If school reform wasn't hard, everybody would do it

Remarks of HayesMizell at the Atlanta Public Schools' Mini-Conference on Middle Schools on January 24, 1995 . The theme of the conference was "GO: Middle School Reform in Progress." It was attended by approximately 350 middle school administrators and teachers, as well as by the superintendent, several of the school system's board members, and central office staff. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.

If It Wasn't Hard, Everybody Would Do It

Because you know I visit many other cities around the nation, I am sure many of you are asking the question, "What are other urban school systems doing to reform their middle schools? What success are they having?"

On the surface, this question seems innocent enough, but I have learned that different motives prompt this question. Many people are genuinely curious about how other school systems are struggling with middle school reform. There are others, however, who want to know about school systems that are more serious about reform so they can find some reason why their school system cannot do they same. Everyone thinks his or her school system or school is unique and to a certain extent they are right. All school systems and schools are distinctive, with their own styles, cultures, problems, and idiosyncrasies, but they are not as unique as they would like to think.

Educators are quick to find reasons why they cannot do what other educators in other school systems or schools are doing. This is one reason why model programs are so slow to spread. In spite of the fact that blueprints for whole-school reforms such as the School Development Program, Accelerated Schools, Paideia, Total Quality Schools, Coalition of Essential Schools, Montessori schools and others have demonstrated considerable potential, relatively few school systems and schools have rushed to embrace them.

Others think maybe someone has discovered the magic. For these people, 'magic' is a process, project, program, or technique that will produce startling results
with only modest effort.

Still others want to know what is going on in urban school systems elsewhere because they think maybe someone has discovered the magic. For these people, magic is a process, project, program, or technique that will produce startling results with only modest effort. Of course, this expectation is just an extension of our culture. If you buy a certain kind of shampoo, then your hair will curl and you will not have to roll it. If you eat cereal with oat bran it will help clean out your arteries and you will not have to stop eating fatty foods. If you use this or that curriculum package or technology then your students will make remarkable achievement gains and you will not really have to change how you teach or how you operate your school. But middle school reform is not a project or a program, it is a complex set of new interactions and behaviors among adults that enable students to meet academic standards.

People may use the rhetoric of reform, but in fact many of them want no part of it because it requires risk and hard work. I am sure many of you saw that movie several years ago, "A League of Their Own," about the women's professional baseball teams during the 1940's. Perhaps you were struck, as I was, by one brief scene in the movie. The character, played by Geena Davis, was leaving her team because her husband had returned home from World War II. She was the star of the team and its manager, played by Tom Hanks, was urging her not to leave. He kept pressing her for the real reason she was leaving and finally she said, "It just got too hard." Tom Hanks' reply is a useful reminder for all of us. He said, "Of course it's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everybody would do it. It's the hard that makes it great."

Middle school reform is hard, and it's the hard that makes it great. There is no magic and no shortcut. There are many approaches, processes, methods, and techniques that can be helpful but they only work if teachers and administrators want to change as much as they want students to change. There are many schools with dozens of projects which may be helpful to some individual students, but in the aggregate they have little impact on the quality of education for most students. It is not how many projects a school or school system has, it is what kind of projects they have, and whether they are elements of a deliberate and coherent strategy to enhance student performance.

So, while I appreciate your interest in what other school systems are doing, you can see why I have mixed feelings about citing what is happening in specific cities or specific schools. That information is readily available, and anyone who wants it can easily get it. There is no shortage of information about what to do and how to go about it; what is lacking is the will to do it. Instead of pointing to specific school systems or schools, I want to make more general observations about what it takes to seriously launch and sustain systemic middle school reform.

Special programs and projects don't equal school reform

I begin by acknowledging my bias. The purpose of reform should be to increase student learning. I point this out because so many media, from newspapers to television to popular magazines to professional journals, communicate disparate views of what school reform is all about. The goals seem to include one or more of the following: safe schools, orderly schools, drug-free schools, clean schools, diverse schools, inclusive schools, schools with happy students, schools with high attendance rates, schools with low dropout rates, schools with low suspension and expulsion rates, schools that focus on "the basics," schools with strong links to the community, schools with supportive business partners, schools with many parents involved, schools that provide health services, schools that foster technological proficiency, site-based managed schools, schools that organize and structure themselves in particular ways, and schools where certain types of curricula and pedagogy prevail.

