a regular basis, notes (such as those in table I.4) collected by collaborative team members could be compiled into a narrative summary and shared with members of the school community.
Easy-to-Collect Quantitative Data
In many schools, easy-to-collect quantitative data are available and can be used to monitor progress on a regular basis. Such data are typically collected by school leaders. For example, if a school leader already has in place a system that keeps track of student absences and tardies, she would aggregate these data once a month as a way of monitoring level 1 performance.
Problem Prevention and Celebration of Success
As schools achieve higher levels of reliability, they should continue to monitor each level already achieved. Thus, a school that has achieved level 3 high reliability status will constantly monitor data for levels 1, 2, and 3 as it works on level 4. If quick data show that performance is unsatisfactory at any level, schools take steps to remedy the situation. In this way, problems are resolved before they cause significant errors in the system.
Problem prevention is an excellent reason to constantly monitor critical factors and address errors immediately. However, it is not the only reason to monitor performance. Tracking performance using quick data allows school leaders to celebrate successes with staff members, parents, and students. Research by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham (2002) has shown that feedback—especially positive feedback—is important in keeping people motivated to achieve or maintain goals:
For goals to be effective, people need summary feedback that reveals progress in relation to their goals. If they do not know how they are doing, it is difficult or impossible for them to adjust the level or direction of their effort or to adjust their performance strategies to match what the goal requires …. When people find they are below target, they normally increase their effort …or try a new strategy.… After people attain the goal they have been pursuing, they generally set a higher goal for themselves. (p. 708)
School leaders can use quick data to regularly celebrate the school’s successes; congratulate students, teachers, and parents on their hard work; and motivate the school community toward continuous improvement.
Level-Appropriate Data Collection
As mentioned previously, schools should not only collect quick data for the level they are currently working to achieve but also for all of the lower levels they have already attained. However, we do not advise that schools try to collect data for levels higher than the one they are currently working on, because data for higher levels often cannot be collected by schools at lower levels. This is particularly true for levels 4 and 5. For example, a visitor to a school working on level 5 (that is, a school that has already achieved high reliability status at levels 1, 2, 3, and 4) might ask a student, “What level are you at in mathematics? Science? Social studies? English language arts? What measurement topics are you working on? What is your current score on those measurement topics? What are you doing to raise your score?” The student should be able to answer most, if not all, of these questions. However, a visitor who asked a student in a school working on level 2 the same questions would likely get a blank look. Because the school is not working on level 5, it is impossible to collect level 5 data there.
The hierarchical nature of our model is one of its most powerful aspects. Each level guarantees that a school is also performing at all of the lower levels. So, if a school is working on level 4 and has achieved levels 1, 2, and 3, it is guaranteed that the school has a safe and collaborative culture, effective teaching in every classroom, and a guaranteed and viable curriculum. By definition, working on level 4 means that lagging indicators for the first three levels have been met and the status of each is continually monitored. Each level supports the one above it and guarantees specific outcomes for those below it.
Overview of the Model
The process of achieving high reliability status for a given level is fairly straightforward. The teacher and administrator leading indicator surveys (from chapters 1 through 5) are administered, and if a school wants a more comprehensive set of data, the student and parent surveys are also administered. Scores on the surveys are analyzed to determine the school’s strengths and weaknesses. The analysis process for interpreting survey results should be designed to identify those items that represent actions considered important to the effective functioning of the school and whose average scores are low.
Items that have these characteristics are candidates for interventions—programs or practices the school will implement to shore up weak areas. Once these programs or practices are in full implementation, a school identifies one or more lagging indicators that either have explicit criterion scores or are concrete enough to be clear about whether their requirements have been satisfied. Once the requirements for satisfying the lagging indicators have been met for a given level, a school considers itself to have reached high reliability status for that level. However, the school is not finished once criterion scores have been met for a given level. Rather, the school then identifies ways to collect quick data to monitor its status and acknowledge success on a periodic basis—say, once a month.
If after administering leading indicator surveys, a school has no low scores on items that are important to the school, then it moves directly to identifying lagging indicators. Once the lagging indicators have been met, the school can consider itself to have reached high reliability status for the level and move to monitoring its status and celebrating success using quick data on a regular basis. Figure I.4 explains how to obtain high reliability status at any given level.
A school will continue the process described in figure I.4 until it has reached high reliability status at all five levels and can declare itself a high reliability school. At such a point, the school would continue to use quick data to monitor its status and success at all five levels. Whenever quick data indicate that a lagging indicator for any level has slipped below the acceptable level, the school leader immediately intervenes to bring the school up to acceptable levels of performance on the fluctuating indicator.
How to Use This Book
This handbook has one chapter for each high reliability level. Each of these chapters begins with the recommended leading indicators for that level. We then present a series of surveys (for teachers and staff, administrators, students, and parents) based on those leading indicators. School leaders can use these surveys to get a preliminary idea of what leading indicators they may need to work on. Once members of the school community have completed the surveys and the results have been compiled, school leaders can identify which, if any, leading indicators need to be addressed in the school.
To address leading indicators, school leaders can use the critical commitments detailed in the chapter for each level: chapter 1 addresses how to implement the professional learning community (PLC) process; chapter 2 gives guidance about creating an evaluation system whose primary purpose is teacher development; chapter 3 speaks to continually monitoring the viability of the curriculum, creating a comprehensive
