Pre-teaching vs. Re-teaching

We spend so much time as educators trying to fill in gaps when students are not performing at mastery levels. It really makes me question why we aren't thinking about this in a different way - why aren't we investing our time into pre-teaching instead of re-teaching?

Let me clarify - I do not mean "teach to the test." I definitely mean teach to the standards.

When we re-teach something, we think about our students differently. We think about different ways that individual learners could reach mastery more efficiently and more effectively. Why don't we do that in the first place? Why aren't we spending our considerable time that is spent planning instruction thinking about the learners that we have, the standards that they must master, what the data tells us about our students' learning, and ways that would be the most effective and efficient for our students? If we are willing to invest hours on Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers, then why don't we invest those same hours into developing effective questions that will engage our students as deep thinkers or hands-on experiences that involve our students in solving real problems?

Robert Marzano explains in his article on Teaching for Rigor (read more here), "If the majority of instruction is spent at lower levels of complexity, it is unlikely students will perform to standard on state assessments written to test cognitive complexity." Marzano goes on to explain that "strategies that are more student-centered and demand sophisticated levels of analysis, hypothesis testing, synthesis, and collaboration in the service of applying knowledge to authentic, real-world problems" is seen fewer than 3.2% of the time in classrooms that he observed. Marzano concludes that "instruction focused on achieving rigor is rare." He states that "the lack of such instruction amounts to a crisis" because our students are unable to experience the kind of instruction that will prepare them for achieving higher standards. Marzano identifies 13 Essential Strategies for Achieving Rigor in classrooms.

There is no doubt that instructional planning to increase rigor and increase student achievement is time consuming. However, it is essential in order to ensure that our students experience the kind of foundation for learning that will prepare them for college and career readiness. The next generation of innovators, creators, problem-solvers, and leaders require that we prepare them to embrace the endless possibilities that their futures include. To do that, we need to give them rigorous experiences and opportunities to connect with the real world and empower them to become curious and question everything. You won't find that on a worksheet.

The Power of Teachers

This weekend, I went back to my hometown for the funeral of a family friend. I saw my elementary PE teacher, my middle school art teacher, former students, former students' parents, and colleagues from my first teaching position. As I talked with people who had meant so much to me throughout my growing up and early years of teaching, I thought about the power of teachers to impact, influence, and encourage the trajectory of individual lives, families, and the community.

I grew up in a small town. The school is the center of the community - providing support, social interaction, encouragement, and a sense of safety for students and their families. My first teaching job was in the small town where I grew up. Many of the teachers who had been my teachers in school became my colleagues. I realized that teaching was a calling for these amazing teachers. They were unbelievably dedicated - not because they were paid to be, but because of their belief in the students and the future of their community. They saw limitless possibilities in their students and went above and beyond to make a difference in the lives of their students and their families. They gave countless hours before and after school without compensation to run clubs, have play rehearsal, volunteer at sporting events, or tutor students with homework.

Main Street in the small town where I grew up and began my teaching career.

When I began teaching in urban schools, I realized that there were many connections between rural and urban teaching. The most important similarity is that students, families, and the community need dedicated teachers who are willing to go above and beyond. Even if the schools that we teach in are dramatically different from those we grew up in, we must bring the same level of commitment and dedication to our students as we want from the teachers of our own children - like what I experienced in that small town.

Teachers have incredible power to impact lives and to change the outcome for so many students. I often write about the power of belief because it has been so important to me personally and I have seen it make a difference in the lives of the students I teach. If the message that we give our students is "I believe in you and I will be there for you no matter what," then they start to believe in themselves - they start to see themselves through our eyes. But that takes time and commitment. In urban schools, the trust is so thin. You must build trust with students through consistency - in terms of belief, follow through, and expectations. Too many people have already let our urban youth down - we must recognize that the power that we have to change lives can go both ways. Our words, our actions, and our messaging must always underscore that we have unconditional belief in our students' future - that is what will truly change our communities.

I love the message in this poem by Taylor Mali. He shares why he teaches - what makes him restart every day. All of the political undertones of education - APPR, Receivership, Turnaround, accountability, funding shortages, curriculum shifts, common core, or the cornucopia of letters that identify new programs and new guidelines - none of that is as important as knowing that we have the power to change lives each and every day in our classrooms. I didn't become an athlete or an artist, but I know that my elementary PE teacher and my middle school art teacher believed in me. And when I shared with them this weekend that I am now a principal of an elementary school in an urban district, I could tell that they still believed in me. That power of a teacher - powerful, powerful stuff.

Getting Results

Let's face it - in the world of school turnaround, the bottom line is results in student achievement. I can tell you that I have led my school to a complete turnaround in the areas of culture and climate and that we are a radically different learning environment than we were when I first started and I can even show you data that supports all of that. But - and it is a big but - according to state assessment scores, we are still performing with single digits. We collect a great deal of data that indicates student growth and student progress, but even our common core aligned interim assessments (we use Achievement Network) make a disclaimer that they are not predictive. And the short version of this story is that we need a win.