The purpose of reform should be to increase student learning. I point this out because so many media,
from newspapers to television to popular magazines to professional journals, communicate disparate views
of what school reform is all about.

No one can argue that these are not desirable characteristics for schools. But some of them are prerequisites for effective education while others are a consequence of effective education. None of them, however, should become the primary goal of reform. Many people contend that in trying to develop schools with these characteristics, it is "understood" that the goal is student learning. Perhaps this is true, but increased student learning seldom seems to be the result.

Schools devote enormous energy, time, and money to special programs and projects to develop one or more of the characteristics I just mentioned. De facto, the focus is not on student learning, but on the effort it takes to implement the program or project. As a result, a few students may benefit but most do not. There is little difference in what students learn or do not learn simply because these characteristics are or are not in place. For the school as a whole, the effect on student learning is often negligible.

This leads us to the first issue any school system faces when it considers embracing middle school reform. What is "middle school reform" anyway? Some people act as though reform is doing anything new or different. Obviously, that is not reform. Others assume middle school reform means the process of becoming schools with a sixth through eighth grade configuration. In fact, there are many urban school systems that began the process of converting 7-9 junior high schools to 6-8 middle schools, and succeeded in changing the grade configuration but did little else. This is why one sees so many middle schools that include grades six through eight but otherwise are barely distinguishable from the old junior highs.

Still other people assume middle school reform is adopting the structures and processes typically associated with middle schools. These include features such as a house system, interdisciplinary teams, advisory programs, exploratory courses, block scheduling, and perhaps interdisciplinary curricula, cross-age grouping, and even one cohort of students remaining with one team of teachers for three consecutive years. These are good things to do. They can be very important. High schools would be a lot better off if they implemented some of these structures and processes. But while implementing these may represent a first step towards middle school reform, in and of themselves they do not constitute reform.

Too many middle schools confuse the implementation of these structures and processes with good education. It is not unusual to encounter principals or teachers who consider their middle schools to be "good" simply because they have these characteristics. Yet, some of these schools also have low expectations of students, limited access to challenging and engaging curricula, large proportions of low-achieving students, high rates of disciplinary referrals, and poor attendance.

Just as having a school with grades six through eight is not reform, neither is having a middle school that simply "installs" the structures and processes traditionally associated with middle schools. These can provide a useful foundation for reform, but even to serve this purpose, schools must make these patterns of organization work to benefit students.

Reform is not the goal, but the means to the goal

What is "middle school reform?" The answer lies in understanding that reform is not the goal we are seeking, it is the means to the goal. What, then, is the "goal?" The goal is students who can perform at much higher academic levels than they think possible. To put it more concretely, the goal is a high proportion of eighth grade students meeting academic standards in at least math, science, language arts, and social studies.

There may be some people in this audience, though I hope not, who believe that academic performance is not that important for students in the middle grades. Some people think schools need to give more attention to raising students' self-esteem, helping them learn how to get along with their peers, teaching them basic survival skills, and making students feel successful. These are important, but there is a more compelling reason for enabling students to meet high standards. We need to help students develop the attitudes, habits, skills, and self-confidence so that as adults they will be able to keep themselves and their families out of poverty.

For this reason, it is good that the movement for content and performance standards has It seems obvious that school systems should know what they want students to know and be able to do as a result of their educational experiences in the public schools. Developing these standards and gaining support for them among teachers and parents is not easy, but there is a growing consensus that standards are necessary. They provide an achievement target that all can see. They create the potential for school systems, teachers, parents, and communities to work together to enable students to hit the target. Will all students hit the bulls-eye? Certainly not, but they have a better chance of hitting it if they can see the target than if the target is lost in a fog, and if its size and shape keeps changing.

