1.2 and 1.3 (pages 12–16).
Figure 1.2: Data-collection protocol.
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Figure 1.3: Focus-group protocol.
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Leadership consists of both pressure and support. A leader must create more pressure for change than there is resistance to change or nothing will change. Second-order or lasting change will only occur if the leader is willing to frame the challenges that block improvement efforts. When schools try to improve without a clear understanding of the root causes of the issues and problems they face, their progress is slow and minimal. A school cannot continue to treat the symptoms of the problem without understanding the underlying causes. The audit or needs assessment helps teams analyze these root causes and leads to actionable steps to improvement. A graphic organizer for determining root causes and solutions appears in chapter 2 (page 27). The end result of the collaborative conversations within the assessment is a shared definition of the current reality as advocated by DuFour et al. (2016). It answers the why of school improvement before the how.
Once teams understand the current reality, the next step is to create a shared vision for change. A shared vision answers the question, What do we want to become? (DuFour et al., 2016). Without a clear and compelling vision, organizations have no direction. To use a navigational system for directions, we must first decide on the destination—otherwise the GPS just tells us the current location. If a school does not have a clear understanding of where it is headed, it may vaguely hope for better results year after year, but has no clear goal.
A school’s vision describes a compelling picture of a preferred future that inspires action throughout an organization (DuFour et al., 2016). The process for creating a shared vision for change asks each staff member to envision the ideal school in just a few sentences. Leaders can accomplish this by asking staff to write a headline that will appear in the newspaper five years from now about their school. What will they write on the front page of the newspaper? (See figure 1.4.) The leadership team collects these headlines to look for commonalities and themes. The team then drafts a vision statement to share with the entire staff for input and revision. After all voices have weighed in, the team reaches consensus for final approval of the vision.
Figure 1.4: Shared-vision protocol.
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Develop Collective Commitments That Lead to Action
Unfortunately, creating a vision statement does nothing to improve learning. Each staff member in the school must commit to action. Without cohesive, focused effort to further the vision, the statement is nothing more than a picture on the wall. Every staff member asks, “How must we behave to reach our vision? What must I do to ensure we will get there? What must happen to make the words and phrases in the vision come alive? How will we live our vision every day?” In other words, What if we really meant it?
Truly living the vision for improvement requires collective commitments: “the specific attitudes and behaviors people within the organization pledge to demonstrate” (Mattos et al., 2016, p. 24). These statements begin with the words, We will …. The process of developing collective commitments begins by the principal asking each staff member to answer the question, What actions, if we collectively committed to them, would lead our school closer to achieving our vision than anything else? The learning team collects and reviews these statements to determine commonalities and themes and then sends them to the entire staff for a final consensus. Figure 1.5 (page 18) is an example of collective commitments that the Mason Crest Elementary staff members made.
Source: Mason Crest Elementary, Annandale, Virginia. Used with permission.
Figure 1.5: Collective commitments example from Mason Crest Elementary.
The staff review and revise these commitments each and every school year. Staff members hold each other accountable for keeping these promises. The principal and administrators must also be willing to make commitments by identifying the specific actions they will take to support the staff’s collective efforts to reach the vision. (See figure 1.6 for an example.) As the principal and administrators share these commitments with the staff, they align the sense of urgency for improvement with real actions. People begin to believe that reaching the vision is possible. This internal accountability is what harnesses the power within a school to increase student learning.
Source: Mason Crest Elementary, Annandale, Virginia. Used with permission.
Figure 1.6: Administrative collective commitments example from Mason Crest Elementary.
In order to realize the vision, the school creates goals with short- and long-term action steps. These are learning goals that focus on increasing student achievement. Goals help monitor progress along the way. They are “measurable milestones that leaders use to assess progress in advancing toward a vision” (Mattos et al., 2016, p. 25). They structure the work in a manner that gets real results. Without goals, schools simply hope for better results, and when they achieve them, it is usually a surprise; the school has no real understanding of how it improved. No one has ownership. They cannot clearly explain the antecedents of excellence to continue or enhance. Schoolwide goals state the priorities and are the benchmarks that teams monitor throughout the year. Figure 1.7 (page 20) contains examples of schoolwide goals for both high school and elementary school (DuFour et al., 2016, pp. 44, 45).
Source: DuFour et al., 2016, pp. 44, 45.
Figure 1.7: Schoolwide