Unraveling the story of what your data is telling you is akin to Alice going down the rabbit hole. As a leader, you have to ultimately make a decision about what needs to happen first in order to get results. Here is a real life scenario. According to our receivership metrics, our baseline for students scoring a level 2 or above on the NYS ELA assessment is 21%. Our target set by the state is 43% and the very least that we can do in order to receive any credit for that indicator is to improve by 1% - so 22%. As we analyze the closest thing that we have to an aligned state assessment (our Achievement Network Interim Assessments), one of my grade levels has only 17% of students scoring a level 2 or above and the proficiency rate is single digits. Unraveling what is the root cause of under-performance is what getting results is all about.

Everyone seems to have a proposed solution for getting results; replace the principal, replace the teachers, change the curriculum, become a charter school, bring in outside consultants, provide more interventions, increase community involvement. If you google "getting results in failing schools," you will end up with link after link of schools, districts, outside consultants, and independent receivers that propose the answer for getting results. As I think about the situation with my under performing grade level (to be honest, I am perseverating on it), I am reminded of the underpinnings of Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I know that we have a clear vision, I have the best teachers, and we have students who are willing and eager to learn - so what is preventing us from getting results? As I think this through, I can see how gaps in both our curriculum and instructional delivery are impacting our ability to achieve the results we want and need. When 83% of your grade level is not proficient, it is an issue of core instruction and cannot be addressed through intervention. So, as the school leader, I have to make decisions that will lead to us getting results because we cannot continue this level of under-performance.

As we peel back the layers of this issue, I have to go back to my fundamental beliefs about high quality reading instruction - whether we are talking about common core or not - and I need to dig deep with my team to see what their fundamental beliefs are as well. Students become better readers by reading. Our classrooms must be spaces that inspire and encourage children to love reading. This is the underpinning of high quality reading instruction. When I think about what our instruction actually looks like in comparison to this, I know that I am seeing more teaching of discreet skills than I am seeing students deep in text that they love and responding to that text in a meaningful and purposeful way. This is likely the result of the very thing that we think is helping - reteaching plans that are based on improving specific skills, disaggregated data that identifies student gaps, and an unending pressure to make gains. It is more difficult to see how students are growing on specific skills when they are deep in a great book. It requires a different approach to teaching that is based on the passionate belief that our kids can achieve at high levels if they are given the right environment and encouragement.

Good teaching should result in results. Curriculum may change. Initiatives may change. Leadership may change. Good teaching should be the stuff that results are made of.

The When, Why, and How of Making a Mid-Course Correction

One of the biggest criticisms of school reform is that there is too much change, too fast, and it becomes impossible to manage (read more here). I have even blogged about it in previous posts (http://turnaroundschool.blogspot.com/2015/08/detour.html, http://turnaroundschool.blogspot.com/2015/03/managing-vision.html, http://turnaroundschool.blogspot.com/2015/02/leading-people-not-just-leading-change.html). So, I know that making a mid-course correction (aka change) needs to be for the right reasons and must be managed and marketed well.

This week, I have been grappling with making two shifts in the way we do business in my school. One has to do with assessment, and the other has to do with instructional coaching. School culture is an interesting thing, because it can become established and normed with or without direct leadership. Sometimes the messages that we send as a leader can be interpreted differently and we can end up with a result that does not match our intent. It is so important for us as leaders to continually check to make sure that what we say is really what we mean and that what we mean is really being heard (I refer to this as "inspect what you expect"). Without continual discourse, questioning, and observation/feedback, educators quickly fall into the dreaded cycle of "That's The Way We've Always Done It." Even in a turnaround school, where the goals, targets, initiatives, and observation/feedback are clearly outlined and continually referred to, people's perceptions can be a powerful ingredient of TTWWADI. This is why we have to carefully decide when, why, and how we should make adjustments to our plan.

My first possible course correction of the week had to do with assessment, data collection, our building targets, and our requirements to State Ed. through our receivership status. Clearly, not something small with little impact. The short story is that our shifts in curriculum at Kindergarten and 1st Grade (we are using Core Knowledge or CKLA) no longer clearly aligns with the use of Running Records to track student growth and progress in reading. However, all of our data points and targets that are reported to the district and the state are based on Running Records. So, that's the why of a course correction - my teachers were feeling like they were over assessing our children and not getting the kind of accurate data that really aligned to and informed their practice. The when was clear, too - now. We just finished our 2nd round of Running Records and the gaps were clear, the teachers could clearly articulate the need for change and my instructional coach, Instructional Leadership Team, and I all agreed. Let's shift our practice. So then there's the how. In a change like this, there are several layers to be considered. First, the teachers. Does everyone fully understand the change that we are making and how/when will we check in on this understanding and implementation? Second, the students. We have built a strong culture of goal setting and students and parents both understand what level they are on with a letter from their Running Records (see below).

