The High Reliability Schools Project: Findings and Implications

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The High Reliability Schools ProjectFindings
and Implications

• Thistle Hotel, Westminster, London
• 24 September 2008
• Professor David Reynolds
• University of Plymouth
• Professor Gene Schaffer
• University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA
• Professor Sam Stringfield
• University of Louisville, USA
• Email dreynolds1_at_plymouth.ac.uk

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Acknowledgements

• The authors wish to thank CfBT for their
  long-term support of the High Reliability Schools
  project.
• We also want to thank the three Local
  Authorities, over 30 schools, their heads and
  staffs for all of their efforts in the HRS
  project. We were all co-constructors of this
  project. Further, we thank and admire our local
  educator colleagues for their ongoing work to
  improve the quality of schooling provided to
  their students.

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Where we started

• Widespread incredulity
• HRS has considerably influenced the educational
  zeitgeist

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Social Context

• Modern society is highly interconnected, putting
  a premium on reliability
• A trailing edge of unqualified labour has costs
  for the wider society
• A need for overall higher skill levels because of
  global competition

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Educational Context

• The existence of valid bodies of knowledge
• Imperfect application of that knowledge low
  reliability
• Possibility of increased unreliability of system
• Problems with existing school improvement models

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Educational Context (2)

• Very modest, incremental changes in outcomes in
  most societies
• Evidence from certain cultures about highly
  reliable, failure free schools

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Some background on High Reliability
Organizations -- Karlene Roberts, 2006

• 1984 A group at the University of California
  began studying organizations that were creating
  massive damage. (ex. In 1984 an aircraft
  carrier on 6 month tour lost an average of 6
  planes pilots. Todays average is 0.)
• The consequences of low reliability are VERY
  HIGH. HROs are less costly than not.
• Found a range of reliability-enhancing processes,
  One size does not fit all. But general HRO
  principles apply.

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When organizations fail to adopt HRO processes,
they arent thinking about the cost of failures.
-- Karlene Roberts (2006)

• Believe they wont bear the cost of failure.
• Overburdened with other activities.
• Fail to think that training is important.
• Implementation is THE big deal.

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20 years of research on High Reliability
Organizations (HROs)

• Evolve when a failure to achieve is seen as
  disastrous by the society and the employees
• Have a finite number of clear goals
• Are alert to lapses
• Are data rich/information rich

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HROs (cont.)

• Possess Standard Operating Procedures
• Find their flaws and honour Flaw Finders
• Recruit extensively
• Train and re-train staff continuously
• Monitor performance mutually

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High Reliability Organizations (cont.)

• Keep equipment in good working order
• Are hierarchical, but go flat when peak
  performance is required from all
• Are visibly valued by their governing body.
• Short term efficiency takes a back seat to high
  reliability

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Reviewing the challenge in much of our work

• Education is a very large, complex system.
• Inevitably less than fully adequate base of
  educational science/technology to guide us
  through day-to-day specifics.
• In such an environment, one would hypothesize
  that thousands of well intended school
  improvement efforts focused on specific
  interventions would fail, not because ideas were
  invalid but because implementations were
  unreliable.

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HRO Contributions to Schools

• The Research Base
• Teacher Effectiveness
• School Effectiveness
• System-wide Reforms
• Data Use

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Teacher Effectiveness

• Clarity of Instruction
• Pace of Instruction
• High Expectations for Students
• Equal Opportunity to Learn
• Feedback
• Preventative Management
• Observation for Improvement of Instruction

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Effective Schools

• Clear School Mission
• High Expectations for Success
• Instructional Leadership
• Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress
• Opportunity to Learn and Student Time on Task
• Safe and Orderly Environment.
• Home - School Relations

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System-wide Reforms

• Supportive of School Reforms
• Accepting of School-based Decisions
• Work to Integrate Reforms into the System or
  Other Schools
• Encourage Interchange Among Schools
• Supply Timely Data to Schools

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DATA USE

• Data Use Data (The Four Rs)
• Relevance of data to core goals
• Rich triangulation to key dimensions
• Real time availability to all key personnel
• Regular cross-checking by internal and external
  groups
• Data Rich and Information Poor
• Information Rich and Action Poor
• Actionable Strategies

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HRO Contributions to the Schools

• The Co-Constructed Process
• Determining the Goals
• Creating the Staff Development
• Best Practice based on Outcomes
• Cross-site Efforts

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Determining the Goals
The goals were long-turn and directly related to
student learning. The mantra of raising
performance gave the schools a central goal that
was directly linked to the performance of the
students. Attendance was considered central to
the process as well. Schools contributed one or
two goals of importance to them and their
students beyond the two goals required by the HRO
process.
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Creating Staff Development

• The HRO team continued to come back and discuss
  school effectiveness and high reliability
  throughout the training sessions.
• The researchers addressed the concerns of the
  schools and, with the schools, developed examples
  of reliability that were well understood by
  faculties in the schools.

