Leadership Skills for Changing to a High Performing School District | Gordon Cawelti
Program Description
During the past five years there have been several studies made of school districts that have transformed their system from one passing along large numbers of low-achieving students to a system that works differently and ensures that all or most students do meet or exceed state standards (Cawelti & Protheroe, Snipes, et.al., Togneri & Anderson, etc).* These studies follow a similar kind of research carried out in the corporate world (Peters, Collins, Welch) and see application in the Baldrige Award team investigations of companies seeking recognition for substantial improvements in their products or services.
The results from this research on high-performing school districts and businesses are ready for developmental work in public school districts.
The program will involve three phases:
Phase 1 - introducing the key Leadership Team from a school district (superintendent, other central office leaders, principal representatives, and teacher representatives) to the key attributes describing how systems function in high-performing school districts. In most cases this involves several changes from the way the existing system functions.
Phase 2 - carrying out an external audit of the extent to which the district currently does or does not function as these attributes describe and
Phase 3 - resumption of Leadership Team meetings to analyze the external audit findings and to develop a plan for making the changes needed to ensure that the district makes the transformation and to accurately assess the extent to which the key attributes having actually been implemented and are functioning as planned.
This is a plan to build the capacity of a school district to ensure that all schools are capable of sustained work to improve student achievement. This is often not the case now in many school districts and federal legislation does little to help with this issue.
Part of the phase 3 training will be to assist the Leadership Team in recognizing what we have learned from applying this productivity research in other districts.
Virginia Standard(s) Addressed
Planning & Assessment (ISLLC standard 3)Program Goals and Objectives
By the end of this program participants will able to:
- articulate the key attributes which characterize high-performing school districts and
- make use of this knowledge in developing a plan to improve the district's capacity to ensure that all or most students in every school are able to pass state assessments in basic skills and other academic subjects.
Program Format
The key to the success of this program will center around the ability of the district to put together a Leadership Team, headed by the superintendent, that will be given time for participating in Phases 1 and 3. These will be seminar settings in a comfortable, non-distracting environment involving presentations and preparing a plan for implementing the key attributes of high-performing school districts. Appropriate use of technology and sample documents from other districts will be used to facilitate this work.Target Audience
As previously described, participants are members of the Leadership Team to be established by the superintendent.Self-Selection and/or Identification Through School Division
No/yes. It is designed for a group designated by the school district and does not lend itself for self-study activities.Duration of Program
Phase 1- two days (12 hours) IntroductionPhase 2- three days (18 - 20 hours) External Audit
Phase 3- two days initially to review results of the external audit and begin development of the plan for adapting the key attributes of high-performing systems in this school district.
An important part of this plan is for the HRD (training) needed over the next three years if capacity-building within the district is to become a reality.
Outcomes Measured
All VDOE assessments in basic skills and other subjects will be the primary outcomes under scrutiny. This program must not contribute to curriculum imbalance by only paying attention to the percentage of students passing basic skills tests at the expense of other subjects. Attention must be given to any other key district instructional goals established by the local board.Program Evaluation
A key part of the plan developed by the local Leadership Team must be a system for assessing the extent to which key attributes of high-performing systems have actually been implemented in the local district. This system tends to need multiple approaches applied by persons from outside the district.The two primary sources of program evaluation are:
- the extent to which there is at least 90% implementation of the key attributes in all schools and the central office; (for example, restructuring the organization for full accountability at all level for getting results, training teachers on regularly using interim assessments to determine need for tutoring)
- the extent to which a substantial increase is shown in the percentage of students passing VDOE assessments over the first three years of this program ("substantial" to be defined by the Leadership Team members and lead consultant).
Contact Information
Dr. Gordon Cawelti, Senior Research Associate
Educational Research Service
2000 Clarendon Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22310
703 899-2230
caweltigl@aol.com
(Note: This program is designed to improve the capacity of a school district to meeting the challenges in improving student achievement during the next decade. It is comprehensive and time - consuming and should only be undertaken by leaders who want to "stay the course" in meeting these challenges brought on by state and federal policy shifts.)
Good leaders do two things: They decide what to do, and they work to get wide support for such decisions.
*A summary of this kind of research can be seen in Cawelti, Gordon. 2004 Handbook of Reseach on Improving Student Achievement Arlington, VA: Educational Research Service, 10-24, A Summary of Research on High-Performing School Systems.