The Schmoking Gun

Journal Entry 2: 

Reflecting on Tipping Point: From Feckless Reform to Substantive Instructional Improvement by Mike Schmoker

1. Why does strategic planning fail?

Strategic planning fails for a lot of different reasons.  According to Schmoker, the biggest is that, in general, strategic plans are too broad and all-encompassing rather than focused on small, achievable goals.  Additionally, the plans rarely focus on teaching practice and are generally not very flexible.  Instead of creating a situation where teachers can follow their students' understanding and readiness, they find themselves following the prescriptions of outsiders according to a schedule set up by someone who doesn't know them or their students.  Even worse, the schedule is set up according to some master plan before the year even begins with little or no regard to what students might need from their teacher.  Something else that Schmoker touches on but doesn't fully explore is the simple fact that in general strategic plans are "someone else's" plans.  As the proverb says, "He who does the work does the learning."  Some committee of well-meaning bureaucrats works really hard on the plan and feels a tremendous amount of investment in it.  But the teachers who are expected to enact the plan have it thrust upon them with little or no input.  Naturally they feel no ownership and therefore don't work to achieve it to any great extent.  This is human nature, I find it curious why we don't recognize this reality when making these plans.

2. What strategies might actually WORK?

According to Schmoker, Professional Learning Communities focused on small, achievable goals in a cyclical format of planning, implementation, and reflection.  Each PLC within a school could work on a problem that is real for them, regardless of what others may be working on.  This decentralization allows teachers to control their practice which in turn heightens engagement and liklihood that any reforms will be successful.

3. Why do some well-meaning reforms fail?

As stated before, lack of teacher ownership will almost always lead to failure.  It is troubling to me that we know this when it comes to student ownership but we don't see it when it comeas to teachers.  And even worse is when teachers recognize this in terms of their own reluctance and lack of engagement, but don't give their students autonomy in their work (but that is another topic for another entry).

4. What does Schmoker see as the solution to lasting improvement in schools? Explain.

Schmoker is advocating Professional Learning Communities.  His quote of Judith Little says it best, "school improvement is most surely and thoroughly achieved when teachers engage in frequent, continuous, and increasingly concrete and precise talk about teaching practice...adequate to the complexities of teaching and capable of distinguishing between one practice and its virtue from another," (p. 430).  As explained above, teachers have to have autonomy.  But beyond that, there does have to be accountability around having significant conversations around practice.  Without a PLC format, this type of conversation happens intermittedly and generally without focus or preparation.  With a formal PLC protocol, teachers are belng deliberate in their practice and in their reflection of that practice.  Put that together with ownership and autonomy and you have a recipe for successful school change.  Unfortunately for politicians, it is not really scalable; it can't just be packaged and sold to everyone to repeat verbatim in every context.  It must be real. It must be gritty. It must be honest. And it must matter to the professionals involved.

Main ideas or quotes I liked

"The most productive combinations of thought and action occur in team-based, short-term experimental cycles. Even the implementation of truly “proven practice” remains highly dependent on emergent personal, social, and practical factors.  Actual practice must adjust and respond to ground-level complexities that can’t be precisely anticipated at the beginning of the year; it must adapt to the results of specific strategies that cannot be conceived in advance." (p. 427)

"The key is for teams of professionals to achieve and celebrate a continuous succession of small, quick victories in vital areas," (p. 427).

"...we’ll need structures that are less apt to prohibit collective, creative thought and adjustment by practitioners, for the engagement of practitioners  in continuous  research and experimentation is the hallmark of a profession," (p. 429).

"...the answer is no mystery. It’s as simple as this: I cannot improve my craft in isolation from others. To improve, I must have formats, structures, and plans for reflecting on, changing, and assessing my practice [which] . . . must be continually tested and upgraded with my colleagues."  (quoting Glickman, p. 431)

My final thoughts. 

For me it is clear: to achieve real and lasting change we must move the leadership as close to the students as possible.  Professional Learning Communities seem to be one answer to that need. But even with PLCs, systemically we must move past this notion that change can be controlled from the top down.

Reference

Schmoker, M. (2004). Tipping point: From feckless reform to substantive instructional improvement. Phi Delta Kappan. pp. 424-432.