Education Week - October 22, 2014 - 20

COMMENTARY
What Reflects a Great School?
Not Test Scores
By Regie Routman
A
iStockphoto
By Barnett Berry
A
merica's public schools face a future
of rapid change, intensifying complexity,
and growing uncertainty.
All high school graduates must be
ready for college and careers, and
to be successful in a globalized
economy.
Yet, despite school reforms fueled
by the No Child Left Behind Act and the Race to the
Top initiative, even U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan has noted that American students' performance
on international tests is characterized by "stagnation."
The biggest challenges facing principals include managing
shrinking resources, serving learners who have
special needs, developing the skills and finding the time
to meaningfully assess teaching effectiveness, and engaging
parents and community. No wonder that, in a
2013 survey conducted by the MetLife Foundation, the
vast majority of today's principals reported that their
jobs have become "too complex."
It is time for a bold brand of school leadership, for
principals to collaborate with expert teachers who still
teach regularly, but who also have the time, space, and
incentives to develop their own ideas. Sound evidence
backs this shift: In their research, economists Clement
(Kirabo) Jackson and Elias Bruegmann have made a
strong case for how teacher-led professional learning
"
All too often,
principals are
wary of
teacher
leaders,
primarily
because of
uncertainty
about how to
identify and
utilize them."
20 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 22, 2014 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary
s an educator who has been working for
more than four decades to improve literacy
in our nation's schools, it's been sobering
to observe that it's not very hard to raise
test scores in the short run. These gains
often turn out to be an achievement mirage,
however, especially in schools with
a history of underperformance. Enduring
achievement gains require not only applying content and concepts
worth knowing, but also ensuring that learning is occurring
in a healthy, thriving culture as well. School leaders-including
principals, teachers, and district superintendents-are
the key players in creating such an environment. In fact, the
quality of a school's culture is a prime indicator in determining
whether all learners will experience success.
Three interconnected factors are as essential for wholeschool
achievement as knowing how to teach well: trust, collaboration,
and authenticity.
To get an accurate read on school culture, it's important to
ask yourself several questions: Does the work on the walls
reflect high expectations, deep thinking, and awareness of an
audience beyond the school building? Are the teachers working
together successfully within and across grade levels and
disciplines? Is the principal visible in classrooms and noticing
and commenting on teachers' and students' strengths? Are
students engaged in worthwhile and challenging learning?
And-not to be minimized-are teachers and students enjoying
instruction and learning? Joy in learning is essential to
a healthy and productive school culture; fear and joy cannot
coexist.
Here are a few proven ways in which effective principals
and school leaders can ensure, sustain, and support a culture
of achievement:
Trust is paramount. In fact, the quality of relationships in
a school is a crucial factor in whether students and teachers
have sufficient opportunity to learn and contribute their ideas
without fear of retribution. Without trust within and across
the school community-which includes the principal, teachers,
students, and families-learning will be stalled. People who
are anxious with worry, concerned for their safety, or treated
disrespectfully do not take risks or work well with others, nor
do they perform their best work.
Successful principals and other education leaders
deliberately model and take trust-building steps with
and for their school communities every day. This can
make all things possible. Successful school leaders ensure
that schedules, routines, and interventions put the needs of
students before standards and specialists. They listen without
judgment, are open to divergent viewpoints, communicate
clearly and respectfully, and are humble in their actions and
demeanor. They look for and comment on all that is good in
each member of the school community. They celebrate teachBuilding
the Capacity for Teacher Leadership
fuels student learning.
Other researchers-including Yvonne Goddard
and her colleagues, in a 2007 study-have found
that students are more successful in mathematics
and reading when they attend schools with higher
levels of teacher collaboration.
And we now know that top-performing jurisdictions,
such as Singapore and Shanghai, support
student learning by investing in and elevating
teachers as leaders.
Unfortunately, as researcher Mark Smylie
pointed out in a 1990 article in Educational Administration
Quarterly, while teachers in the
United States have been "looked to with increasing
regularity as agents of school and classroom
change," the stark reality is that their leadership
is recognized only when supervisors either "anoint"
or "appoint" them.
The concept of distributed leadership is not new.
Yet the practice of this distribution assumes a principal
or other "school leader" (not a teacher) is the
source of authority, who then delegates or shares
authority to make specific decisions or off-loads
myriad instructional and administrative tasks.
My organization, the Center for Teaching Quality,
or CTq, recently surveyed 50 administrators
from more than 30 school districts and nonprofits,
mostly those that had recently won federal grants
to advance teacher leadership. Although the focus
was supposed to be on cutting-edge career pathways
and performance pay, the vast majority of
interviewees could not envision teachers leading
in roles other than instructional coach or, perhaps,
peer evaluator.
These organizations supported over 500 teacher
leaders, but only a handful of the administrators
managing the grants had identified strategies to
sustain the leadership roles after the federal dollars
dissipated. Most of the interviewees struggled
to "imagine" a teacher in a hybrid role, assuming
that teachers could lead only if they were released
fully from the classroom or took on extra responsibilities
after their typical teaching day.
Unfortunately, even in 2014, school schedules
allow little time for teachers to design and lead lesson
studies, conduct action research, launch virtual
learning communities, advance school-community
partnerships, and develop and score new student
assessments. Little space is available for teachers
to lead inside their schools and districts-or to
spread their expertise across their states and nation
(and the globe).
The CTq has supported 23 "teacherpreneurs" over
the last four years, actually paying school districts
to reduce teachers' loads and free up their time to
incubate and execute their own ideas and advance
their profession. We have also encouraged them to
use their time to enhance teaching and learning in
their districts.
For example, teacherpreneur Jessica Cuthbertson,
a highly effective middle school language-arts
teacher in the Aurora, Colo., public schools, has
led a virtual community of teachers nationwide
to implement college- and career-ready standards,
helped the Denver-based Rose Community
Foundation bridge policy and practice in a contentious
reform environment, and published widely
(including on the Education Week Teacher site).
Meanwhile, she has created a learning lab in her
classroom to facilitate lesson-study opportunities
for her district colleagues.
We have worked with many administrators, policymakers,
and foundation officials who are supportive
of this bold brand of teacher leadership.
We have also run into some serious roadblocks,
however. What follows are the top three barriers to
building a school's leadership capacity, and some
practical steps for overcoming them.
Principals' unease with teacher leadership.
All too often, principals are wary of teacher
http://www.edweek.org/go/commentary
Education Week - October 22, 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - October 22, 2014
