question” (T. Sanders, personal communication, October 2012).
School leadership matters. Strong school leadership is associated with higher student achievement levels (Branch, Hanushek, & Rivkin, 2013). It is second only to teaching itself among school-related factors that impact student learning. Principals can either support or inhibit the learning of both adults and students.
Determine Vision Versus Reality
All too often the challenges facing a school in urgent need of improvement are numerous and varied. Determining where to start can be overwhelming; yet changes are critical to achieving student success. It takes a focused and intentional leader to create the effective leadership structures necessary to move teachers, students, parents, and community members toward a collective vision of teaching and learning. The goal is to become the effective school that leaders envision rather than settling for a less impactful alternative. A leader cannot simply impose new policies and procedures and expect better results.
In part, leading the task of turning around student achievement can be daunting because it requires second-order change. First-order change is doing more or less of what one is already doing, such as changing bus procedures to ensure a more orderly process or moving teachers of the same course or grade level to closer proximity with each other in the hope of increasing collaboration. First-order change is always reversible. It consists of adjusting the existing structure and seeks to restore balance or homeostasis. It is nontransformational and does not often require new learning. First-order change is change without making a real difference.
Conversely, second-order change is doing something significantly or fundamentally different from what one has done before. The process is usually irreversible. Once it has begun, it becomes undesirable to return to the former way of doing or being. It requires a new way of seeing things and is transformational. Table 1.1 shows examples that demonstrate the difference between first-order change and second-order change. First-order changes are usually strategies, while second-order change requires a shift in deeper philosophical beliefs. Second-order change requires new learning and results in creating a different story about the school. It shifts the culture to a more desired state. It is absolutely essential that underperforming schools understand second-order change. Table 1.1 describes a first-order change or change in strategy, such as creating smaller classes. This change will not result in more learning (or second-order change) unless the teaching philosophy shifts from whole-class to individual learning while establishing new relationships.
Table 1.1: First-Order Change and Corresponding Second-Order Change
| First-Order Change (Strategies) | Second-Order Change (Philosophies and Beliefs) |
| Smaller classes | New relationships and teaching philosophies (from whole-group instruction to an individualized approach to learning) |
| Site-based management | Collaborative ownership (from “This is my classroom” to “This is our school”) |
| Ninety-minute teaching blocks | Extended teaching and learning opportunities to ensure all students learn (from doing more of the same type of instruction to varying instructional strategies) |
| Small learning communities (such as freshman academies or houses) | New interactions and relationships (from students being isolated to creating a system of support) |
| Teaching teams with common planning time | Collaborative teams focused on curriculum, instruction, and assessment (from spending team time planning lessons to focusing on student learning) |
Source: Adapted from Fouts, 2003.
With a clear understanding of the second-order change required, schools can move from a reality of false promises from too many strategy changes to philosophical and belief shifts in a system that actually improves learning. It takes an effective leader to manage this type of complex change and better the lives of students.
Start Now
Principals and other administrators in underperforming schools are clearly not managing second-order change. Principals must understand how to lead this type of change; not impose change. So, what are the high-leverage leadership actions that support the change process? Leadership for change must include these four specific tasks.
1. Form a team capable of leading change.
2. Develop urgency and a collective vision for change.
3. Develop collective commitments that lead to action.
4. Clarify and communicate expectations for collaborative teams.
Form a Team Capable of Leading Change
To be a leader is not a position or a title; it means one takes action and models behaviors. The most powerful and effective role the principal assumes is that of lead learner, not expert or “all-knowing one.” Leadership that gets real results is collaborative; it’s a process that involves building a school leadership team, a guiding coalition (DuFour et al., 2016), to lead the school-improvement transformation in what we can almost guarantee to be tumultuous work. The role of the leadership team is not the same as traditional leadership teams. Traditional leadership teams operate as communication vehicles between teachers and administration. The teachers typically bring up concerns or issues that they have heard about or are experiencing and want the principal to address. The principal uses this time to communicate information most often related to the operation of the building. The team rarely, if ever, spends this time discussing data or related topics. In contrast, the leadership team has the responsibility of leading the change process by focusing on learning. The members of this team are cheerleaders and problem solvers who are hungry for data that fuel school improvement.
The single most important task a principal can do to ensure high levels of learning for students and adults is to build a leadership team. We use the term school learning team because in schools in need of improvement, this team works to gain a deeper learning and understanding of the work. This team comprises administrators and team leaders from every teacher team. The group functions as a collaborative team and models the teaming process for the entire school. Leaders should never delegate selection of leadership team members to the teachers themselves or choose membership based on seniority. This is the leader’s opportunity to grow the leadership in his or her school. The leader’s responsibility is to create a strong team with members who have complementary strengths. It should include a balance of individuals who possess one or more of the following qualities.
• An eagerness to promote change
• Expertise relevant to the tasks at hand
• High credibility with all stakeholders
• Proven leadership skills
Use figure 1.1 (page 10) as a protocol to determine which teachers have these characteristics.
Source: Adapted from Buffum, Mattos, and Weber (2014) and Kotter (1996).
Figure 1.1: Leadership team selection protocol.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks for a free reproducible version of this figure.
These characteristics positively impact how the team will engage in the work and ultimately how much progress
