How Can You Tell If Your School Has "Turned Around?

There are many components of school turnaround - suspension and referral rates, student achievement measures, attendance, parent involvement, staff turnover, and school climate to name a few. With so many moving targets, how can anyone ever know if their school has really "turned around?"

Even the idea of "turnaround" is somewhat of a misnomer. Moving a school from significantly underperforming to achieving takes time. It's not as if there is a magic wand that can take a school from one end of the spectrum to the other overnight. When we talk about school turnaround, we are really talking about significant school improvement and being able to see improvement in the terms of any of the indicators previously listed is an amazing thing to see.

There are many voices in the school turnaround debate. Advocates range from strategies that involve closing schools and re-opening them with new leadership, new staff, and new curriculum to strategies that involve supporting the whole child through addressing the issues of high poverty. No matter what the approach to school turnaround, the research supports the need for strong, visionary leadership in implementing a school turnaround plan that yields results.

This is my third year as a turnaround principal. My school has made significant gains in reducing suspensions and referrals, in improving student achievement, in improving attendance rates, in engaging parents and families, in reducing staff turnover, and in creating a school culture that is a productive learning environment and values achievement. This week, New York State released the Demonstrable Improvement Index for schools in receivership. This score indicates an overall improvement rating based on metrics that were selected for that school. Schools were given points based on meeting the targets set for each metric. The school I lead scored a 92 out of 100. Maybe I should say that in a little different way - how's this?

92 out of 100!!! That's amazing!!!

This acknowledges and underscores our hard work and improvement efforts. We are working tirelessly to make greater gains in student achievement and to continue toward being a model school in school turnaround. To read more about our demonstrable improvement index, our metrics, out turnaround efforts, and our school community, click here.

When Thinking is Visible

How do we know that there is really deep thinking, measurable learning, and significant growth happening in our classrooms? If you have followed any of my previous posts, you know that I am pretty passionate about classrooms where there is a high level of rigor, real life engagement, and deep thinking. I love thinking about rigor as "cognitive demand" - in simplest terms, who is really doing the thinking and the work?

This past weekend, I attended the NYSRA Conference in Rochester, New York. One of the most interesting sessions that I attended was by Maureen Boyd, a professor at University of Buffalo, which focused on classroom talk (find her book here). Although the idea of classroom talk seems simple, when you think of classroom talk as visible thinking, it takes on a different shape. Dr. Boyd talked about the power of the "third turn." The initial question is the first turn. The student response is the second turn. The power comes in the third turn - what the teacher does in response to the student response. The teacher can either elevate the thinking in this third turn by asking an additional question or asking for additional student responses, or the teacher can stop the thinking in the third turn by simply saying "okay, good." If the teacher's response ends the thinking, then the student only responds for the purpose of answering the question and getting a correct response - that is definitely not visible thinking. If you really want to learn about what students know or understand, you have to be willing to listen to student responses and all that they show you about what students do, and do not, think.

As School Leaders, it is our responsibility to know the kind of questioning, discourse, and thinking that is being asked of our students in our classrooms. When we see instruction that does not push our students' thinking and learning, it is our responsibility to have the hard conversations with our staff that will help them to think about pushing the thinking of our students. This idea of "the third turn" provides us with a clear strategy that can immediately change the level of questioning and discourse in our classrooms. Our classrooms must be vibrant places, full of cognitive demand and supportive relationships that help our students see their true potential. In this video from PS 359 in the South Bronx, you see exactly that - students who are given opportunities to show their thinking, explain their understanding or misunderstanding, and to take risks that will lead them closer to mastery of the standards. As leaders, we must push for our classrooms to engage our students in this kind of visible thinking in order to ensure that they are thinking deeply and authentically engaged in rigorous thinking.


Making Thinking Visible from NYC Public Schools on Vimeo.

Extended Learning Time

I have just returned from the Promising Practices Conference in Albany where we presented our approach to Extended Learning Time (see agenda here). There are many approaches to Extended Learning and our model centers on investing in both teachers and students through Collaborative Team Planning for teachers and Embedded Enrichment for students.

