Building a guiding coalition in support of school transformation Leadership Festival 2006 Theme One

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Building a guiding coalition in support of
school transformationLeadership Festival
2006Theme One Every School a Great
SchoolModule 2Diego Portales Auditorium,
Santiago Chile30th March 2006
Professor David HopkinsHSBC iNet Chair of
International Leadership
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Every School a Great Schoolas an expression of
moral purpose

• What parents want most is for their local school
  to be a great school.
• (National Association of School Governors
  Education and Skills Select Committee 2004).
• Test of resolve
• moral purpose and social justice
• focus on enhancing teaching quality rather than
  simply structural change
• commitment to sustained, systemic change because
  a focus on individual school improvement always
  distorts social equity.

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It is possible!
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Brief History of Standards in Primary Schools
11 plus dominated
Standards and
Professional control
"Formal"
accountability
"Informal"
NLNS
2004
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
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Developing Informed Prescription Policy framework
Intervention in inverse proportion to success
Ambitious Standards
High Challenge High Support
Devolved responsibility
Accountability
Access to best practice and quality professional
development
Good data and clear targets
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4

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Distribution of Reading Achievement in 9-10 year
olds in 2001
575
550
525
500
475
450
425
400
375
350
325
300
Italy
Israel
Latvia
Belize
France
Greece
Iceland
Cyprus
Turkey
Kuwait
Norway
Sweden
England
Hungary
Bulgaria
Germany
Slovenia
Morocco
Lithuania
Scotland
Romania
Colombia
Argentina
Singapore
Netherlands
New Zealand
United States
Czech Republic
Hong Kong SAR
Slovak Republic
Moldova, Rep of
International Avg.
Macedonia, Rep of
Russian Federation
Iran, Islamic Rep of
Canada (Ontario,Quebec)
Source PIRLS 2001 International Report IEAs
Study of Reading Literacy Achievement in Primary
Schools
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The Key Question
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The Key Question

• Most agree
• standards were too low and too varied in the
  1970s 80s
• some form of direct state intervention was
  necessary
• the impact of this top-down approach was to raise
  standards (particularly in primary schools).
• But now
• progress has plateaued - while a bit more might
  be squeezed out nationally, and perhaps a lot in
  underperforming schools, must question whether
  this is still the recipe for sustained reform
• there is a growing recognition that schools need
  to lead the next phase of reform.
• The 64k dollar question is how do we get there?

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Towards large scale sustainable reform
Building Capacity
Professionalism
Prescription
National Prescription
High Excellence, High Equity
Schools Leading Reform
System Leadership
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Four key drivers to raise achievement and build
capacity for the next stage of reform

• Personalising Learning
• Professionalising Teaching
• Networking and Collaboration
• Building Intelligent Accountability

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(i) Personalising Learning Joined up learning
and teaching

• Learning how to learn
• Assessment for learning
• Curriculum choice entitlement
• Co-production

My Tutor Interactive web-based learning
resource enabling students to tailor support and
challenge to their needs and interests.
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(ii) Professionalising Teaching Teachers as
researchers, schools as learning communities
The Edu-Lancet A peer-reviewed journal
published for practitioners by practitioners
regularly read by the profession to keep abreast
of RD.

• Enhanced repertoire of learning teaching
  strategies
• Evidence based practice
• Time for collective inquiry
• Collegial coaching relationships

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(iii) Networking and Collaboration Disciplined
innovation, collaboration and building social
capital
Autonomous Federations Groups of schools opt
out of LEA control but accept responsibility for
all students in their area

• Best practice captured and highly specified
• Capacity built to transfer and sustain innovation
  across system
• Inclusion and Extended Schooling
• Greater responsibility taken for neighbouring
  schools

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(iv) Building Intelligent Accountability Balanci
ng internal and external accountability and
assessment
Chartered examiners Experienced teachers gain
certification to oversee rigorous internal
assessment as a basis for externally awarded
qualifications.

• Moderated teacher assessment and AfL at all
  levels
• Bottom-up targets for every child and use of
  pupil performance data
• Value added data to help identify strengths /
  weaknesses
• Rigorous self-evaluation linked to improvement
  strategies and school profile to demonstrate
  success

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Personalised Learning
System Leadership
Professional Teaching
Intelligent Accountability
Networking and Collaboration
The four drivers mould to context through system
leadership
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System Leadership A Proposition

• System leaders care about and work for the
  success of other schools as well as their own.
  They measure their success in terms of improving
  student learning and increasing achievement, and
  strive to both raise the bar and narrow the
  gap(s). Crucially they are willing to shoulder
  system leadership roles in the belief that in
  order to change the larger system you have to
  engage with it in a meaningful way.

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System Leadership Roles

• A range of emerging roles, including
• Executive Headship or partnering another school
  facing difficulties i.e. run two or more schools
  (or softer partnership)
• Lead in extremely challenging circumstances or
  become an Academy Principal.
• Civic leadership to broker and shape partnerships
  across local communities to support welfare and
  potential.
• Change agent or school leader able to identify
  best practice and then transfer and refine it to
  support improvement elsewhere.

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Issues for Discussion

• Are the four key drivers the right ones for
  Chile at the present time?
• Does the model of moving from prescription to
  professionalism make sense at this phase of
  education development in Chile?
• In particular are the concepts of personalising
  learning and system leadership appropriate?
• Is the approach to schools supporting schools in
  the way described in the presentation realistic
  for schools in Chile?