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Best Practice Based on Outcomes

• Members of faculty suggested and presented
  effective ideas from their own schools based on
  academic success of students.
• Commitment was made to regularly review
  organization and processes to create widely
  understood, time-saving Standard Operating
  Procedures
• Schools identified through data and intervened in
  a school-wide fashion with their pupils who
  appeared to be at risk of failure.

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Cross-site Efforts

• The researchers presented school-level series of
  workshops on the theoretical underpinnings of
  High Reliability and both the research bases on
  school effectiveness and teacher effectiveness.
• Armed with practical and research-based
  knowledge, teachers would engage in both
  within-and between school classroom observations
  and no-fault feedback to peers.

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Day-to-Day Co-construction

• The participating secondary schools were charged
  with taking abstract HRO principles and working
  to turn them into day-to-day actions.
• The school became knowledge generators, peer
  observation specialists, staff trainers in
  specific topics and contexts.

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Research Design Hypothesis

• A school reform that focuses not just on the
  validity of the reforms claims, but also on the
  reliability of the design as implemented, would
  get more promising results over several years.

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High Reliability Schools Project (HRS) Methods

• Sample Schools in 3 LEAs in Great Britain
• Intervention co-constructed, based on Teacher
  Effects School Effects HRO HRS.
• Timeframe 3 year intervention (late 96 early
  2000), then 7-year follow-up (2007)
• Main Quantitative Outcome GCSEs on English and
  Welsh HRS schools, all years, using English and
  Welsh national means as comparison
  groups/controls.
• Note This presentation focuses on the Welsh LA.

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The General Certificate of Secondary Education
tests (GCSEs)

• Taken by virtually all British children at the
  end of Secondary education (age 15-16)
• Formerly the O (or Ordinary) level tests.
• Students may take exams in a wide range of areas
  English literature, chemistry, several
  mathematics examinations, biology, information
  technology, etc.
• Scores on each test range from A to H.
• The historicand currentnational standard for
  students Obtaining a score of A to C on 5 or
  more separate tests.
• The national standard for Schools and Districts
  The percentage of students obtaining 5 A-C.

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Sites for 3 yr. Intervention and Follow-up

• Began in three British LEAs in relatively rapid
  succession, beginning with the first English ½
  district in the winter of 1996.
• The 2nd English Cohort began the next spring and
  was followed shortly by a 3rd, Welsh, full LEA.
  
• The Welsh cohort received the most developed
  implementation, with all secondary schools in a
  district, (11) plus one neighboring school.

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Methods (qualitative)

• Detailed case studies (100 pages) of each school
  during implementation phase.
• Follow-up case studies on selected sites during
  2006 and 2007.
• Interviews with current and former heads,
  long-term administrators and teachers.
• Constant comparative analyses.

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The Welsh District

• Historically a mining and iron production
  community.
• The mines are now closed and the steel mills
  employ 20 the workers of 25 years ago.
• Deprivation Index stable at 19th of 22 Welsh
  counties
• 11 Secondary Schools.

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HRS LA GCSE gains v. Wales ( students with 5
GCSEs)
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LA Selected Schools gains ( students with
5 GCSEs)
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Welsh Governments 2005 Value Added Results

• In 2005, the Welsh Government computation of
  value added by district (unweighted) for all 22
  Welsh districts (LEAs)Welsh district V.A. range
  -8.9 to 6.6
• HRS district (11 secondaries) 6.6, 1 value
  added LEA in Wales.

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Northern England GCSE gains 4 original
schools, LA, England
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Conclusions

• A focus on heightening organizational reliability
  produced large, long-term measured outcome gains
  in secondary schools..
• Long-term success came where schools worked
  together with district support. The authors, the
  teachers, the heads and the districts used T.E.,
  S.E., and Systemic Effects research to
  co-construct the reform.

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Conclusions, (cont.)

• In follow up interviews (Spring 2006 2007),
  many teachers and heads related original and
  continuing gains to HRS intervention.
• HRS schools were hiring new Heads from successful
  HRS schools (further endorsing the model and
  addressing the transition issues)
• Several heads and teachers reported wanting an
  HRS-2.

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Conclusions, (cont.)

• Success in obtaining longitudinal (11 year)
  impacts (GCSEs) indicates a learning to learn to
  improve, this is institutionalization plus.
  the biggest challenge of all is to make it
  durable and sustainable.
  ------Hargreaves Fink, 2006, p. 2

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HRS Implications for School Effectiveness
Research

• Dramatic secondary school improvement is possible
  
• The value of using reliability at a conceptual
  and measurement levels
• The importance of classroom teachers

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HRS Implications for School Improvement

• The importance of audacious, measurable, and
  measured, goals.
• Focusing on what may be possible beyond the
  current range of schools
• The importance of little, practical things.

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HRS Implications for British Educational Policies

• Provide research knowledge and the means to
  invent better.
• Avoid core goal multiplicity.
• Forget the what of educational
  processesspecify the systems that produce the
  what.

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How to contact us

• david.reynolds1_at_plymouth.ac.uk
• schaffer_at_umbc.edu
• sam.stringfield_at_louisville.edu