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(Remarks of M. Hayes Mizell on the panel, "What Key Reformers Have Learned About Reform," at the annual conference of the National Staff Development Council. The conference was held on December 6, 1999 at the Wyndham Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.)

A Middle Grades Reformer
Tells It Like It Is

Ten years ago, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation set out to encourage and assist a small number of urban school systems to make their middle schools more challenging and engaging. Our theory of action was simple, or perhaps in retrospect I should characterize it as "simplistic." We sought to identify a few school systems where central office leaders wanted to work with two or three middle schools to shift from what we believed was a disproportionate emphasis on affective education to a greater focus on academics.

It was our hope that the school systems would take what they learned from this experience and apply these lessons to all other middle schools in the respective school districts. In the beginning, we did not use either the words "reform" or "achievement." Further, we were not attempting to propagate a specific model for school improvement. We believed that ultimately school systems and schools had to chart their own course towards creating middle schools that would successfully engage all students in academic work.

Within two years, however, we learned that our approach was too narrow and vague. We began to use the words "reform" and "achievement" more intentionally and more forcefully. We brought in a second tier of several school systems that from the beginning involved all middle schools, not just two or three, in a systemic approach to reform. This effort was somewhat more promising and for several years we simultaneously funded the first group of school systems, those focused on two or three middle schools, and the second group, those seeking to reform all their middle schools.

This continued until 1995 when the Foundation began a new initiative that we now describe as "systemic, standards-based reform of the middle grades." We began with six school systems, two from the original 1989 group, two from the second group, and two that had no previous relationship with the Foundation. To be eligible for funding, each school system had to establish a quantitative student performance goal, delineating the percentage of students completing the eighth grade in 2001 who would perform at standard in math, science, language arts, and social studies. It is our hope that by establishing and publicly committing themselves to their goal, the school systems will consider and take action to implement reforms that will cause significantly greater proportions middle school students to perform at standard by the end of the eighth grade.

Though the Foundation is not prescribing what actions the school systems should take, but they have chosen to use the majority of their grants for staff development. There is a high degree of accountability in this initiative, with each school system participating in both an external qualitative and an external quantitative evaluation. Indeed, it now appears that by the final two-years of the project we will only be funding three of the original six school systems. This is because of our assessment that three of the school systems were not on a steady trajectory of reform that had the potential to significantly increase student performance, at least not in the next several years.

A Host of Lessons

Our experiences during the past decade have yielded a host of lessons. I will mention only a few of these here.

First, many policymakers, whether they be state legislators, state boards of education, or local school boards, assume that teachers and administrators have a much greater capacity to implement reforms than is actually the case. These policymakers are under the illusion that just because they enact a policy, law, or regulation educators will implement it in the way that the policymakers imagined--I emphasize the word "imagine"--and the beneficial results the policymakers intended will follow. In nearly all cases, the policymakers assume that educators have the necessary knowledge, skills, flexibility, will, and time to bring the policy successfully to fruition.

The fact that we have much more policy than we have reform that improves student performance is testimony to the lack of capacity among front line educators to implement reforms effectively. This reality demonstrates the need for policy that is less sweeping but more grounded in an understanding of how much change practitioners can learn and implement, at what pace, and what level of support they need to do so. But whether it is policymakers, foundations, or superintendents prompting the reform, they need to understand that there can be no success without intensive, sustained, high quality staff development. The capacity among teachers and administrators to do what we are now saying is important, to cause all students to perform at significantly higher levels, simply does not currently exist among most educators. This capacity will not exist unless states, school systems, and schools act intentionally to develop it.

This does not mean that educators cannot make a difference in the education and lives of students. Probably all of us can describe how at least one educator's belief in us and demands on us make a difference in our own lives. But if this is ever going to become the norm, not just the occasional anecdote, then the expectations, knowledge, and skills of many more educators have to change. That will not happen just by telling them they must change; there have to be opportunities for them to learn how. That takes more than policy, law, and regulation. It requires a lot of support and practice, not just now and then, but frequently and over time.

A second lesson we have learned is that context matters. Reform cannot occur in an environment that is indifferent or hostile to it. No matter how much money legislatures and school boards appropriate for reform, and no matter how forceful the mandates for it, reforms that increase student achievement will not occur, except in name only, where educators do not translate reform into new and more effective practice.

Reform means difficult professional and perhaps personal change. For these reasons it is understandable that educators welcome reforms that require more of others than themselves. Reductions in class size, more teachers, equitable school financing, full service schools, and new school buildings and safer schools are all essential, but they will not cause students to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to perform at standard. That will only occur as a result of more effective leadership at the school and classroom levels, and better teaching.

We have learned that when principals and teachers feel the pressure of considered, coherent reform on the one hand, but the support of high quality staff development on the other, they are more likely to embrace rather than resist change in their practice. Indeed, they often become re-energized, believing anew in their ability to make a difference in the learning of their students. Quality staff development can help create the context necessary for productive reform to take root and grow.

The Revolving Door Syndrome

Unfortunately, staff development cannot do much about other contextual factors that jeopardize reform. Even in school systems and schools that are serious about making changes to increase student achievement, over and over again we have seen reform jeopardized by the coming and going of school board members, superintendents, principals, and teachers. It seems that just when a school system or school is beginning to develop some hope that teaching and learning can improve, there is a shuffling of key personnel.

