795B: Blog Reflection Two

Reiser & Dempsey: ch. 21– freechoice: #1 w/a little bit of #2

prompt:
Review the prerequisite conditions that need to be in place in a school system before it can successfully engage in whole-district change. Determine if these conditions exist in your district and assess their relative strength.

Assuming the prompt is referencing the process methodology “Step-Up-To-Excellence,” there are five conditions listed that must exist for “successful whole-district change.” I will address each one separately based on my prior knowledge of having worked in the same district for 15 years. It will be interesting to apply these parameters to the district, which does not seem to be able to commit to any lasting”whole-district change.”

The first condition is “Senior leaders who act on the basis of personal courage, passion, and vision; not on the basis of fear or self-survival.” Unfortunately, the term “senior leaders” is not defined, which begs the question of whether this refers to district-level personnel or may include some school administrators, although since pre-launch activities are to be conducted by the “superintendent of schools and several hand-picked subordinates.” Also mentioned is possible inclusion of a school board member or two. At this point, this condition is not met. The district has had repeated turn-over of superintendents, including an interim at one point, and the school board elections are regularly an embittered battle. In order for this condition to be established, a long-term superintendent not perceived as adversarial by the teachers would need to be hired; also, the district would need to see an election cycle that is not draped in controversy.

The second condition is to have “Senior leaders who conceive of their districts as whole systems; not as a collection of individual schools and programs.” Overall, this condition seems to be somewhat established. Much of the administration in one school has served at other school sites as well. The district has promoted and implemented several programs across the board, including Professional Learning Communities and, in English departments, a program called Cal-Pass, with our current focus aimed at implementing non-fiction curriculum at each grade level. Technology resources has drawn participants from all school sites and established an on-line lesson-bank available to all teachers. The overall effect seems to have brought some semblance of unity among schools in the district.

The third condition calls for “Leaders and followers who have a clear view of the opportuniteis that systemic redesign offers them; not a view of ‘We can’t do this because…’” Interestingly enough, the issue is not that the district isn’t open to implementing different changes but that no changes are embraced long enough to make an impact. Rather than being guilty of saying “We can’t do this because,” the more apropos quote is “We can do this… temporarily.” Support has come and gone for programs such as Powerschool, PLC’s, Cal-Pass, the Visions program, while the current district forwarded program is Response To Intervention.

The fourth condition is where “Leaders and followers who possess the professional intellect, change-minded attitudes, and change-management skills to move their districts toward higher levels of performance; not people without an inkling about the requirements of systemic change management.” This condition opens an interesting issue. Clearly, there is a professional intellect and change-minded attitude at the district level– programs that have found success in other areas are assessed and implemented; however, the quick turn-over of programs brings into question the third element: change-management skills. Several questions must be asked about the lack of long-term commitment to any one program: Is the district looking for a “magic bullet“? Do programs come and go because decisions are made “on the basis of fear or self-survival” as asked in the first condition– if it doesn’t immediately work it isn’t going to work? Is the frequent turnover at the district and administrative level resulting in each new personality fostering an “out with the old, in with the new” mentality? Some possible steps would be to do more front-end research on potential programs and aligning them to the district’s demographics and resources before making any commitments– and determining the length of commitment beforehand as well as the means of evaluation.

The fifth and last condition listed would be to have “Sufficient human, financial, and technical resources to launch systemic change with the knowledge that more resources will be required to sustain the effort…” Unfortunately, due to the current budget issues in California, the response to this condition is a definite “no.” While some monies do exist for smaller needs– such as curriculum writing– district-wide systemic change is currently difficult to find long-term funding. Even long-standing programs and departments, like those at Tech Resources, are up-in-the-air. For this kind of movement to be seriously considered, the state will have to be in a more economically stable climate.