theme IMPLEMENTATION A UNITED DISTRICTS AND UNIONS COLLABORATE TO IMPLEMENT SCHOOL COMMITMENT IMPROVEMENT PLANS to CHANGE By Ellen Holmes and Staci Maiers improvement: • Turnaround: Replace the principal; rehire no more n 2009, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan an- than 50% of the staff; and grant the principal suffi- nounced $3.5 billion in Title I funding under cient operational flexibility to fully implement a com- Section 1003(g) of the Elementary and Secondary prehensive approach to substantially improve student Education Act of 1965, also referred to as the No outcomes. Child Left Behind Act of 2011 (U.S. Department • Restart: Convert a school or close and reopen it under of Education, 2009). Following the Department a charter school operator, a charter management orga- of Education’s announcement, 831 of the na- nization, or an education management organization tion’s “persistently lowest-achieving schools” received fed- selected through a rigorous review process. eral funding during the 2010-11 school year to embark on • School closure: Close a school and enroll the students Isignificant change in the form of a School Improvement who attended that school in other higher-achieving Grant (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). schools in the local educational agencies. The Department of Education was not interested in • Transformation: Replace the principal and take steps slow, incremental change. Rather, the goal was for im- to increase teacher and school leader effectiveness; in- mediate change. The expectation was that each federally stitute comprehensive instructional reforms; increase funded school would take no more than three years to learning time and create community-oriented schools; show dramatic positive gains in student achievement. The and provide operational flexibility and sustained sup- Department of Education offered four models of school port (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). 40 JSD | www.learningforward.org April 2012 | Vol. 33 No. 2 theme IMPLEMENTATION In nearly every case, the school came under new leader- ship, and, in some instances, a large number of the staff was ABOUT NEA’S PRIORITY SCHOOLS CAMPAIGN replaced. Under all four models, schools were quickly thrust into complex school-based change and required to demon- he National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers strate results at the end of three years of federal funding. Tunion representing more than 3 million members, has created a school-based, operational framework for its Priority Schools Campaign that The Department of Education’s objective for fast results, focuses the organization’s support in three areas: however, often counters the findings of leading research in 1. Support and advocacy for priority schools as they implement School education. Findings from education researchers have shown Improvement Grants, including professional development, school visits, that “discovering what works does not solve the problem of and local advocacy on behalf of the schools. program effectiveness” and “a poorly implemented program 2. Organizational capacity building to improve leadership skills of can lead to failure as easily as a poorly designed one” (Mi- teachers and school leaders and increase halic, Irwin, Fagan, Ballard, & Elliott, 2004). collaboration among the superintendent, the The nation has an extensive track record with com- district, and the leadership of the local union. prehensive school reform. There are more than 8,000 el- 3. Engagement and outreach to better involve ementary and secondary schools adopting some form of a the community and successfully communicate comprehensive school reform model, and results are pend- the successes of each school as it undergoes turnaround. ing. A major shortcoming of nearly all of these studies, NEA is working directly with 39 schools that however, is that they fail to account for the extent to which are implementing School Improvement Grants in schools have actually implemented their chosen model 17 states, providing intensive technical assistance (Vernez, Karam, Mariano, & DeMartini, 2006). Thus, the to schools and districts as well as providing other resources to support question: What ingredients are needed for comprehensive the success of school turnarounds. Each of NEA’s priority schools has a school-based reform that is both positive and sustainable? two-year plan for improvement that was co-created with local and state union affiliates, the district, and NEA. The union also provides strategic and INGREDIENTS OF SUSTAINABLE CHANGE on-the-ground support at no cost on matters such as educator practice Sustainable change requires reform to be implemented and professional development, family and community engagement, over time and managed strategically to evaluate the communications support, and collective bargaining (U.S. Department of strengths and weaknesses of a given comprehensive school Education, 2011). Those leaders who were successful in the implementation of a reform improvement plan. Despite differences of ideology, there plan periodically checked to see if the staff’s beliefs about the change is a common desire to achieve real change without relying were consistent with the plan. In addition to focusing on programs, on unproven solutions. The balance exists, but to achieve services, consultants, and other necessary components of changes, they successful school reform, the plan must engage the people consistently were paying attention to the human aspects of systems closest to it — teachers, educators, and others who work change, beliefs, culture, collaboration, and behaviors. It is the human with children in schools. And often the best way to reach element that plays the most variable factor in the implementation of a and engage this population is through the associations that plan, yet paradoxically is the element most often left out of the equation. represent them at the local, state, and national levels. According to the National Implementation Research Network, a group dedicated to the advancement of the menting an improvement plan comes down to changing science and practice of implementation, “Organizational a complex organization in fundamental ways that address change, system transformation to help solve social prob- both the internal and external obstacles to implementa- lems, educational researchers, policymakers, and leaders tion (Fixsen & Blase, 2009). These obstacles are most dif- have consistently failed to acknowledge and communicate ficult to address because they are often tied up on cultural the importance of the implementation stage in the school norms and beliefs in addition to human interests within improvement process” (Fixsen & Blase, 2009). Indeed, and around the system. Work must be done at all levels given the emphasis on planning — and the relative silence in a school system to overcome implementation obstacles: about implementation — in many of the resources meant 1. Prepare all school leaders for the difficulties of orga- to help with school improvement, school leaders easily can nizational change by helping them understand and come away with the impression that if a team gets the plan anticipate the internal obstacles — technical, cultural, right, successful implementation of that plan must surely and political — that can arise, and give them tools and follow. The implementation stage is the most difficult of strategies to monitor change. all, and it is the stage where the majority of serious im- 2. Address the external obstacles by transforming the re- provement efforts fail. lationship between districts and schools through ensur- As administrators and teachers have discovered, imple- ing adequate school support at the central office level April 2012 | Vol. 33 No. 2 www.learningforward.org | JSD 41 theme IMPLEMENTATION and adequate control over budgets and personnel at the teachers used curriculum maps and common assessments they school level, and by enacting policies that give principals had created based upon Indiana standards and the needs of the more time to focus on leading change and improving class- students at Evans as well as other types of formative and sum- room instruction (Fixsen & Blase, 2009). mative data. In addition, administration and academic coaches Despite the difficulties, there are examples of schools mak- were available to provide support to professional learning com- ing early success happen. Two schools that have implemented munities during the school day in the classroom. With support the transformation and turnaround models under the Depart- and training by the district, the school also began to use a data ment of Education’s School Improvement Grant program have analysis process, where teachers studied assessment data to make shown leading indicators of change: Evans School (formerly instructional decisions. Howard Roosa Elementary School) in Evansville, Ind., and Evans principal Brynn Kardash reported, “Throughout Quil Ceda and Tulalip Elementary School in Marysville, Wash. these changes, there has been a great deal of emotional impact on people in the building. It has been important to continually EVANS SCHOOL cultivate teacher support for the program changes we are mak- EVANSVILLE, IND. ing as well as continually focus on the vision of meeting the Evans School serves preschool through 6th grades with needs of all our students.” High levels of professional support two self-contained emotional disability classrooms for district from the leadership of the building and the district have been