I wonder if we could support Principals more effectively…..

April 12, 2021

I wonder if….. we could support Principals differently?

Much has been written about the impact of effective Principal leadership on teacher performance and on student achievement.

At the top of John Hattie’s list of factors related to student achievement is Collective Teacher Efficacy. Listen to Dr. Hattie’s one minute definition of Collective Teacher Efficacy.

Collective Teacher Efficacy developed and sustained through Principal Leadership.

From the Wallace Foundation Blog Why should school districts invest in Principals is an article with the Principal Leadership Behaviors attributes presented in a graphic in Figure 7:2 -

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In Six ways of understanding leadership development: An exploration of increasing complexity the authors conclude:

“When people talk about leadership development, they cannot take for granted that everyone understands it in the same way. We found six qualitatively different ways of understanding leadership development. The core in leadership development is that a person becomes better as a leader, but its meaning ranges from an initial focus on a specific person’s development to an expanded way of connecting individual development to organizational targets and visions and to leadership development as a group accomplishment. The outcome that there is an increasing complexity in the understanding of the leadership development has the potential to make leadership development fundamentally developmental. It can be used to improve the design of leadership development activities as well as to inform the practice of tailoring leadership development activities to better match individuals and organizational needs and contexts. This would mean meeting people where they are, but also creating designs that sequence the belief and expectations of leadership development. Furthermore, the results may assist researchers and professionals in making their own and others’ assumptions on leadership development explicit. The results can be used as a framework for rethinking leadership development with a genuine contribution by making leadership development developmental and exploring the implicit assumptions of leadership development.”

Supporting Principals for the complex leadership task before them might need to be designed differently, more deliberately, and more developmentally.

What if we are a barrier?

What if the barrier to what we are trying to achieve in education is us? You. Me. Us. Our blind spots, our big assumptions.  Not policy, or funding, or research, or shared vision, or student readiness. Could we be unintentionally maintaining parts of our systems so that improvement initiatives whither?

 Inclusionary Practices is a model that integrates what we know about well-designed learning for all students without putting them in those familiar silos of Special Education, Highly Capable Services, Language Learner Services, etc. etc. etc.

 How do we support the adults in our system to gain different perspectives, develop different leadership skills, and gain confidence in system support for the risks that enacting their new skills will present?  Adult Development, like children’s developmental continuums normalizes each stage and guides the strategies and environments to foster that growth. This is a Growth Mindset for the rest of your life.   Without support for our adults, are we failing to equip the leaders at every level who are supposed to accomplish the vision of Inclusionary Practices or any other improvement strategy? The Wallace Foundation released a research synthesis on How Principals Affect Students and Schools Feb 2021. How can we support them?

Maybe now that we have a learning design model, and strategies to develop systems of support, the “next key” to education’s “wicked” challenge of high levels of achievement for all students, is to joyfully equip ourselves to grow into our own next stages of leadership skill, perspective and maturity. We have power, authority and agency right now. You. Me. Us. Maybe we could use it to also grow ourselves so that we achieve our goals for all students.

“…. a turnaround is … continuous improvement tragically delayed….”

From The Future of Management.  Hamel, G.

Hamel lists three conditions that threaten timely renewal:  denying or ignoring the need for a reboot, a dearth of compelling alternatives, and allocation rigidities.

Can we deny that public education needs a reboot?  No.

We continue to fail large groups of identifiable groups of students, and we spend more and more money doing it.

Are there any compelling alternatives to public education?  Yes. There are private schools, charter schools, and Homeschoolers. Those alternatives are not available for all students.  Ask any public school educator who has been to a state or national conference. They almost certainly heard a speaker talk about examples of innovations in public schools that benefited all students, and they were told how they could accomplish the same outcomes.

Do we suffer from allocation rigidities?  Yes. Public school funding is notoriously complicated.

It is interesting to notice that in cases of turnaround or continuous improvement in a school or district, the improvement does not last.  Leadership turnover, staff turnover, budget cuts, new initiatives from the State or Federal level, all erode any improvement.  The pressure of the system to return to status quo, seems inevitable.

What if we abandoned turnaround and continuous improvement strategies and tried Design Thinking?  We have people in industry with experience in this and we have researchers in Universities who teach the processes. We have facilitators to support the participants, and we have foundations to fund the process.

One of Hamel’s rules for innovators is “To solve a systemic problem, you need to understand its systemic roots”.  A Design Thinking process must include stakeholders from the entire system, top to bottom.

In Thank you for being late, Thomas Friedman quotes John Hagel’s blog. “ ‘Rather than simply attacking our institutions, or conversely, simply defending them, we need to come together in a quest to redefine them… Redefine them to reflect the new context of a rapidly changing world, so that our institutions can continue to support us.”

Friedman continues, “Transitions, though, can be a real bitch. The most dangerous time to be on the streets of New York City was when cars were first being introduced but horses and buggies had not yet been fully phased out. We’re in that kind of transition now - but I am convinced that if we can just achieve the minimum level of political collaboration to develop the necessary social technologies to work through it, keep our economies open, and keep lifting learning for everyone, a better life will become more available than ever to more people than ever….. The transition wlll not be easy. But human beings have made transitions like this before, and I believe they can again. ‘Can’ doesn’t mean ‘will,’ but is also sure doesn’t mean ‘can’t.’ “

Couldn’t we just……..?

Couldn’t we at least…..

…gather national and state stakeholders for an exploration of possibilities for public education? We gather such groups at the school, local district, and even regional levels. At those levels we have some opportunities to be innovative. At the state and federal level there could be more opportunity to be innovative. Yes, we have interest groups that do not agree; Democrats and Republicans, union representatives and non-union reps, lobbyists, researchers, vendors. As one person said to me, “Such a group would be a political nightmare to manage.”

I happened upon the book Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities by Adam Kahane. I read more about his work online and came across an article on The Mount Fleur Scenario Exercise.

“The “Mont Fleur” scenario exercise, undertaken in South Africa during 1991–92, was innovative and important because, in the midst of a deep conflict, it brought people together from across organizations to think creatively about the future of their country.”

Adam Kahane’s consultant company has done similar work in other countries, and on other issues. They support a group of stakeholders to develop scenarios; what ifs. I am sure there are other firms that do similar work, but this was a beginning for my thinking. What if we set aside our assumptions, and our “always been this ways” and our certainty about what “should be”? The school closures and shift to online learning because of COVID 19 have put a spotlight on a few things we thought would take years to change.

Couldn’t we at least try?

I wonder if……

This is a blog about public education, which I love. It’s about making schools better, which I believe is possible. Word definitions, and ideas, will come in future posts. For now, I will begin with some questions from Dean James Ryan’s Harvard Graduate School of Education Commencement Speech . 

1.     Wait, what..?    at the root of all understanding

2.     I wonder if, I wonder why…?   At the heart of all curiosity

3.     Couldn’t we at least…?   At the beginning of all progress

4.     How can I help?   At the base of all good relationships

5.     What truly matters?   Gets to the heart of life…

I invite you to dream with me and think with me, about what is possible.

Today all of our children are in school; private schools, public schools, religious schools, homeschools, magnet schools, charter schools, prison schools, or playing hooky from schools.  Our children are our future.  This is worth dreaming about.