If students meeting high academic standards is the goal we are seeking, how do school systems and middle schools reform to achieve this result? The entire focus of the school system must be to raise student achievement and enable students to meet academic standards. The school board and superintendent must direct not only their words but their deeds towards this end. We have found that in school systems that are serious about increasing student achievement in the middle grades, the school board, superintendent, and central office staff are "on the same page." They agree that enabling students to meet standards is the school system's priority, and together they develop strategies to pursue this goal.

Central offices have earned a bad reputation over many years by issuing orders instead of cultivating consensus. Just as individual schools must develop new visions
of educating students, central offices must develop
new visions of fostering building-level reform.

There is an appropriate role for central offices to play in reform. Central offices have earned a bad reputation over many years by issuing orders instead of cultivating consensus, and by maintaining staff sinecures instead of providing technical assistance at the school site. Nevertheless, just as individual schools must develop new visions of how to more effectively educate students, central offices must develop new visions of how to foster and support building-level to reform. The central office, by which I mean the school board, superintendent, and staff, can emphasize the urgency of reform, define what students should know and be able to do as a result of their education, and monitor schools' performance in preparing students to meet these goals.

The words that best define the role of the central office in school reform are: "lead," "facilitate," "coordinate," "support," "monitor," "assess," and "hold accountable." The words that best describe the role of individual schools are: "plan," "implement," and "results." There is no reason, in other words, why school reform cannot be both a "top down" and a "bottom up" process. Indeed, it is essential if reform is to be systemic and sustained.

School systems must hold themselves accountable for results

To advance middle school reform, school systems must hold themselves accountable for whether reform results in ever larger proportions of students meeting eighth grade academic standards. We are now incorporating this principle into our grantmaking. We will not recommend Foundation support for any school system that does not commit to publishing an annual report on the state of middle school reform. This annual report must clearly describe the (1) specific student achievement goals the schools the school system is seeking through middle school reform, (2) the activities the central office and each middle school is undertaking to achieve the goals, (3) the advances and setbacks the central office and the individual schools have experienced in implementing their activities, and (4) it must present student performance data for the school systems as a whole and for each middle school.

The purpose of this annual report is for the central office and middle schools to focus on student achievement goals, reflect on the progress and problems they have encountered in trying to meet these goals, and fully disclose to the public the levels of students' performance. One objective is for the school systems to hold themselves accountable, but another is to get the school systems off the defensive. If the public is going to understand and support middle school reform, it will have to understand what the school system and schools are trying to accomplish, and that reform is a difficult process.

If the central office must think and act differently to promote and support middle school reform, this is all the more true of individual schools. Students will not meet academic standards if schools, administrators, and teachers do not change. If schools continue to operate as they do now, if administrators continue to function as they do now, and if teachers continue to teach as they do now, students' performance will not improve. Urban school systems know this better than anyone, because in spite of myriad initiatives, student achievement in many cities is unimpressive or declining.

The first step to reform is a cold, hard look at yourself

So how does a school begin to reform? The first step is for the school to take a cold, hard look at itself. Many schools begin with a structured self-assessment or "taking stock" process as a first step towards increasing educators' understanding of the gap between what the school should be doing and what it is doing. Others use a process of reflection or planning as a way of helping educators distance themselves from day-to-day pressures and look more objectively at their schools' practices.

After a school's staff gains some perspective on the school's practices, it is ready to turn its attention to what the school should be and do. This is necessary because the faculties of many schools do not agree on what their schools should be trying to accomplish. Their understanding of the school's purpose is shaped by federal and state mandates, school board policies, the principal's directions, and the curricula teachers use, but these are likely to be disparate and perhaps conflicting.

It is possible, even probable, that a school's staff have never reached consensus about the school's focus. This is why in many schools there is no focus, academic or otherwise. Instead, the school's mission looks like the battered road signs you see at some intersections, hard to read and pointing in so many different directions it is problematic whether you will reach your destination. As a result, too many students don't reach theirs.

Reform cannot be the responsibility of just the school principal or even a school-based management team, because the people who will make or break reform
are classroom teachers.

