Sustaining Change: Stay the Course

For decades, educational reformers have called for improved student achievement. No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds, the nation’s education laws, have established superlative performance as the only acceptable goal.  Burdened by pressures for improbable outcomes, school and district leaders search for the golden fleece, the silver bullet, the guaranteed fix.  Innovations become ends unto themselves and often create diversions from the fundamental purpose of improvement (Fullan, 1989). As you can see from the date on that reference, this problem has been going on for a long, long time.  You have seen it, and so have I – the pendulum swing of education that hopes for ultimate victory.

But there are no quick fixes, just hard work. Whether it is losing weight, learning to surf, or improving student learning, the key, once a practical route has been charted, is to stay the course.  Staying the course is a nautical metaphor well-suited as a prescription for dealing with the winds of educational change. If we change course mid-stream, our progress is undone.  Research suggests that it takes three years for educational changes to take root, to be firmly established and begin to bear fruit.*  Substantive change is not sudden. 

Last year, I worked with a district on a professional development model focused on improved instruction.  Every school in the district used the model all year long, and the district curriculum leader wrote me a letter glowing with praise for all that had been accomplished, describing teachers’ positive perceptions and citing the improvements they’d seen in teaching and learning.  I was surprised and dismayed, then, to find out that this year they had dropped the model to try something new.  Can we please just stick with something long enough to show that it works?

As an instructional coach or leader, your influence could make the difference. Set your sail on a steady course that is grounded in best practice and responsive to your local needs, and encourage those around you to do the same. Share the research below about sustained change. You could be the anchor who makes sure that the latest innovation, if it’s a good one, is given a fair shake. Instead of focusing on the next new thing, teachers can be given the chance to do this thing right, whatever it is.  If we are stubbornly persistent, we will see the differences we are hoping for.

*Brown, R. & Coy-Ogan, L. (1993). The Evolution of Transactional Strategies Instruction in

             one teacher's classroom.   Elementary School Journal, 94 (2), 221-233.

*Comer, J.P. & Haynes, N.M. (1999).  The dynamics of school change: Response to the

article, “Comer’s School Development Program in Prince George County, Maryland: A Theory-Based Evaluation,” by Thomas D. Cook et al. American Educational Research Journal, 36 (3), 599-607.

*Fullan, M. Bennett, B. & Rolheister-Bennett, C. (1989 April). Linking classroom and school

improvement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Francisco, CA. 

*Minnesota Center for Reading Research(2011).  Consortium for Responsible School

Change in Literacy.  Downloaded December 5, 2011 from http://www.cehd.umn.edu/reading/projects/school-change.html

*Pressley, M., El-Dinary, P. B., Gaskins, I., Schuder, T., Bergman, J. L., Almasi, J., & Brown, R.

(1992). Beyond direct explanation: Transactional instruction of reading comprehension strategies. Elementary School Journal, 92, 513-556.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

A coaching Success Story:

http://www.djournal.com/news/after-nettleton-s-reading-scores-rise-state-relocates-its-literacy/article_71fd4c36-beec-517d-a730-4b0c516d4d25.html

Info. on un-standardized assessments:

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/10/11/what-happens-when-state-un-standardize-tests.html

Beyond explicit instruction, what else struggling readers need:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2243

Redos and retakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192M61YJJKY

A podcast on creating a creative and spirited math class:

https://soundcloud.com/classinsession2/class-in-session-becoming-the-math-teacher-you-wish-youd-had-september-8-2018

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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