief, and commitment to learning for all.

As we discussed, I shared that I believed the correlates are presently the driver. It has become almost pithy or trite to use learning for all as the impetus for improvement. My thinking is not that the learning for all mission is not important. Rather, the correlates bring to life or complete the picture of what a classroom, school, or school system looks like that lives the learning for all mission.

More often or not, the correlates are condensed or abbreviated to a term intended to describe or characterize the construct. However, when you read the actual description, you get the sense of something much deeper, enduring, powerful – a picture of possibilities – a vision.

Consider the following excerpt from Dr. Lezotte’s Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation (1991)

“In the effective school there is a climate of expectation in which the staff believe and demonstrate that all students can attain mastery of the essential school skills, and the staff also believe that they have the capability to help all students achieve that mastery.”

“In the effective school there is an orderly, purposeful, businesslike atmosphere which is free from the threat of physical harm. The school climate is not oppressive and is conducive to teaching and learning.”

“In the effective school the principal acts as an instructional leader and effectively and persistently communicates that mission to the staff, parents, and students. The principal understands and applies the characteristics of instructional effectiveness in the management of the instructional program.”

“In the effective school there is a clearly articulated school mission through which the staff shares an understanding of and commitment to the instructional goals, priorities, assessment procedures and accountability. Staff accept responsibility for students’ learning of the school’s essential curricular goals.”

“In the effective school teachers allocate a significant amount of classroom time to instruction in the essential skills. For a high percentage of this time students are engaged in whole class or large group, teacher-directed, planned learning activities.”

“In the effective school student academic progress is measured frequently through a variety of assessment procedures. The results of these assessments are used to improve individual student performance and also to improve the instructional program.”

“In the effective school parents understand and support the school’s basic mission and are given the opportunity to play an important role in helping the school to achieve this mission.”

Can you see it?

Moreover can you commit to it?

What remains amazing to me is that this picture was and continues to be made real in schools throughout the world. So, why not here?

The correlates were not a fad, not something you did, or a movement from the past. No – the correlates are real, important, and necessary to our work today just as they were to those who were committed to ensuring that each learner met or exceeded the standards of that era.

Let me be clear, I am not dismissing the importance of the learning for all mission. In fact, the only way to achieve the learning for all mission is to embrace, employ relentlessly those beliefs, behaviors, and practices that result in the correlates consistently and constantly present and practiced.

Yes, the learning for all mission is a driving force in the work to transform our system. The correlates provide the picture, the vision of what the “all means all” mission looks like, feels like and sounds like.

Our students, staff, parents, and community deserve effective schools – our work, our commitment is to make that happen.

“Fear Invites Wrong Figures” W. Edwards Deming

With the release of our testing results – both End of Grade and End of Course exams as well as the ABC growth and high growth progress, it is time to review a few basics about the aim or purpose of education.

Let me begin with a few comments about “high stakes” testing.

I think many of us are in shock but not surprised at the news of scandal in the Atlanta Public Schools regarding what appears to be 10 years of abuse, deception and fraud with “high stakes” testing.

Daily, revelations of wrongdoing, exposing the ills of what has to be the absolutely worse fears of high stakes testing – cheating by adults, are now seeing the light of day.

In our four years together, I have repeatedly stated that it is not raising test scores that matter. Rather, it is the enduring habits of learning that will serve each learner, each individual for a lifetime that matter most.

Chasing a test score for sake of accountability cannot easily explain, excuse, or dismiss how the educators as well as administrators of Atlanta did wrong to children. The depth of dishonestly ultimately hurt children as well as each community where deliberate choices were made to alter, change, falsify, or take “short cuts” on administering and reporting testing results – just plain wrong!

Our integrity, character, and intentions will not escape public doubt, skepticism, or cynicism given these shameless acts of selfishness.

Suffice; every educator suffers from these actions.

Moreover, the students in Atlanta that were denied the authentic assessment of instruction and learning will suffer now and for years to come – possibly a lifetime.

Failed learning as well as the failure to learn ultimately hurts both teachers and learners. The timely opportunities that authentic performance feedback provide both teacher and student that could have, should have, and would have been used to prevent further failure are now proverbial water under the bridge.

The lost time, lost opportunity, lost learning serves only to widen “a” gap further – a gap that separates more than proficient from non-proficient learners.