The research supporting extended learning time, particularly in urban schools, is convincing. In a recently published Hechinger Report, they outline the significant defecits thatchildren in poverty experience before they even start school. This research supports the need for extended learning time, and it also supports the importance of enrichment for children in poverty. Extending the school day for teachers without enriching the curriculum for students only addresses half of the need. 

Leadership in a school with extended learning time and embedded enrichment requires a clear vision (let's be real here, leadership always requires a clear vision) and a belief in the value of enrichment for students and the investment in teacher development through collaboration. The work we are doing in both areas is resulting significant growth in our school. 

Productive Struggle

When I was in middle school, I struggled with math. I didn't catch on quickly and the pace of the lessons always felt too fast for me. Math was presented in only one way and I had to try to follow along and make meaning, but I remember feeling stupid and started saying "I can't do math" as a result. My parents got me a tutor who helped me to see math in different ways and gave me the opportunity to talk through my thinking. It turns out, I could do math, but I needed to be able to make meaning and I needed to be able to talk through my misconceptions.

So, what is the difference between struggling in mathematics and productive struggle?

The shifts in the common core require that the students do the majority of the thinking and the work - that they are the ones productively struggling with the problem solving, questioning, thinking, and explaining.

It really comes down to conceptual understanding. Conceptual understanding is how we make meaning of what we are learning - it's the mental models and images that we create to help us understanding what we are doing. 

Prior to common core, learning math was largely about about procedures. It was up to us to make our own meaning and find ways to understand the concepts behind the procedures if we did not immediately "get it." Twenty years ago, we didn't provide students with manipulatives to make meaning - we gave them procedures and expected them to figure it out. As a result, many students continued to feel like they didn't "get" math.

What is the lesson here for teachers of common core mathematics? 

Think about how long it took you to make meaning of mathematical concepts. Now think about how long you give kids to really make meaning of mathematical concepts. If you give students two days with manipulatives, have you really just substituted different procedures and students still don't have enough time to make meaning?

Here's an example. (https://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/g4-m1-full-module.pdf)

Lucy plays an online math game. She scored 100,000 more points on Level 2 than on Level 3. If she scored 349,867 points on Level 2, what was her score on Level 3? Use pictures, words, or numbers to explain your thinking.

Struggling would mean that you would give this problem to students and let them try to figure it out., Productive struggle means that you woud read through this problem with your students, giving them an opportunity to discuss what strategies they might use to solve the problem and what information they see as critical to understanding what the problem is asking. 

In order to do teach in this way, you have to plan differently. First of all, you need to do the math. You have to understand what students are going to do when they first approach this problem. You have to plan for an ideal student response and also plan for misconceptions that students are going to have. If you don't do the math, you are merely teaching to procedures and not to conceptual understanding. 

Secondly, you need to plan for students to productively struggle. Again, that means that they have to have some information to use before they begin to problem solve. In this problem, you might talk about the numbers that are important in the problem, and you might even brainstorm strategies that students could use to solve the problem, but in order to ensure that students would be doing the thinking, you would not set up a tape diagram for them. Productive struggle means that students have to have an idea about the work they are going to engage in and they would be able to explain the reasons that they chose the approach that they did. Do you provide students with manipulatives or do you have them get their own? Do you encourage them to use their white board? How do you help guide students toward potential strategies that will help them make meaning without telling them how to think?

Students also need time to do the math. Too often, this time is cut significantly short because teachers have not taught students to productively struggle. You have to have an idea of what you expect to see while kids are working in order to plan effective questions, redirections, or next steps. Your job during this phase is really to facilitate thinking. Students have to have a starting point and they have to be able to determine which strategies are most efficient.  As you gather information from students, you have to be able to really listen to them in order to understand their thinking and plan for next steps in moving them forward. Students should be encouraged to work together if it helps to facilitate their thinking - think about what you would do if you had to solve a problem. Chances are, you would at least talk it through with someone before you decided what steps made the msot sense to you. 

