Principals as leaders in standards-based reform

Excerpts from the remarks of M. Hayes Mizell at a meeting of all elementary, middle, and high school principals from the Corpus Christi Independent School District. The meeting was held on March 14, 1996 in the CCISD administrative offices in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Principals as Leaders in Standards-Based Reform

Somewhere in Corpus Christi there is a church marquee with a powerful message on it: "Faith will work if you do." That says a lot, and I probably should leave it alone, but I can't resist the temptation to adapt that message to say "Standards will work if you do."

This morning I want to talk with you about the principal's leadership role in implementing standards. The concepts of content and performance standards are still relatively new, and this school system is one of only a few in the nation committed to making academic standards a reality in all the district's schools. This is a necessary and noble cause, but the truth is that there are no models for how to implement standards so they increase student performance. You probably want direction, but there is no road map for you. There is only hard thinking and hard work ahead.

There are also risks. Some of you may want guarantees that standards will work magic on your teachers and your students. There are no such guarantees. Some of you may want the handbook on how to implement standards successfully. There is no such handbook. Like many other issues in education today, standards present difficult questions that depend on your experience, intellectual engagement, creativity and good faith for answers. Without the leadership of principals, standards will not result in more productive teaching and learning in your schools.

This leadership is easy for me to talk about but difficult for you to demonstrate. I suspect many of you see standards implementation as one more item on a very long list of tasks somebody expects you to carry out. You experience your jobs as responding to a variety of "shoulds," "oughts," and "musts," an array of expectations and mandates that come at you from many different directions.

There is no shortage of people and groups who want to set your priorities. Some people want your schools to focus on student control and order. Others want to make sure the most advantaged and able students get the best teachers and the most engaging curricula. Still others want you to give priority to athletics, students' social needs, or their self-esteem. It would surprise me if you wonder where or how standards you are supposed to fit standards into your list of dizzying tasks.

There is no shortage of people and groups who want to set your priorities . . . I suspect many of you see standards implementation as one more item on a very long list of tasks somebody expects you to carry out.

I want to suggest that you restructure your task list. Separate it into three parts. At the top of the list, write "Enabling students to perform at standard." Then insert two or three line spaces. List every task for which you are responsible that is necessary to enable students to perform at standard. Then insert several more line spaces, and then list all the other tasks you find on your plate. Now you have your list of priorities. Begin at the top.

If making sure students perform at standard is your first priority, then you will develop a respectful and caring learning environment not to control students but because it provides the context in which students can learn best. You will determine who gets which teachers and access to what curricula based on what all students need to perform at standard. You will provide all students with diverse opportunities to develop and demonstrate their talents because such opportunities reinforce the importance of achievement in all areas of schooling.

You can use standards to refocus your schools on what I believe should be their primary mission, to significantly increase what students know and can do. Unless you are clear that this is, in fact, the mission, and unless you and the central office agree that it is also the school district's mission, then standards will make little difference to your students. I do think it is important for principals and the central office to get straight on this issue. If enabling students to perform at standard is the priority, then it may call for reform in central office expectations and operations to support that priority. One of the leadership roles of principals is to insist that what the central office does reflects what the central office says.

If enabling students to perform at standard is the priority, then it may call for reform in central office expectations and operations to support that priority.

You can see that implementing standards is likely to be uncomfortable. Contrary to what most people assume, standards require educators to change more than they require students to change. Students will not perform at standard unless teachers increase their own knowledge of subject content, more successfully engage students in learning that content, and assign and assess student work congruent with the performance standards. Teachers will not be able to make these changes unless principals and site-based decisionmaking teams give priority to enabling students to perform at standard, and create the expectations, school culture, and support structures necessary for teachers to reform their practice.

Principals will not provide the leadership to implement standards unless the central office gears its systems, operations, admonitions, and priorities to encourage and support principals' efforts to enable students to perform at standard. In other words, standards implementation is primarily about adult learning, adult change, and adult risk, all towards the end of enabling every student to perform at higher levels.

The leadership of principals is needed at every level of this enterprise. You can begin with your site-based decision making teams. I don't know how well your teams are functioning or where they are focusing their energies, but I have little doubt that they need your help in keeping them focused on improving student performance. . . . (S)ite-based decision making teams have to play a much more aggressive and creative role in understanding the actual performance levels of students, and focusing schools and their communities on student performance. This is not a role site-based teams will adopt easily, and principals have a leadership role to play in helping them do so.

Each SBDM team and each principal also needs to grapple with this basic question: "How should this school structure itself to enable students to perform at standard?" Keeping this question high on the site-based decision making team's agenda is essential because an important dimension of standards-based reform is changing schools' organization and structures to more effectively support student and teacher learning.

We know that when teachers have time to analyze and reflect on their classroom practice, and to learn from
and collaborate with each other, they become better teachers. This is not rocket science.

For example, we know that all students perform better when they are in small settings where they consistently interact with the same group of students and develop close relationships with their teachers. These small communities of learning also provide better opportunities for teachers to get to know their students well, and understand how students learn best and what keeps them from learning. We know that when students have extended class time to cover more subject matter and understand it more thoroughly, their learning increases. We know that when teachers have time to analyze and reflect on their classroom practice, and learn from and collaborate with each other, they become better teachers. This is not rocket science.