The gap I am speaking about is the gap of choice versus no choice.

This gap manifests itself in our system especially when we review the performance and progress to date.

If we cannot significantly address and correct literacy deficiencies we will not drive system-wide improvement. These deficiencies impact our county, state, and nation.

Specifically, we know entering 7^th grade next year that 6 out of 10 students met proficiency in reading on their 6^th grade End of Grade assessment. This is an accomplishment. However, it also means that 4 of 10 will be starting 7^th grade deficient in the skills necessary to be successful at the secondary level. Further, we know that only 38% percent of students entering 8^th grade are beginning their last year of middle school proficient in reading.

We have a plan to aggressively address this deficit – it won’t however involve changing, altering, test results.

The complex work involved in addressing deficits in literacy especially adolescent literacy will require “different”. We cannot and will not simply resume the instructional year with the same strategies, routines, and practices that resulted in our current reality.

The laser focus, intensity of addressing failed learning as well as the failure to learn is a system, school, and classroom issue. To that end, staff has and continues to work this summer to ensure we are ready to implement effective instruction. In a like manner, administration is also ramping up their skill and knowledge in the critical area of instructional leadership.

The events in Atlanta are a reminder that there are no shortcuts – no easy solution to improving teaching and learning. The fear of being identified as low performing or under performing is not the “right” fear. We must look at fear differently.

The real or true fear is in a reality called the “knowing and doing” gap. If we know what to do but have not done it – that should be our real fear – knowing but not doing.

Deming was right, “fear does invite wrong figures”. Yet, our fear should not be driven by an accountability system that uses a single metric to judge our work. Rather, our fear should guide us to seek different practices and strategies that result in deeper learning – enduring learning.

The present accountability system will eventually be seen for what it is - nothing more than “the emperor with no clothes”.

We must, therefore, focus on those factors we have the greatest influence and control – effective instruction, constant and consistent feedback to inform of and for learning, and creating and sustaining both a safe and orderly environment and an environment rich with high expectations for both behavior and performance albeit teacher or learner.

If we focus on these things, we will not only see learning improve, we will see the “choice” gap close so that each learner has the skills, knowledge, and experience to choose their future – their destiny.

Failed learning as well as the failure to learn hurts students, families, and communities. When the adults charged with the responsibility to ensure students not only learn but also excel in their learning fail to authentically and accurately assess and report student performance, we as a society fail – this is neither the aim nor purpose of education.

We know better!

We must do better!

"No Time"

“… if you want to change and improve the climate and outcomes of schooling – both for students and teachers, there are features of the school culture that have to be changed, and if they are not changed, well-intentioned efforts will be defeated (Seymour Sarason, 1996).

Borrowing from the 70’s Gold Record recording group The Guess Who, there’s No Time when it comes to the work we must do. The time is now!

Over the next two weeks, our ambitious plan for Human Capital Development and Capacity Building will begin to take flight.

Beginning with the Total Instructional Alignment work – the work to align Common core to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study followed by Leadership training in the four strands of the Learning Development Center work, the Anson County Schools will take an unprecedented step toward equipping our staff – all staff with the skills, knowledge, and experience to ensure each learner is successful.

The first two-day seminar of the Learning Development Center will focus on cultural literacy. Bringing into full focus, the cultural literacy seminar will connect the dots of the vision “all means all” and the learning for all mission with the Strategic Commitments as well as the other anchor documents and initiatives. All told, the cultural literacy seminar will raise awareness, create understanding, and create the context for the in-depth learning of curriculum alignment, power of teaching instructional practice, and the formative, summative assessment strategies.

By November, all instructional staff will have completed the cultural literacy strand. The plan tentatively calls for the first of the four-day seminars to begin at the end of January. Weaving the three strands of curriculum, instruction, and assessment literacy is instructional technology. To assist with instructional literacy will be our partners Apple, Discovery Learning, and A+ Educators.

Staff, beginning at AHS will learn to effectively implement Challenge Based Learning (CBL) as an instructional methodology incorporating mobile learning (aka Laptops) as the chief means of delivery.

However well intended, the Learning Development Centers are, the impact and eventual effect of learning will be evidenced only if the learning is applied authentically and with fidelity. There is no time for feelings or personal preference. The learning must result in changed thinking, changed behavior, and changed results.