The real impact comes in the student discourse - where students explain their thinking whether they have a right or a wrong answer. The confident practitioner will embrace the questions that help move other students toward understanding during this part and will not get nervous about students modeling incorrect answers or divergent thinking. If student discourse sounds just like students filling in the blanks in your classroom, it is not getting to real understanding and it is certainly not moving students toward proficiency. Students should be able to think through their understanding and simply snot encouraged to find a friend if it takes them longer than 15 seconds to answer or explain their thinking. Classrooms that really understand that every child makes meaning about mathematics in their own way are classrooms that will celebrate divergent thinking, will build on other students' responses, and will ultimately see the greatest growth in mathematical understanding. 

I have come to look at mathematics instruction so differently than when I was a student. Our children are ready, willing, and absolutely able to master the mathematical concepts and skills that are a part of our common core curriculum. Teachers must look at teaching as more than simply covering the lesson and must do the math in order to be able to facilitate conceptual understanding for students and build on their questions in order to secure foundational skills. Our students must have more time with manipulatives and making meaning in order to build conceptual understanding. 

Making math matter in classrooms requires teachers that believe in the power of making meaning, building conceptual understanding with tools and manipulatives, and the ability of our children to conceptualize how different parts of mathematics align and connect. Adults must engage in productive struggle with that kind of planning in order to create clasrooms where students can productively struggle with concepts in mathematics. 

http://makingmathmatteronline.com/resources/math-make-and-take-activities/

http://educore.ascd.org/channels/9f4217a1-0b89-456b-8188-ee29fccf1441

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/common-core-math-elementary-resources-matt-davis

Celebrating Diversity

I grew up in a small town. Diversity was not a part of the fabric of our community. I grew up knowing that there was much about other cultures that I didn't understand or even know about, and I chose to move away from the community that I love and to relocate in a place where there was greater diversity.

It may sound like a sound bite, but diversity is our greatest strenth. It is truly amazing to think how different people from different cultural backgrounds have all found themselves drawn to the liberties, freedoms, and opportunities that this country offers its people. I am not hugely political or patriotic, however, I believe that people deserve the "certain unalienable rights" that our forefathers wrote about and I believe that the people referred to in the Declaration of Independence rmeans all people. 

Friday we celebrated International Day at my school. It was absolutely amazing to see students dressed in their traditional cultural dress. Parents and families brought in traditional dishes to share with students in the class so everyone could have a "taste" of the different cultures that we represent. Classes read stories, learned cultural dances, made different foods, played games, and shared history from around the world as they learned to truly celebrate the diversity that lives in my school. I was so proud to be the leader of a school where there is so much diversity and so many cultures represented.

Providing opportunities for students to share their stories is essential in giving them a voice. In this day and age when some people feel that their voice should matter more than others, it is important for us to remember that public education exists to provide access, opportunity, and a level playing field for all - that means that all people, from all kinds of diverse backgrounds. Look at these kids - don't they deserve the very best we can give them every, single day?

Drive Decisions with Open Air Data

We are about six weeks into the school year. We had some initial data from last school year and summer that could inform the initial steps we took, but now it is time to get serious about planning for the students that we have in front of us and moving them toward proficiency.

I take this part of turnaround leadership very seriously. We do not have a single moment that can be wasted in classrooms in order to ensure that our students make the growth that is necessary for them to have the future that they deserve. To be able to immediately respond to the needs of our individual students requires knowing our students, understanding how they learn and where their gaps are, and believing in where they can be with our help. Teacher preparation programs do not train teachers to think this way - to plan in such a way that they can modify and adapt the standards to meet the needs of every individual child in the classroom - but it is necessary in order to move our students that we develop the skills to plan in this way.

Here is an example of our September data based on the STAR Reading Assessment.

What do you notice? As a school building leader, what would your first step be? As a teacher leader, how would you begin to look differently at the needs of your students? As a classroom teacher, what would you immediately begin to consider in order to plan for the students in your classrooms? 