Increasingly, advocates for reform require or recommend that all a school's staff participate in this process of self-assessment, taking stock and planning. We have learned that successful whole-school reform demands the involvement and support of most, if not all, of a school's faculty. Other reform initiatives require that 75 percent or more of the faculty vote that they will actively participate in and support the implementation of reform. In either case, reform cannot be the responsibility of just the school principal or even a school-based management team, because the people who will make or break reform are classroom teachers. Reform cannot succeed unless teachers agree that it is necessary, understand what it will require of them, and know they will get the support they need to implement it.

It is hard for any of us to look at the results of our work and acknowledge that we are not achieving the results we want. In fact, it is more than hard, it is painful and humiliating. Perhaps this is why it is so rare for a school, an administrator, or a teacher to seek help. I often ask teachers if they had new, undesignated funds to use in any way they chose to increase student achievement, how would they use these funds? The answers are almost always the same. They say they would reduce class size, extend the school day, provide more counseling or social services, provide enrichment experiences for students, or purchase new technologies. They almost never say they would learn more about their students and how they learn, or of the subject matter they teach, or improve their teaching skills.

Recently, when in a request for proposal I asked some middle schools to identify school-based barriers that keep students from performing at high levels, in early drafts I got answers such as "lack of support at home," "poor attendance," "level of achievement of students entering the sixth grade," and "lack of motivation." These may be many things, but they are not school-based barriers to learning, barriers which exist primarily because of the policies and practices of the school and its staff.

You have to use the power you have - and you do have some

It is easy to talk about middle school reform but it is hard to accomplish it. When the subject of middle school reform comes up, there seems to be a natural inclination by educators to focus on what they cannot control, rather than what they can control. At the building level, educators cite the union, the central office, lack of money, lack of time, problems in the community, or students themselves as the problem. At the central office, people talk about the same things except they also cite the uneven quality of principals and teachers. To hear some of these discussions, one would think that educators have no power, control, or authority. In fact, they have a good deal more than they acknowledge.

Throughout our nation's history, there have been individuals and groups of people whom the larger society considered marginal and powerless, but who prevailed because they used the power they did have, not the power they did not have. King George thought the colonists were upstarts. Most people thought abolitionists were nutty radicals seriously out of touch with the mainstream. Most professional politicians thought Franklin Roosevelt was finished as a rising political star when he became disabled. Lyndon Johnson thought college students knocking on doors in New Hampshire posed no threat to his nomination for a second term.

Most people thought it was ridiculous for Fannie Lou Hamer to try to get impoverished African-American sharecroppers in Mississippi to vote, much less to join with others to create a new state political party. When John Lewis and many others lay bleeding on the Edmund Pettis Bridge, or were in full retreat back to Selma, no one thought they had power, but they used the power of their bodies and their courage to move Congress to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

If our nation's history proves anything, it is that people can go a long way by using the power they have rather than worrying about the power they don't have. People have started things no one thought could be started. People have stopped things no one thought could be stopped. People have succeeded when other people thought they had no resources for success. Sadly, many middle schools seem to lack this particular brand of determination when it comes to middle school reform. There is good reason for this, of course, because middle school reform calls for professional reformation. It means that people in the school responsible for education and administration have to change what they do and how they do it.

If you don't think reform is hard, just imagine what it takes to reform on a more personal level - to quit smoking, to lose ten pounds, or to jog two miles a day. Thhis is why high quality staff development is such
an essential component of middle school reform.

This is scary and difficult, just as it would be for me if someone told me I should start doing my job differently. If you don't think it's hard, just imagine what it takes to reform on a more personal level -- to quit smoking, to lose ten pounds, or to jog two miles a day. The changes teachers and administrators have to make are at least this difficult and probably more so. This is why high quality staff development is such an essential component of middle school reform.

The reforms that count the most are those that help teachers develop the attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, and skills they need to enable students to perform at higher levels. This requires staff development that cuases teachers to do five things: (1) believe their students have the intelligence and talents necessary to meet high standards, (2) increase their knowledge and understanding of the content they teach, (3) develop and use appropriate curricula, (4) more effectively engage students in inquiry, practice, and dialogue rlated to high content, and (5) more accurately assess students' progress towards meeting standards.