Those captaining the Learning Development Centers must navigate the dissonance, reluctance, and apprehension of adult learners. No matter the resisting forces that are perceived to delay, obstruct, or prevent learning, these captains of change must persevere – no mater what – no time!

To assist the Learning Development Center Coordinators will be the building administration. Without question, building administration must live up to responsibility, accountability and authority necessary to ensure deep implementation through relentless monitoring.

Though not the only means for building capacity in our principals, we will leverage both the Learning Development Centers with other learning opportunities to ensure that, in fact, principals have the skills, knowledge, and experience to produce different results.

There is simply no time for best intentions, excuses, or explanations as to “why” performance is not improving.

Lastly, the role of central leadership must also shift – no time. I can no longer spend time building capacity of central office to accept and embrace the mantel of leadership including the responsibility for classroom let alone school level performance.

This is serious work that requires serious people that understand that there is no time for any thought that central office is some respite from “real” work or a reward for anything less than accomplished leadership. There is no time!

As we prepare for the upcoming weeks of adult learning, two questions must be at the forefront – constantly and consistently. They are:

1. If we are to improve, what must I do differently?

2. If we are to improve, what must we do differently?

There is no time to wallow in historical explanations of excuses for not performing at higher levels. It begins with each individual then each grade level, each subject area, each school, each department permeating throughout the system and community.

There is no time better than right now, right here to make this happen.

“Deep Implementation, Relentless Monitoring”

As I begin my fifth year in Anson County I take pause to reflect on how far we have come in our journey to become a high performing school system. Knowing full well that we have literally only taken small albeit significant first steps toward realizing the vision of all means all.

The challenges of creating at best and shifting at worse the mindset that we can, we will, and we must ensure that all students are prepared for “the next” through mastery of the basic skills of reading, writing, and Algebra is not easy.

Incredible as it may seem the work of cultural transformation resulting in all students demonstrating mastery has greater resisting forces than driving forces. Chief among these is the belief that our students cannot and will not choose to learn. This belief is pervasive and permeates throughout the implementation or lack of, powerful, evidence based, results producing practices and programs.

Our failure to implement to fidelity cannot be limited to beliefs alone. Deep implementation requires frequent, consistent, constant monitoring, relentless if you will by building administration, central office, and peers.

Yes, peers!

Until educators accept and embrace the reality that they have a responsibility to one another – an accountability to one another to implement effective practice, implement programs to achieve classroom, grade level, subject level, school wide, and system wide success, we will not move closer to achieving our mission.

The history of educational reform is replete with examples of limited success. More often or not, results from reform have been contextual and thus limited in utility and import. However, in the few examples of successful reform, evidence of not only changed mindsets but changed behaviors were ubiquitous.

The behaviors were undeniably, uncompromising, and unwaveringly focused on instruction not structure.

Additionally, the changes were not singular. That is, there was no one-way or right way – no single initiative, no single answer, or no single solution that caused the change. Rather, change was produced from a multilevel strategy driven by first and foremost a vision of a preferred future.

I shared at the Leadership Advance that we could if we really wanted to eradicate illiteracy in three years. We have put in place the programs to assist us. Now more than ever we need the behavior and practice of teachers and building administration supported by central administration to implement to fidelity.

Deep implementation occurs when one sees the vision.

Relentless monitoring occurs when one sees the vision.

Beyond seeing it is “owning” it.

The vision of all means all is derived from the school effects research also known as the correlates of effective schools. These correlates, when consistently and constantly present and practiced, paint a picture of the work of teaching and learning accomplished – completed.

When unpacked, the correlates provide an in depth look at the beliefs and behaviors of educators albeit classroom teacher or administrator committed to the learning for all mission.

More often or not, the vision of public schools is distorted or obscured by the obsession with test scores. The mission is convoluted as well by mixed oft competing purposes that at the end of the day are merely whims or the fancy of the day but don’t amount to the enduring habits of learning that are time proven.

The confluence of the economy and increased pressure from DPI with the reality that our school system and all its’ subparts must perform to higher standards is opportunity knocking.

If we are able to harness these factors along with shifting or changing mindsets to the vision of “all means all” and the learning for all mission we will achieve deep implementation.