The Role of Principals in Creating Gold Medal Title I Schools

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The Role of Principals in Creating Gold Medal
Title I Schools

• Joseph F. Johnson, Jr., Ph.D.
• Executive Director
• National Center for Urban School Transformation
• Arizona Department of Education Principals
  Academy
• November 20, 2008

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National Center for Urban School Transformation
Dedicated to identifying, studying, and promoting
the best practices of Americas highest achieving
urban schools in a manner that supports urban
districts in transforming teaching and learning
http//www.ncust.org
4th Annual Symposium May 7th 8th, 2009 in San
Diego
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By their actions and their inaction, principals
influence the curriculum, instruction, and
culture of their schools.
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Our systems are perfectly designed to achieve the
results we are currently achieving. W. Edward
Deming
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The Principals Challenge

• How do I design and manage systems that will lead
  to improved curricula, instruction, and school
  culture?
• How do I do so with limited resources,
  conflicting expectations, with my existing staff,
  and within my district context?
• How do I do so in a political environment that
  demands results now?

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Creating Systems to ImproveCurriculum in Your
School
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To achieve greatness, start where you are, use
what you have, and do what you can. Arthur Ashe
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Curricular Focus

• Determine which standards educators at your
  school teach exceptionally well.
• Engage teachers in identifying a few additional
  challenging standards that students should
  master.
• Assist teachers in defining mastery of the
  standards selected. What should students know
  and be able to do to prove that they have a deep
  understanding of the standards?

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Curricular Focus

• Create opportunities for teachers to deepen their
  content knowledge related to the selected
  standards.
• Ensure that teachers have materials that can help
  them teach the selected standards.
• Help teachers feel less responsible for
  covering every standard. Instead, encourage
  responsibility for ensuring mastery of the
  selected standards. Revise pacing charts.

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Curricular Focus

• Encourage cross-curricular integration focused
  upon selected standards.
• Engage teachers in creating common
  mini-assessments that gauge mastery of selected
  standards. Ensure that mini-assessments require
  deep levels of understanding.
• Regularly review mini-assessment results with
  teachers. Celebrate progress.

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Curricular Focus

• Align teacher support systems with the use of
  mini-assessment results.
• Use of support/resource teachers
• Professional development
• Professional learning communities
• Align student support systems with the use of
  mini-assessment results.
• Tutoring, including supplemental education
  services
• Technology-based support

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Creating Systems to Improve Instruction in Your
School
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If you dont know where youre going, any road
will take you there. The Cheshire Cat
in Alice in Wonderland
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Instructional Focus

• Spend time in classrooms identifying the
  instructional strengths and needs of teachers.
• Help teachers identify an instructional
  improvement focus that would advance the quality
  of teaching at your school. The focus should
  increase teacher awareness of and responsiveness
  to student learning. The instructional focus
  should reduce chicken feeding.

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Ideal Set of Understandings
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Less Than Ideal Set of Understandings
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Instructional Focus

• The instructional improvement focus should help
  teachers become skilled at determining what
  students know and what students need to know in
  order to accelerate mastery.
• Provide teachers professional development that
  distinguishes quality implementation from
  mediocre implementation. Reduce or eliminate
  other professional development efforts.

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Instructional Focus

• Help teachers create rubrics that define quality
  implementation of the professional development
  initiative.
• Convert the rubrics into observation tools.
• Encourage teachers to visit each others
  classrooms and use the observation tool.
• As principal, use the observation tool regularly.
  Provide teachers feedback.

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Instructional Focus

• Acknowledge individual progress in implementing
  elements of the rubric.
• Schedule times for classroom observations
  throughout each week.
• Share school-wide or department-level progress
  based on observation results.
• Celebrate progress.
• Focus collaboration activities on strategies for
  improving implementation.

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Creating Systems to Improve Culture in Your
School
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Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. Its
not. Dr. Seuss from The Lorax
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Focus on School Culture

• Develop systems for gauging the extent to which
  students, parents, support staff, and teachers
  feel respected, appreciated, and valued. Use the
  data from these systems to identify improvement
  opportunities.
• Systems can include short surveys, focus groups,
  and other strategies for acquiring feedback.

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Focus on School Culture

• Develop routines that regularly reinforce the
  message that you value and appreciate teachers
  and staff.
• Develop structures and routines that allow
  morale-influencing issues to surface promptly and
  get resolved.
• Even if the environment beyond the school is
  chaotic and stressful, strive to create an oasis
  focused on teaching and learning.

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Focus on School Culture

• Consistently communicate the message that the
  primary reason for curricular instructional
  improvements is the well being of students. Help
  people feel like they are part of a team that is
  making a powerful difference in the lives of
  students.
• Help teachers define short- and long-term goals
  that they perceive as exciting and worthwhile.

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Focus on School Culture

• Help all teachers know that your job is to help
  them succeed. Help them feel that they are not
  pursuing improvement goals on their own.
• When individual teachers choose to act in ways
  that are counter to improvement goals, respond
  professionally and assertively and re-double
  efforts to help other teachers know that their
  efforts are appreciated.

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Focus on School Culture

• Listen attentively when teachers articulate their
  perceived needs related to school goals. To the
  greatest extent possible, strive to address those
  needs.
• Create opportunities for teachers to get to know
  parents and for parents to get to know teachers.
  Persistently reinforce each groups desire for
  positive outcomes for children.
• Help parents see new possibilities for their
  childrens future. Build hopefulness.

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Focus on School Culture

• Create clear, easy-to-follow school rules and
  enforce them consistently and fairly. Encourage
  teachers to double and triple their efforts to
  praise and acknowledge students for their efforts
  to follow rules.
• Create routines that help ensure that each
  student feels valued by at least one adult at
  school.

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Focus on School Culture

• Use data to anticipate potential behavior issues
  and proactively diffuse situations.
• Create new opportunities for students to assume
  positive leadership roles.
• Help students establish short-term and long-term
  goals for their futures.
• Encourage efforts to make learning (focused on
  selected standards) exciting and fun.

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Next Steps
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More than three goals is the same as none at
all. Peter Senge
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Next Steps

• Dont try to do everything at once.
• Pick a starting point where good progress is
  likely. Try to create an early win.
• If you have multiple strategies for pursuing one
  goal, people applaud your comprehensive thinking
  and admire your focus. When you have multiple
  goals, people think youre bureaucratic, crazy,
  or both.