Traditional Fountas and Pinnell chart for Running Records with Lexile conversion

We had to have a clear vision of how we would shift this for students and families in order to help them understand the why and the how of our adjustment. Third, I had the data reporting piece. All of our targets that are reported to State Ed. require Running Records as an indicator, so for this school-year, I have to continue to use that as a metric, and although I can certainly explain why our percentages look like they are not moving based on the new information and new data, I need to continue to have that data point as a reference. So, we decided to create a conversion from CKLA to Running Records that will allow for our own internal tracking along the Running Records target and will allow teachers to just use the CKLA data as an assessment tool. That buys us some time with the ability to publicly change the targets and market them to students/parents/families. The next step - following up to see if what we decided is in practice - is on me and my instructional coach (which actually leads to my second big adjustment of the week!).

The second big decision was around instructional coaching. The practice of instructional coaching throughout my district has become less classroom based with observation and feedback and more focused on delivering professional development/leading team meetings/ and intense coaching/feedback cycles that are very time consuming and require heavy documentation. My challenge was to increase the amount of time that coaches are able to be in classrooms by removing their perceived barriers and adjusting my weekly check-ins with them so that I can "inspect what I expect." So, the why was clear - we are not going to see the kinds of results in student achievement that we need without continual feedback and rehearsal in instructional delivery and the coaches need to be in classrooms in order to make that happen. The when of making this change requires building capacity and clarifying the vision with multiple stakeholders. It also requires shifting some responsibilities that coaches previously held to members of my administrative team, so the when for us is over the next two weeks. The how is largely on me because so much of the visioning and checking in will be on me. My plan is to have several face to face meetings with the coaches, my vice-principals, and the teachers who will be part of phase one of the coaching plan in order to discuss the shifts and to accompany that with a written plan. I also need to have some release of expectations from Central Office so that my coaches can feel like they are able to focus primarily on classroom coaching and that their level of documentation for those coaching cycles will be at the building level. This means that for the next several weeks, this needs to be a priority for me as well and I need to purposefully build time into my schedule to "inspect what I expect."

Mid-course corrections can and should happen. A turnaround leader should be constantly aware of what is working and what is not working in his/her building. In order to keep the momentum and keep people's trust in your vision and leadership high, it is essential to think through how these mid-course corrections will be implemented and why. A strong turnaround leader has to be able to say "no" when there is a directive from above that does not align with the work of the turnaround plan and also has to be able to advocate for differentiation in leadership support - one size definitely does not fit all in school turnaround. As a turnaround leader, it is critical that we are always one step ahead and have a clear vision of where we are headed so that we can handle mid-course corrections as a natural part of moving our staff, our students, and our school from under-achieving to highly achieving.

Maintaining a Clear Focus

I had a professor in grad school who told us that principals were little more than middle managers. That bothered me.  I have worked for principals who were unable to make any decisions without "getting permission" from central office and everything that happened in the building was because of some directive from central office. I don't want to feel like my vision is at the whim of what someone else believes to be the priority for my school. I am fortunate to work in a system where the superintendent believes that building principals are powerful leaders and that the work of moving the district and the students forward cannot happen if we are simply "middle managers." So, as we prepare to return to the challenging work of being change agents in schools, we must be clear in our focus - in our vision - for what we want to see in our children, in our staffs, and in our families during 2016 so that we can own the changes and not simply manage them.

Education is always a politically charged topic and everyone involved seems to have the answers that will fix struggling schools. 2015 certainly saw a great deal of political staging regarding the future of education and 2016 will be no different. While the pendulum seems to be shifting away from federal control of school reform and back toward individual states' control, it is important for us as leaders to be clear about where our own beliefs regarding higher standards fits within our vision. Without clearly understanding your own core beliefs as a leader, you may be quick to implement fad based policies, rather than deeply engaging with what you know will work to move student achievement in your school.

Visioning is key to effective leadership. I practice visioning activities with my teams in order to make sure that we are aligned in what we see at the end of this school year and out three years. When we know where we want to be in three years, we can plan backwards to make sure that we have the right supports in place to get there. As we move away from No Child Left Behind, it is essential for leaders to identify what information you need, how you will get it, and what you will expect teachers to do with that information in order to have a clear focus about assessment data and its role in tracking student achievement.

Whatever 2016 has in store for you, take time to clarify your focus and reaffirm your vision as you re-engage in the work of managing change, standards, and increasing student achievement. As leaders, there is so much for us to manage - having a clear focus helps keep the priority on our students and allows us to keep the changes we face - manageable.