National Summit on Educator Effectiveness

April 29, 2011

Circe Stumbo, President, and Deanna Hill, Senior Policy Analyst, West Wind Education Policy

Exercising Leadership for Systems Change

Who We Are

• West Wind Education Policy Inc. is based in Iowa City, IA; our work is national in scope

• We work to build capacity of state leaders to imagine and enact a public K-12 education system that overcomes historic and persistent inequities and engages each and every child in learning

Questions We Ask

• What is the role of policy?

– What policies do we believe will impact systems change?

• What is the role of leadership?

– How do we exercise leadership to impact systems change?

Themes from this morning

• We have policies we need, but we aren’t taking advantage of them

• There are policies in our way—or we perceive they are in our way

• We need to create new policies

• Our mindset about what “school” is limits us

Questions We Ask

• What is our vision for learning, teaching, and leading?

• What does it mean to be effective within the system we envision?

What does effective learning, teaching, and leading look like?

Questions We Ask

• If we all agree on the vision…how do we get from here to there and take it to scale?

• How do you change a system that has to keep moving?

(Can’t write a regulation and wave a wand and suddenly be there)

Questions We Ask

• What are the components of a system to support educator effectiveness?

• How do our education workforce policies help to achieve that vision (or hinder)?

• What is the role of the state?

Who We Draw On When Helping States Answer Those Questions• Learning organizations (Senge) and

systems thinking (Wheatley)

• Adaptive leadership (Heifetz)

• Implementation Science and Scaling Up (Fixsen & Blasé)

• Critical Race Theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate)

• Direct Action Organizing (Midwest Academy)

Discussion

Gene Wilhoit said:– “We are facing systemic challenges”– “We need to address them

systemically”

• Do you agree? • What does that mean for your

work?

Key State Challenges Identified at the Summit

Challenges

Challenges

• Articulating a coherent and comprehensive vision that drives the work

• How to shift the leading drivers for reform

• Leading through resistance to change

Visioning

Addressing the Challenges

Possible SCEE Steps

• Work through SCEE to articulate a common vision– Encompassing a “21st century” vision of

learning, teaching, and leading

– Providing a beacon, more than just the technical aspects of the system

• Resources: NCTAF, Houle, SCEE, CCSSO, states, Fullan,....

Strategically Choosing Lead Drivers for Reform

Addressing the Challenges

Fullan’s Wrong Drivers

• “‘Whole system reform’ is the name of the game and ‘drivers’ are those policy and strategy levers that have the least and best chance of driving successful reform.”

Source: Michael Fullan, Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform, page 3..

Fullan’s Wrong Drivers

• “A ‘wrong driver’ then is a deliberate policy force that has little chance of achieving the desired result, while a ‘right driver’ is one that ends up achieving better measurable results for students.”

Source: Michael Fullan, Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform, page 3.

Fullan’s Wrong Drivers

1. Accountability vs capacity building;

2. Individual vs group solutions;

3. Technology vs instruction;

4. Fragmented strategies vs integrated or systemic strategies.

Source: Michael Fullan, Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform.

Fullan’s Wrong Drivers

• “The four ‘wrong drivers’ are not forever wrong. They are just badly placed as lead drivers. The four ‘right drivers’ – capacity building, group work, pedagogy, and ‘systemness’ – are the anchors of whole system reform.”

Source: Michael Fullan, Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform, page 5.

Possible Next Steps

• Work through SCEE to better understand Fullan’s drivers and how strategically to shift the conversation about the drivers for reform

• Join in SCEE sub-group “deep dives” to work together to design a common, cross-state, whole system reform programs

Resistance to Change

Addressing the Challenges

Leading Through Resistance

• West Wind builds our work on the principles of Adaptive Leadership™ expanded from Heifetz and Linsky.

• We ask, “How might we forecast and diagnose resistance in order to help the system to change?”

Why Do People Resist Change?

• People by and large do not resist change—they resist: Loss Disloyalty Incompetence Uncertainty

Loss

Identity– Values

– Attitudes

– Beliefs

– Reputation

– Competence

Time

Resources

Comfort– Habits

– Order

– Expectations

– Certainty/Reliability

– Security

Job

Life

Incompetence

Challenging and re-defining… who I am, what I believe… what makes my life or my work

meaningful… what I know how to do

engenders a sense of incompetence about new processes, content, and behavior

Disloyalty

The process of becoming different can involve disloyalty

• The notion of the loss of one’s identity and becoming uncomfortable may feel like abandonment of and disloyalty to:• People • Concepts and Ideas• Practices

Uncertainty

• What if what we do doesn’t work?

(… especially when what we have been doing worked for most of us)

• What if there is no research base?

Potential Cross-State Deep-Dive Actions

through SCEE

Other Possible Solutions

Possible Deep Dives

• Marketing: Holding up real life examples of ways to achieve our vision

• Systems change study group– Systems thinking– Adaptive leadership– Implementation capacity– Scaling up

Questions to Leave You With

Questions We Ask

• What is *my role* in exercising leadership for educator effectiveness?

• What changes am *I willing to undergo* to improve student performance?

• What is it about *my own thinking* that allows the system to persist?

Questions We Ask

• What are our beliefs about the role of the state in promoting educator effectiveness?

• What is the state responsibility? • Who do we need to engage?

Why?

Questions We Ask

• What do we want the state department to do?

• What capacity do we have and what capacities can we develop?

West Wind Education Policy, Inc.

P: 877-354-9378

F: 319-248-0222

Email:

westwind@westwinded.com

Address: 1700 S. First Avenue,

Suite 17Iowa City, IA 52240-6036

Website: www.westwinded.com