Chapter 21: Trends and Issues in P-12 Educational Change

Hello All.........here are my thoughts on a topic near and dear to my heart. Change in the K-12 Educational setting. Enjoy!

In the Preschool through 12th grade setting there has been periodic pressure for change in the system. Each time there is a push for change it is because of a perceived shortcoming in our public education system to meet te educational needs and realities of our society.

1) Sputnik in the 1950s through the 1960s
2) Nation at Risk Report, 1983
3) No Child Left Behind Act, 2001

There has been an increase in political and social pressure to improve our public school system.


Types of Change in Education:

There are two types of change: piecemeal, changing or adjusting one or two parts of a system, and systemic change, which redesigns or transforms the entire system.

I have currently been a part of the latter for the past seven years, as I have witnessed a systemic change in my school district (Los Angeles Unified). We have moved from a "teach whatever you want" district to a focused, standards-based instructional method. This change has taken time but students are showing clear improvement from the primary centers to the high school level.

There are several types of systemic change:

1) Statewide policy systemic change: policy makers typically think of this as systemic change.
2) Districtwide systemic change: how my district has changed over the past few years.
3) Schoolwide systemic change: the creation of Small Learning Communities, or reconstituting Professional Development time or foci.
4) Ecological systemic change: how one change affects the communities around it (interrelationships and interdependencies).

Product vs. Process Approaches to Change

The product of the change process is the redesigned or transformed educational system. The process is how a school, district, or system is transformed.

The Guidance System for Transforming Education (GSTE)

It was designed to provide guidelines to a facilitator engaging in a districtwide systemic change effort.

THE GSTE is made up of the following:

1)A set of core values about the change process.
2) A chronological series of activities for engaging in systemic change.
3) Activities that must be addressed continuously through much of the change process.

The events in the GSTE are listed below:

1) Initiate Systemic Change Effort: assess readiness for change.
2) Develop Starter Team: hold a retreat to develop team dynamic, assess community and district capacity for change, develop an agreement between team and district.
3) Develop District- Wide Framework and Capacity for Change: starter team expands into leadership team, indentifies current and recent change efforts, identifying changes in the community's educational needs, develop a mission, vision, and core values for an ideal school system.
4) Create Ideal Designs for a New Educational System: create building level desins, monitors the design team, creates a design for ideal district administrative and governance systems.

There is a lot to this design process, one that my district has been stuck in for many years. It is a very top down approach that focuses on district change, but does not take into account disparate communities and local schools willing or unwilling to adopt this change.

Step up to Excellence (SUTE)

Is a process designed to help change leaders in districts create and sustain whole district improvement. It is powered by the efforts of several teams, informal learning networks, and a special leadership role.

Strategic Leadership Team (SLT):
Provides leadership for the district and implements the SUTE.

Cluster Improvement Teams:
Clusters of feeder schools and supporting workers are units of change.

Site Improvement Teams:
Focuses on improvement within a department or school site. A common step when a school enters PI status in NCLB.

Organization Learning Networks:
Study groups, lesson study (formal and informal), critical friends groups.

On-Track Seminars:
Responsible for providing training and knowledge to share knowledge throughout the school system.

These are the main roles with a SUTE team. Overall, both approaches follow a planned design to intiate change within a school site or district. In order to be successful all stakeholders must buy into the process to achieve the desired results.