The real tragedy is that this seems to be accepted in public education. The school board is always looking for a better superintendent, or at least one who is competent but not bold. The teachers union is perennially guarding the prerogatives of experienced teachers to transfer out of the most diverse and economically disadvantaged schools. The superintendent is always moving the productive principals too quickly and the ineffective principals too slowly. School reform cannot survive in this context, and even quality staff development cannot have as profound effects as it would in a more stable environment. If this is just "how it is" in public schools, it is no wonder more parents are seeking educational alternatives.

A third lesson is that just because there is site-based management, a hundred flowers do not necessarily bloom. Where there is a strong, entrepreneurial principal and a highly professional faculty, site-based management may provide the authority they need to implement significant reforms. However, such cases seem to be the exception rather than the rule. The norm is that where one finds effective teaching and higher student performance, it is almost impossible to distinguish the schools that are site-based from those that are not. I suppose one can argue that the reason for this is that in many cases site-based management is that in name only, but on the whole my impression is that schools do not make effective use whatever authority and flexibility they currently have.

Even though one of our nation's major political parties repeats "returning decisionmaking to local schools" many times a day as a mantra to invoke reform and improved learning, experience does not indicate this is a promising strategy. This is not to argue that school systems should discourage site-based management, but rather that it is not as powerful a tool for reform as its proponents claim. In fact, in many school systems it means that neither schools nor the central office play a leadership role that develop and advances reforms to increase student achievement. Instead, some school boards and superintendents seem to use site-based management as an excuse for why they cannot provide more forceful leadership reform. They say they cannot act because under site-based management key decisions are reserved to the schools. Schools say they cannot act because, in fact, the central office exercises more authority than it claims. The result is a leadership stalemate that stifles rather than stimulates reform.

School Districts Have Yielded Their Destinies to Their States

A fourth lesson is that by default many school systems and schools have yielded their educational destinies to their states. As the public and state policymakers have become increasingly frustrated by the slow, incremental improvements in student performance, they have increased the grip of state assessment and accountability systems. They have taken these actions because school systems and schools did not respond to previous cues from policymakers that there was growing public dissatisfaction with the quality of schools and the performance of students.

Some states, such as Texas and North Carolina, have taken a serious, coherent, and sustained approach to assessment and accountability with apparent good results, though there is strong disagreement about the equity and effects of even these states' approaches. Some school systems are now mimicking their states, developing their own local accountability systems.

But throughout the nation, the short-term effects seem to be that, as policymakers intended, the assessment and accountability systems are driving decisions at the classroom level about what is taught, how it is taught, and how long it is taught. In education this dynamic is called "alignment" but there is an unintended consequence that is not healthy for teaching and learning.

Because powerful state assessments are now linked to fearsome accountability systems, most school systems and schools think of themselves as being accountable to the state for student performance. Educators expect to be held accountable by their states or school systems, rather than holding themselves accountable for students' performance. They obsess over their students' performance on the state test, rather than over what their students really know and can do, and credible, school-based evidence to support it.

Increasingly, educators equate student learning with student performance on the state test, rather than taking the initiative to develop, use, and make transparent more compelling evidence of what students actually know and can do. Perhaps it is unrealistic to think that public education can do better, but I worry that if educators are focused more on their accountability to the state or school district than on their accountability to their students, their internal professionalism will wither.

On a more immediate and practical level, the state tests and accountability systems are so powerful that they threaten to overwhelm all other reforms. Increasingly, reforms are judged by their potential to raise students' scores on state tests, rather than whether they will set in motion a chain of professional behaviors that will result in more substantive student learning. However, until local educators take the collective initiative to hold themselves accountable for causing students to meet and exceed academic standards, and until they persuasively demonstrate, for all the world to see, what their students know and can do, we can expect education to be more about performance on state tests rather than about deeper student learning.

No Place for Half-Hearted Staff Development

A fifth lesson is that in school reform there is no place for ill-conceived, superficial, half-hearted, a dash-here-and-a-dollop-there staff development, descriptions that one can still accurately apply to most of what passes for staff development in this nation. We now know that what improves classroom practice and school leadership is tailored, intensive, sustained staff development that includes follow-up support, practice, feedback, and evaluation. There simply is no excuse for taking the time of teachers and principals to participate in anything else.

Even though more school systems and schools are becoming aware of the features of high-yield staff development, the old approaches prevail. This makes true reform more difficult and unlikely. It is why so much depends on NSDC's forceful advocacy for high quality staff development, and on a dramatic change in practice by persons at the state, school system, and school levels responsible for staff development.

There are more lessons I could share, but I will conclude with just one more. In every school there are some teachers who, in spite of tremendous daily challenges, are deeply committed to their students and their learning. In every school system there are some principals who want to lead, not just administer.

There are not enough of these teachers and principals but they are the hope for school reform in this country. Time and again, they respond when there are opportunities for them to learn and strengthen their practice. They answer sensible calls for reform and give their best efforts to make it produce positive results for students. They are the teachers and principals who not only need the encouragement and support of central office administrators but greater efforts to swell their ranks.

For that to happen, the tens of thousands of teachers and principals who are not yet at their levels of professionalism need to see that reform is workable and worthy of their labor. They need to see that their school systems and schools are slashing bureaucratic burdens that have little or nothing to do with increasing student learning. They need to experience school reform as thoughtful and efficient rather than as symbolic and chaotic. They need to know that they and their students are beneficiaries of the reform process, not just pawns of it.

For this to occur, many more school boards, superintendents, and central office administrators will have to begin to act very differently. Unless they do, I fear that our greatest and most unfortunate lesson will be that the critics of public schools are right, that school systems cannot and will not reform themselves.