The Process of Change – Why Change, What to Do, and How to Do It*

The process of improving student performance goes by many different names. It has been referred to as school improvement, school reform, school reinvention, and school restructuring. No matter what it’s called, it comes down to the single goal of raising student achievement through change.

In working with schools across the county that are making concerted efforts at school change, the International Center has found the following characteristics to be true:

• Change must be revolutionary in spirit and evolutionary in time frame.
• Each school community is unique and has its own “DNA”; what works in one does not necessarily translate to another.
• Schools are unique systems that tend to maintain the status quo and often produce unintended consequences in response to change.
• Schools as systems produce the results they are design to produce. If different results are desired, the focus must be on changing the system, not simply demanding the system work better.
• School change can occur when guided by leadership, driven by data and supported through continuous professional learning.

A Model for Leadership and Change

The continuation of pubic education as we know it today is not guaranteed. The actions of school leaders will determine the fate of schools in the 21st century. One thing we know for sure is that status quo is not an option. Everyone is seeking change in schools. While all educators must play key roles in changing our schools, the burden is even greater for those in leadership positions. Leaders must respond to change appropriately and show others the way. They must take school staff on challenging journeys that the staff would not take on their own.

Change in schools is dynamic. There is no recipe with a list of ingredients and simple steps, no detailed blueprint for schools to follow for success. However, there are lessons that can be learned from other schools. The International Center has worked with schools across the country to identify models, share best practices, conduct research, and support school leaders in facilitating changes that lead to improvement. This work has revealed that schools usually need to address four interconnected questions in order to achieve high academic standards for all students — why, what, where, and how. While these questions are interconnected, there is a sequence to addressing these questions. All schools must start with the why question. Next, the what question builds a common focus on what to change. Third, schools must set a direction with the where question. Finally, the how question deals with the implementation of change.

* This is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of Leading Change in High Schools by Dick Jones, published by the International Center for Leadership in Education in 2008.

To further elaborate:

• Why involves convincing educators, parents, and community members as to why a school needs to change.
• What is the content of change, built through a common focus. It involves using good data, research, and best practices to determine what needs to change once people understand why.
• Where defines the location and direction, which involves assessing the present status, agreement on a common direction, and defining ways to measure improvement in student achievement
• How is the process of change and involves determining how to change the school once people understand and embrace the why, what, and where.

Regrettably, many schools begin their improvement efforts in the reverse order — by first deciding how to do things differently. That is, they find a “solution” without clearly articulating the need or problem. Yet, if staff and stakeholders do not believe their school must change or understand what needs to change, the suggestion for how to change is likely to be ineffective or rejected. The solution is worthless for a problem that has not been acknowledged.

Figure 3.1 represents the International Center’s model of change, which is not simply about process. Change is driven by understanding the why of the need for change. Putting why in the center of the diagram illustrates its importance and the fact that it drives the change. What, where, and how become the three facets of change in schools. What defines the content and focus of the change. Where implies destination and where the school is headed and focuses on ways the school will evaluate its success in making changes. How describes the process of implementing the change. All three of these facets must be addressed for schools to accomplish successful change.

Leading Change in High Schools provides a framework and suggestions for leadership teams to improve their schools. It is not about simply adopting best practices, but rather about creating a culture that recognizes strengths and weaknesses, encourages innovation and initiative, and adapts best practices and ideas from others.

The nature of change is that it must be unique to local needs, forged through consensus, and built upon the unique strengths of each school. There is no one single solution to improving our schools. A combination of strategies is necessary to achieve a new vision of learning. The goal is not to make every school the same, but to enable each school to construct its own solutions.

For more information on the change process please download the complete pdf file.

Overview of the Rigor/Relevance Framework

The Rigor/Relevance Framework is a tool developed by staff of the International Center for LEadership in Education to examine curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The Rigor/Relevance Framework is based on two dimensions of higher standards and student achievement.

First, there is a continuum of knowledge that describes the increasingly complex ways in which we think. The Knowledge Taxonomy is based on the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy:

1. knowledge/awareness
2. comprehension
3. application
4. analysis
5. synthesis
6. evaluation

The low end of this continuum involves acquiring knowledge and being able to recall or locate that knowledge in a simple manner. Just as a computer completes a word search in a word processing program, a competent person at this level can scan through thousands of bits of information in the brain to locate that desired knowledge.

The high end of the Knowledge Taxonomy labels more complex ways in which individuals use knowledge. At this level, knowledge is fully integrated into one’s mind, and individuals can do much more than locate information. They can take several pieces of knowledge and combine them in both logical and creative ways. Assimilation of knowledge is a good way to describe this high level of the thinking continuum. Assimilation is often referred to as a higher-order thinking skill: at this level, the student can solve multistep problems and create unique work and solutions.

The second continuum is known as the Application Model. The five levels of this action continuum are:

1. knowledge in one discipline
2. apply in discipline
3. apply across disciplines
4. apply to real-world predictable situations
5. apply to real-world unpredictable situations

The Application Model describes putting knowledge to use. While the low end is knowledge acquired for its own sake, the high end signifies action — use of that knowledge to solve complex real-world problems and to create projects, designs, and other works for use in real-world situations.

For more information on the Rigor/Relevance Framework with diagrams, please download the complete pdf file.