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Moving to Scale
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Conditions for the Next Phase of Reform

• Start with the notion of moral purpose, key
  problems, desirable directions, but dont lock in
• Create communities of interaction around these
  ideas
• Ensure that quality information infuses
  interaction and related deliberations
• Look for and extract promising patterns, i.e.
  consolidate gains and build on them

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Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Goals of the
Education Plan

• Building instructional capacity
• High quality teaching and leadership
• Learning communities and professional development
• Support for student development and
  post-secondary training and education
• Schools as centres of communities in partnership
  with families
• Strengthening existing high school programs
• Expanded choice within neighbourhoods
• Accountability to support improvement in all
  schools

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Recreating a School System New York District 2

• It is about instruction, and only instruction
• Instructional change is a long, multistage
  process
• Shared expertise is the driver of instructional
  change
• Focus on system wide improvement
• Good ideas come from talented people working
  together
• Set clear expectations, then decentralise
• Collegiality, caring, respect

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Instructionally Effective School Districts in
California

• The districts strongly espoused values that
  typically focused on
• Improvement of student learning as the central
  goal
• A positive approach to problem-solving in the
  face of unforeseen difficulties
• A view of structures, processes, and data as
  instruments for improvement rather than as ends
  in themselves
• A heavy internal focus on the demands of
  teaching, rather than a focus on events in the
  external environment

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Instructionally Effective School Districts in
California contd

• Despite strong leadership, these districts were
  less bureaucratic than their counterparts.
• These districts showed a much greater clarity of
  purpose, with tighter controls over what would be
  taught and monitored and greater looseness and
  delegation about how to carry out teaching.
• Superintendents were knowledgeable about who were
  the key change agents and were active in
  monitoring curriculum and teaching, and mentoring
  of principals.
• Superintendents in high performing districts were
  also more likely to relieve principals of their
  duties on the basis of their performance.

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Issues for Discussion

• How would you describe the key features of the
  USA examples and how far do they apply to the
  current aspirations for the Chilean Education
  System?
• Tight on ends, but loose on means is that the
  right approach for local arrangements in Chile?
• How feasible is it to link vertical and
  horizontal strategies together as a means of
  achieving system wide reform?

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Building a Guiding Coalition
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The Guiding Coalition
Schools
System Leadership
Universities
Government
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In Building a Guiding Coalition

• You need to remember to
• Develop a Reform Model
• Remember that change is a process not an event
• Use the diversity within the system by schools,
  for schools
• Plan for local transformation

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Reform Model
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Core Principles System Wide Reform

• Moral purpose related to standards, narrowing the
  achievement gap and teaching and learning
• Need for coherence making at all levels of the
  system
• The necessity for reform efforts to not to treat
  context as a given
• Accountability framework, national standards and
  intervention
• Emphasis on diversity, collaboration, innovation
  and capacity building
• Need for local and regional infrastructure for
  pressure and support

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The Reform Dynamic

• Our goal is to improve the quality of
  teaching learning throughout the system. We
  will do this by building capacity and providing
  flexibility at the front line, backed by an
  intelligent accountability framework and by
  targeted intervention to deal with
  underperformance

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Coherent System Design an Overview
U N I V E R S A L H I G H
High quality personalised learning for every
student
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Supporting Informed Professionalism
Frontline Delivery
Support capacity and reliable mechanisms to see
things through
Outcome focus Coherence Alignment
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Experience of Educational Change
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The Iceberg Model of Educational Change
Content Structures
Behaviours
Values and Beliefs
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The Experience of Educational Change

• In designing school improvement efforts at the
  local level, remember that
• change takes place over time
• change initially involves anxiety and
  uncertainty
• technical and psychological support is crucial
• the learning of new skills is incremental and
  developmental
• successful change involves pressure and support
  within a collaborative setting
• organisational conditions within and in relation
  to the school make it more or less likely that
  the school improvement will occur.

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Three Phases of Educational Change
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Networks and Innovation

• Partnerships and Networks support educational
  innovation by
• Providing a focal point for the dissemination of
  good practice and knowledge creation, transfer
  and utilisation.
• Keeping the focus on the core purposes of
  schooling in particular creating and sustaining a
  discourse on teaching and learning.
• Enhancing the skill of teachers.
• Building capacity for continuous improvement at
  the local level.
• Acting as a link between the centralised and
  decentralised policy initiatives.

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By School for Schools
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4 drivers mould to context through system
leadership
Leading
Personalised Learning
Below floor target
Success-ful
SYSTEM LEADERSHIP
Networks Collaboration
Professional Teaching
Low attaining
Intelligent Accountability
Internal variation
Underperforming
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Highly differentiated improvement strategies
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Strategy for Federating Schools

• Building the Foundations
• Improving the Partner School
• setting direction
• developing people
• developing the organization
• Implementing an Exit Strategy

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Planning for Transformation
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Planning for Local Transformation

• Experience suggests that in building a Guiding
  Coalition the work falls into three main phases
• Phase 1 Building consensus and establishing
  direction
• Phase 2 Action for structural change
• Phase 3 Embedding change and consolidating
  capacity

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Phase 1 Building consensus and establishing
direction

• Confronting denial and building a consensus for
  change
• Clarifying values, vision and narrowing the focus
• Establishing and agreeing a strategic direction

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Phase 2 Action for structural change

• Creating leadership capacity
• Restructuring in line with agreed vision and
  school improvement strategy
• Monitoring progress of action plans and driving
  hard on implementation

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Phase 3 Embedding change and consolidating
capacity

• Taking stock of achievements
• Focus on school level improvement
• Role change of the Guiding Coalition building
  community ownership

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Activity

• Discuss the application of the three phase
  Guiding Coalition Model to your own situation
  add your context to the process

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Professor David Hopkins HSBC Chair in
International Leadership