Most staff development is of low quality or simply not relevant

Unfortunately, the staff development most teachers get in urban school systems is not helpful. In most cases, it is neither high quality nor relevant to the challenges teachers face in preparing students to meet standards. Whether staff development is primarily the responsibility of the central office, individual schools, or a shared responsibility, it is in serious need of reform. To illustrate this, I want to share with you an excerpt from a recent evaluation report of middle school reform in a major school system. This is a school system that many consider to be a leader in reform, and it is one with greater staff development capacities than most. Yet the evaluators reported:

We saw several classes in which teachers were integrating curriculum, making reasonable attempts to connect the content with children's experience, providing group learning experiences, and expecting high quality work. Yet, many children did not appear to understand the key content that they would need to move on and achieve at higher levels, and they did not have the opportunity to learn that content in the class...

We saw teachers who thought that any answer a child gave, because he constructed it, had to be accepted, even if the child was subverting the purpose of the lesson. We saw teachers who were confused by students' answers, but who did not want to express their confusion. They missed, therefore, opportunities to probe students' thinking and use the confusion as a teaching and learning opportunity. We saw teachers who realized, as students raised questions, that they had not thought through the implications of their lesson, and did not know how to proceed. When stymied by these conditions, they tended to revert to more directive modes of teaching...

At the moment, and in our view, too few children have the opportunity to truly understand the material they are studying. Too many students present teachers with learning difficulties that the teachers still do not understand and are unable to address. Many teachers still need a great deal of access to professional development opportunities if they are to learn what they need to know to facilitate greater student achievement.

Just in case you are tempted to react too smugly to these problems, I want to point out that the evaluators also stated, "these stumbling blocks bedevil teachers, staff developers, and researchers across the country." In other words, there are no easy answers. But we do know that we have to to make greater efforts to involve teachers in staff development that addresses the realities of impeding higher levels of student performance.

" We saw teachers who were confused by students' answers, but who did not want to express their confusion. They missed, therefore, opportunities to probe students' thinking and use the confusion as a teaching and learning opportunity. "

Making staff development more effective is similar to other areas of reform: knowing what to do and doing it are two very different things. Too much staff development in this nation is inappropriate and wasteful. It fails to address either teachers' needs or provide teachers with the follow-up support required for them to apply successfully what they learned. This is why I now believe that four questions should guide school systems and schools as they conceive and plan staff development.

The first question relates to the purpose of staff development: What new attitudes/behaviors/ knowledge/skills do teachers need to enable students to perform at high levels? The second question concerns the method of staff development: What are the most effective means for teachers to develop the attitudes/behaviors/knowledge/skills they need to enable students to perform at higher levels? The third question addresses the implementation of staff development: What evidence will indicate that teachers are applying fheir new attitudes/behaviors/ knowledge/skills to enable students to perform at higher levels? And the fourth question deals with the results of staff development: How will we know that students are performing at higher levels because of teachers ' new attitudes/behaviors/knowledge/skills?

In other words, the purpose of staff development should be directly linked to enhancing student performance. This means schools and school systems must carefully conceive and plan it, effectively implement it, and rigorously assess its effects on students. In this day when so many students are performing so far below their potential, there is no excuse for staff development that is sloppy, fragmented, and unrelated to teachers' and students' needs.

Good staff development is intensive and hard work

Do we know what works? We certainly do. Let me tell you a story of one successful staff development program. A former national teacher of the year developed an approach to teach strengthen writing across the curriculum. A school system asked her to work with groups of teachers from several middle schools. During the summer, the consultant conducted a one-week workshop for a group of teachers. From the beginning, the consultant approached the teachers with the expectation that they could and should perform at higher levels, and that all the teachers' students could and should write better. She also approached the teachers with respect, and during the workshop worked with them as colleagues. She did not talk at them or down to them.