I have a colleague who has her teachers create individualized plans for every student across their grade level team so that they can have a strong plan for moving each student toward proficiency. That is a powerful way to drive decisions based with the data. Whateer your approach to owning, sharing, and planning based on your data, it is essential to name the students at each proficiency level and have a clear plan for moving those students. There must be as strong of a plan for the students who are in green (at proficiency) as there is for the students who are in red. 

My plan is to meet with each grade level team and ask them to name the students performing at each level of proficiency, as well as information about each student in order to round out our understanding of what each child needs. Each grade level team will create a data wall that will track the interventions and progress for our students. This adds a level of accountability for the data. It also makes us constantly aware of where students are performing and our obligation to providing them what they need to move toward proficiency with grade level standards. 

Driving decisions with data is an essential component of school turnaround. The model above, which builds on a key quote from Peter Senge, supports the assertion that without the use of data to drive decisions, the underlying structures and mental models will not be significantly impacted. As Senge stated in The Fifth Discipline, "In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations where people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models - that is, they are responsible for learning." Turnaround leaders must own their data and be able to lead the next steps for changing the events, patterns, structures, and mental models underlying the practice in classrooms. Making significant change requires that we have a clear plan for moving our students toward proficiency. Every moment counts. 

Why Don't Some Changes "Take?"

I have been thinking deeply about why some schools are successful in school turnaround and others are not. What are the differences between a school or a district that experiences visible change and sees visible results and a school or district that is on a treadmill of trying things differently but getting the same result. While I believe that there are many things that ultimately impact this change, there is one key ingredient that is critical to every single component of the change. Systems.

Go to your bookshelf and grab your copy of Peter Senge's book, Schools That Learn. If you have never read Senge's work, it is really critical to understanding systemic change in any organization (buy it or download it here). Senge has spent his career studying businesses, the corporate world, schools, and higher education with the quesion of what underscores real and effective change in these large scale organizations. His theories on systems thinking and having a systems approach to imacting meanigful change speak to the underlying reason that some schools successfully turnaround and others do not. Here is Peter Senge in his own words explaining systems thinking in schools.

Systsems thinking requires that leaders (classroom leaders, school building leaders, district leaders, corporate leaders) see change in terms of the entire system - what are the actions that will be required at every level of the system and who is responsible for the successful implementation. This is significantly different from a leader issuing a memo stating what the change will be and then becoming frustrated when that change has not been thoroughly implemented or implemented to the degree in which the leader is satisfied. It's the same idea as we have been pushing in classrooms with the implementation of the Common Core - who is doing the thinking and who is doing the work? In learning organizations who are successful in implementing systemic change, everyone in the system is doing the thinking and the work around the key components of change as outlined by the leadership.

I was first introduced to Peter Senge's work in 2001, when I was invited by my principal to join her in a year long book study with other leaders throughout the county. I was mesmerized by the principles that Senge outlined and it made so much sense in light of the work we were engaged in at the time - continuously striving to get enough momentum to move the needle away from single digit student achievement and significantly disruptive and dangerous student behaviors, struggling to be more proactive and less reactive, and always struggling to get our staff on-board with our vision. In my twenty-four years in education, I have watched district and building leaders have varying degrees of success with the same issues - trying to get buy-in, make changes that stick, and move the needle on student achievement. But changing the system is different from making changes - and systemic change is the only thing that will ultimately result in the organization looking, feeling, and acting differently.

The image of an iceberg is used in many different ways to describe thinking. Senge's image of system thinking uses the iceberg to analyze what we see as opposed to what is the underlying reasoning or purpose. If we are to make real systemic change, we must focus on what is underneath and not simply on the surface of what we see.

The bottom of the image refers to "mental models." That's the thinking that goes in to the decision making of people in your system. No matter how much effort you as a leader put into changing the surface of your system, if you do not disrupt the thinking patterns, or mental models, of the people in the system (in schools that includes teachers, students, parents, and the community) then we will not succeed in implementing systemic change. For leaders (classroom leaders, school building leaders, or district leaders), this is critical. We must look at every aspect of the system and work to built capacity for every person in that system to see how we need them to think, act, and respond differently if we are to make a difference in how the entire system performs.