Sustaining and Institutionalizing the Reading First way: Can you go from Good to Great

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Sustaining and Institutionalizing the Reading
First way Can you go from Good to Great?

• Cohort 1 2 Data Summit - North
• May 16, 2006

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This Professional Development Presentation was
funded by the US Department of Education, No
Child Left Behind Act, and the Ohio Department of
Education. It was developed by the Reading
First-Ohio Center for Professional Development
and Technical Assistance in Effective Reading
Instruction, a Consortium of Cleveland State
University, John Carroll University and The
University of Akron. All materials are copy
written and should not be reproduced or
used without permission of Reading First- Ohio
Center for Professional Development Technical
Assistance in Effective Reading
Instruction. Presentation Leader James A.
Salzman, Cleveland State University Contributors
Douglas A. Clay, Cleveland State University
Mbulelo Mzozoyana, Ohio Department of Education
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Lessons Learned from Jim Collins

• Very few organizations become truly great.
• Those that did had consistent characteristics
• Those characteristics were
• Humble, Firm (Level 5) Leadership
• The Right People (First Who, Then What)
• Confronted the Brutal Facts of their business
• Decided what they could be best at (Hedgehog
  Concept)
• Had a culture of discipline
• Used technology as an accelerator, not a cause

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The Good to Great Process
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Level 5 Leaders

• Combines Professional Will (Looks in the mirror,
  not out the window to apportion responsibility
  for poor results)
• With Personal Humility (Looks out the window, not
  in the mirror, to apportion credit for the
  successes)

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Get the Right People on the Bus

• Good to Great leaders first get the right
  people on the bus (and the wrong people off) and
  then figure out where to drive
• Good to Great teams debate vigorously in search
  of the best answers, then unify behind decisions.

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Confront the Brutal Facts

• When you turn over the rocks and look at all the
  squiggly things underneath, you can either put
  the rock down, or you can say, My job is to turn
  over rocks and look at the squiggly things, even
  if what you see can scare the hell out of you.
• --Fred Purdue, Pitney Bowes

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The Fox and the Hedgehog
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Three Circles of the Hedgehog
I was born to teach. Passion
I get paid to teach. Am I dreaming or what? The
Best At
I really believe in what we are doing in
teaching our kids to read. Aligning Resources
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The Academic Denominator
If you could pick one and only one ratio to
systematically increase over time, what X would
have the greatest and most sustainable impact on
your schools academic engine?
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A Culture of Discipline

• Build a culture around the idea of freedom and
  responsibility within a framework
• Fill that culture with self-disciplined people
  who are willing to go to extreme lengths to
  fulfill their responsibilities
• Dont confuse a culture of discipline with a
  tyrant
• Adhere to the hedgehog concept and systematically
  unplug anything extraneous.

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A Culture of Discipline

• The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for
  incompetence and lack of discipline - a problem
  that largely goes away if you have the right
  people in the first place
• -- George Rathman, Amgen

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Technology Accelerators

• The big question to ask is
• Does this technology fit directly with your
  hedgehog concept?
• If the answer is Yes, then become a pioneer in
  applying the technology to your mission
• If the answer is No, then ask if you need the
  technology at all.

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The Brutal Facts - RF districts

• Highest-poverty, lowest-achieving in Ohio
• Most deal with significant student turnover in
  K-3
• Most have had to deal with teacher turnover
  during initiative
• Many have had significant leadership turnover
• State-wide progress is accelerated in lower
  grades but slopes diminish with each set of grade
  levels
• ????

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A State-Wide Brutal Fact Example

• The growth of student reading achievement is not
  as great from 2nd-3rd grade as it is from k-1st
  and 1st-2nd.

Cohort 1 Individual Growth by Grade Over Time
2004-05
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What do we see under this rock?

• It does not appear to be a that any one
  particular core program is performing much
  differently than others

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Do the Current Data Reveal The Same Picture?

• In both cohorts to date, a similar pattern is
  observed
• Regression from Benchmark 2 to 3 in 2nd grade
• Performance at Benchmark 1 of 3rd grade below 3
  of 2nd (after 3 months of instruction, so lets
  forget the Summer slump)

Cohort 1
Cohort 2
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What are the people on the Bus saying?

• PD for 2nd and 3rd grade in fluency, decoding,
  and comprehension strategies to supplement core
  programs
• What are the data saying?
• Students need more practice in non-fiction
• Is intervention targeted at the students
  individual level of need?
• -AND-
• Is it intense enough?

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What Brutal Facts must you confront in order to
build on the momentum youve begun? And What is
your Hedgehog to Sustainability (i.e., What can
you do better than others?)?
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Reading First is School Reform
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In order to sustain School Reform, you must have
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No Missing Pieces!!

• You can not use SBR Instruction effectively if
  you have no agreement on WHAT learning targets
  are important - must have STANDARDS
• You can not be certain that a student has
  mastered the standards if you do not have
  accurate and reliable evidence - must have
  ASSESSMENT LITERACY
• You can not effectively use SBR INSTRUCTION
  without SBRR MATERIALS

• You can not be clear about INSTRUCTION without a
  classification of STANDARDS
• You can not make decisions about EARLY
  INTERVENTION without good evidence of student
  learning - must have STANDARDS and ASSESSMENT
  LITERACY

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What you reform to is a