However, in spite of what we know about "what works" in education, there are still many, many schools that are not re-forming themselves to create small learning communities, longer periods for instruction, and more time for teacher reflection and collaboration. This is a serious problem. It borders on education malpractice. Schools know how to create conditions under which students can learn better and teachers can be more effective, but schools are not acting on what they know to improve education.

What would we say about a doctor who knows about a promising medical treatment but refuses to risk using it on a sick patient? What would we say about a corporate board of directors that knows there are management practices that can increase the productivity of employees and the value of the company's stock but tolerates executives who refuse to implement the more effective practices? Why are both of these examples almost unimaginable, but it is acceptable for schools not to act on what they know will benefit students and teachers? This has to change, and it will only change if principals become strong advocates for structural reforms that create conditions under which students and teachers will be better able to perform at higher levels.

What would we say about a doctor who knows about a promising medical treatment but refuses to risk using it on a sick patient? Why is this example almost unimaginable, but it is acceptable for schools not to act on what they know will benefit students and teachers?

I make the case here that standards-based reform applies to the whole school, not just to teachers and students, and that principals need to exert leadership to ensure that this reform is integral to the school's structure, operations, and culture. In the final analysis, however, it will be in classrooms where content and performance standards succeed or fail. This means principals must pay just as much attention to teachers' use of content and performance standards in their classrooms as to the school-wide reforms to support the teachers' efforts. In Corpus Christi, principals will have to be especially vigilant because there has been some early success in standards implementation.

Many teachers have accepted the standards because some of their peers participated in the standards development, and these colleagues have been able to orient other teachers to the standards and explain their purpose. Teachers are also welcoming the standards because across the district they provide common direction about what teachers should teach. Teachers also appreciate knowing how the content they are covering relates to the content students learned, or should have learned, at lower grade levels as well as to the content students should learn at higher grade levels. Teachers and students' families seem to like the fact that the standards have introduced coherence, fairness, and predictability to coverage of subject content and instruction.

Of course, there is more work ahead. Teachers have to become more skilled at assigning work that will prepare students to perform at standard and they have to become more proficient at assessing what students actually know and can do. Principals need to make sure teachers are developing and honing these skills in ways that increase student performance. This means that principals need to provide leadership to standards-based reform by spending more time in classrooms.

However, occasional visits to classes will not provide principals with the information they need to understand whether standards are spurring teachers towards more effective instruction and more productive student engagement in learning. Principals will have to make time to be in classrooms more routinely, for longer periods of time, and they will need to go into these classes with ideas about the kinds of changes in teacher practice that are indicative of more effective instruction.

This leadership by principals at the classroom level is necessary because there is a
looming problem in standards implementation. Now that the school system has developed and disseminated the standards, and teachers have accepted them, teachers' practice may remain largely unchanged. There are still classrooms where students are engaged in worksheets but where it is less clear how well students understand what they are learning, or whether the worksheets will enable the students to demonstrate what they know and can do. There are still hallways with little or no student work, or where there are displays of uncorrected student work. As I have said before, and as I will keep on saying, students will not perform at standard if teachers do not change their practice so they are more effective in engaging students in learning.

The school system has academic standards that describe the levels of performance students should demonstrate,
but I wonder if the school system has standards
for exemplary teacher practice.

The school system has promulgated academic standards that delineate the content teachers should cover and the levels of performance students should demonstrate, but I wonder if the school system has standards for exemplary teacher practice. I am not suggesting that there should be such standards because teaching is truly an art rather than a science. At the same time, however, I do think it would be appropriate for the central office, in collaboration with representative teachers and administrators, to wrestle with identifying pedagogy and practice that is most likely to enable students to perform at standard. If nothing else, this process would help principals develop a point of view about teacher behaviors that can increase student performance, and this would, in turn, inform principals' perspectives when they visit classrooms.

In any case, the successful implementation of standards-based reform is absolutely dependent on the leadership of principals, and that leadership must be in evidence at the classroom level as well as throughout the school. Principals must develop a clear vision of the kind of teaching they believe is necessary to enable students to perform at standard, and through the hiring, support, and supervision of teachers they must provide the leadership to bring that vision to fruition in classrooms.

I know your roles are very difficult and the demands on you are very heavy. Perhaps you have interpreted these remarks as one more pleading to give priority to a special interest. In a way you are right. I do not apologize for pleading for you to focus your role, your responsibility, and your moral authority on student performance. I do not apologize for asking you to bear the burden of leading true reforms at your schools that you know are best for the education of your students.

I do not apologize for this special pleading because you and this school system are at an important juncture. The academic standards provide the framework for refocusing your schools on their original academic mission and on student performance. Now the question is whether you will compromise the standards by small, ineffectual changes at the margins that require little of schools and teachers, and will yield little or no results, or whether you will use the standards as a catapult to major reforms in your buildings and classrooms, and on to significantly higher levels of student performance.

On behalf of the thousands of your students who are depending on you and your schools, I am asking you to choose the path that is hard for you but full of promise for the young people of this community.

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