How School Change Really Works

By Douglas Reeves, author of Deep Change Leadership, Fearless Schools, and 100 Day Leaders.

School change has been part of the national education agenda since the early days of the 19th Century when McGuffey’s Readers transformed the idiosyncratic curriculum of every school to become the dominant method of teaching literacy for more than a century.  In the early 20th Century, John Dewey led the way for a host of reforms, Despite Dewey’s undeniable influence on education, the following decades witnessed a consistent drumbeat of criticism of schools, including the stark warnings of A Nation at Risk in the 1980’s, warning ominously that if a hostile power had done to America what schools had done, we would regard it as an act of war.  A little hyperbolic? 

The years following led to the rise of the accountability movement culminating in No Child Left Behind, the first national educational accountability system.  That was followed by Race to the Top and the Every Student Succeeds Act.  What all of these reforms have in common is the of use of test scores, threats, and punishments to motivate students, teachers and school leaders to improve their performance.  While it is easy to blame low performance on the global pandemic, poverty, and other uncontrollable factors, the underlying cause of educational reform failures extends over two centuries, and that is the persistent failure of change models.  The research on effective teaching and leadership practices is the best in our history and funding for schools has dramatically increased, yet the transformation of research into practice remains stubbornly difficult. 

Why Change Efforts Fail

Here is the typical cycle of educational change initiatives.  First, have the entire staff sit in a dark auditorium to listen to an inspirational speaker.  Second, establish a plan of new requirements for teachers and school leaders, accompanied by extensive reporting requirements to hold them accountable. Frequently these requirements are part of a strategic plan which, unburdened by evidence, accumulates many good ideas but never delivers a 25-hour day.   Third, monitor compliance, sometimes including public humiliation in meetings for those failing to follow the requirements of the initiative.  Fourth, having observed the failure of these efforts, find another initiative and repeat the same process.  No wonder that teachers and school administrators complain of pervasive initiative fatigue, a condition that was made worse by the river of funds that flowed to schools during the global pandemic.  The most frequent complaint I hear is that teachers and administrators are burned out and drowning in initiatives that cannot be implemented well. 

A Better Way:  Inside-Out Change and Short-Term Wins

The good news is that there is a better way.  There are two practices that have worked best to have an immediate impact on achievement, attendance, and behavior.  The first is the 100-Day Plan, a concept developed by Robert Eaker and me.  This provides short-term feedback and the opportunity for celebrations of the most effective practices every semester.  The 100-Day Plan (from 100 Day Leaders) includes a “Not To Do” list – the most challenging element of the process.  One of the reasons for pervasive failure in school change is that we are much better at adding initiatives than we are at canceling them.  This process allows leaders to provide focus and short-term feedback to make mid-course corrections, the opposite of the endless initiative fatigue that burdens the vast majority of schools. 

The second key to effective school change is the “science fair” in which teachers present simple three panel displays.  In the “science fair” the left-hand panel displays the challenge.  It might be third-grade reading, 9th grade math scores, attendance, behavior, parent engagement, or any number of very specific challenges that teachers have identified.  The middle plan identifies the professional practice that will be used to address the challenge.  The right-hand panel shows the results. 

Here are three examples I have actually observed...

High School

Challenge: Greater than 50% D/F rate in 9th grade mathematics.

Practice:  Shift practice from homework to class and assign semester grades on student performance against math standards at the time the grade is awarded rather than the average of semester work.

Results:  D/F rates dropped to 16% the first semester and to zero the second semester.

Middle School

Challenge:  Almost no students met the proficiency standard for writing.

Practice:  School-wide monthly writing practice in every subject, using a simple checklist that students and non-ELA teachers could use rather than a complex rubric.  This took no more than 20 minutes per class once a month, but the quantity and quality of student writing improved significantly. 

Result:  From 9% of students writing proficiently to more than 52%.

Elementary School

Challenge:  34% of students reading on grade level

Practice:  Increased time on literacy by 20 minutes, daily written response to text,  and intentionally included reading and writing instruction in science, math, and social studies. 

Result:  74% of students reading on grade level by the end of the school year.

Three items are worthy of note.  First, the simplicity and focus on these professional practices is in stark contrast to the frantic emphasis on delivery of content and the pretense of “fidelity” – both of which divert teachers from providing feedback, checks for understanding, and pausing to re-teach and re-assess where necessary.  Second, the results were not perfect, but far better than previous programs, initiatives, and plans.  Third, there is not a single brand-name program in these examples or the hundreds of others that I have seen.  The big lesson on improving school performance is that it is practices, not programs, that have the greatest impact.  When the funding cliff happens with the cessation of COVID funds, the schools that will do best will have invested in people and practices, investments that will last long after the plug is pulled on all the programs that were purchased in the past three years. 

The biggest impact of these two change practices is on teacher and administrator morale. The nation may lose half its teaching force and the primary explanation I hear is that “I just

don’t know if I make a difference anymore.”  These practices allow teachers and administrators to end every school year with a spring in their step, knowing that they have clear evidence that they made a positive difference for students.

We know how effective school change works.  The only question is whether leaders and policymakers have the will to focus on fewer things, invest in people, and think in 100-day cycles rather than five-year plans.

Doug is the author of Deep Change Leadership, Fearless Schools, 100 Day Leaders, and many other books and articles.  Email Doug at Douglas.Reeves@CreativeLeadership.net.