The staff development was intensive and hard work because it was constructionist; teachers were developing their own curriculum materials and doing much of the same kind of work they would be expecting of their students. The consultant also developed personal as well as professional relationships with the teachers. She often shared drinks, pizza and laughter with them after each day's workshop.

When the summer staff development was over and the consultant returned home, she wrote the teachers a memo thanking them for their hard work and good times, and reminding them she would be visiting their classrooms in several months and looked forward to working with them. In a few months, she did appear in the teachers' classrooms, observing how they were using what they had learned and consulting with the teachers about problems and challenges. In the afternoon, the consultant met with the teachers as a group. She pointed out common problems, made suggestions for improvement, and together the teachers and consultant sought to develop solutions to problems teacher were experiencing in their classrooms.

Here we see staff development with all the essential elements: seriousness of purpose, hard work, related
to teachers' and students' needs, with follow up, accountability, and support built in.

When the consultant once again returned home, she wrote teacher a memo commending the teacher on areas of growth or improvement, and making specific suggestions for how the teacher could improve further. Again, the consultant reminded the teacher she would be returning to the teacher's classroom and looked forward to observing the teachers' continued growth. This process repeated itself over and over during several years. It is no wonder that the teachers came to value and even love the consultant. It is not surprising that even the best teachers in their group improved, and all the teachers developed new enthusiasm and energy for teaching and greater commitment to their students. It is almost anti-climatic to say that the teachers' students began to write more often, to write better, and to write at levels neither they nor their teachers once thought possible.

Here we see staff development with all the essential elements: seriousness of purpose, hard work, related to teachers and students needs, follow up, accountability, support, and most important, more effective teachers and better learning. This high quality staff development is all too rare, but it gives us a glimpse of what staff development can and must become. School reform is a people-dependent enterprise. It is labor-intensive work. There are no shortcuts. It requires profound changes in personal interactions as well as in professional practice.

You can't buy school reform off the shelf

At any major education conference these days, there are vendors who, in effect, promise that if you buy their product or program, your schools will function better and your students will benefit. The hidden message behind many of these offerings is that they are convenient and that if you use them, you will have to invest less of your own time and energy. It is natural that people who are as overburdened as teachers and administrators are looking for ways to lighten their loads; indeed, the the vendors count on it. Unfortunately, however, it is not possible to purchase school reform off the shelf. It requires new, more productive forms of personal interaction and professional practice. It calls for facing the hard reality that current practices do not produce results students need. It demands identifying and trying and improving practices that have greater potential to produce better results.

It has not been necessary in these remarks for me to point you to models for reform, because, in fact, they are probably schools and teachers in your own school system, and certainly in your state, who model the kind of education all your students should have. The models are out there. What is lacking is not models for reform, or inspiration for reform, but the will for reform. You have a great opportunity here in Atlanta. You have a superintendent who is committed to middle schools and who believes they can be powerful institutions for increasing student achievement. You have school board members who are committed to middle school reform, and want to work with you and support you to make your schools much more effective for children. These are assets which many teachers and administrators in many other cities would love to have.

Don't let this opportunity slip through your fingers. Seize the moment to focus on what you can do, not on what you cannot do. Seize the moment to make the best use of the power you have rather than worrying about the power you don't have. Of course, it will be hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everybody would do it. It's the hard that makes it great. Thank you.

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If It Wasn't Hard, Everybody Would Do It

Others think maybe someone has discovered the magic. For these people, 'magic' is a process, project, program, or technique that will produce startling results with only modest effort.

The purpose of reform should be to increase student learning. I point this out because so many media, from newspapers to television to popular magazines to professional journals, communicate disparate views of what school reform is all about.

Central offices have earned a bad reputation over many years by issuing orders instead of cultivating consensus. Just as individual schools must develop new visions of educating students, central offices must develop new visions of fostering building-level reform.

Reform cannot be the responsibility of just the school principal or even a school-based management team, because the people who will make or break reform are classroom teachers.

If you don't think reform is hard, just imagine what it takes to reform on a more personal level - to quit smoking, to lose ten pounds, or to jog two miles a day. Thhis is why high quality staff development is such an essential component of middle school reform.