Harvard Graduate School of Education - Leadership: an Evolving Vision 2007

Professor Richard Elmore claims that “education is a profession without a practice”.

He justifies his assertion through reference to an absence of a clear body of knowledge and a clear body of practice.

For Elmore the weakness of the profession is the mistaken notion that:

autonomy = professionalism

Yet such a relationship is essentially anti-professional - “Within a true profession an individual does not have autonomy over it’s body of knowledge and it’s practice” - which would appear to be the case for education. Yet other professions such as medicine, law, dentistry or accountancy have a body of practice and knowledge, which must be learned, mastered and implemented within agreed and non-negotiable norms.

Professor Elmore proposes that there is no unified agreement on what constitutes high performance/high quality instructional practice. Such a situation results in “the deep and central pathology” which afflicts education i.e. we change “readily and promiscuously in response to the environment”. Yet surgeons don’t change the way they carry out a heart bypass operation because the government has changed - so why do we in education change our practice everytime we face a shift in political administration - the differnce is that surgeons’ practice changes in response to research - wheras the majority of teachers are essentially divorced from research and are quite happy to support such an assertion..

Elmore went on to call for the profession to begin to take control over its practice and knowledge. The however, is that IF we were to agree a body of practice and knowledge then, just as with other professions, there would have to be an expectation that there would be less varation in practice from one classroom to another.

The reality, however, is that there is enormous variation from one classroom to another. In fact research proves that the major factor in determining pupil success is the difference between the teachers. For example, if a pupil has one teacher who has poor instructional skills - the pupil will take over 3 years to recover; of the same pupil has two consecutive years of being taught by a teacher with poor instructional skills they will take 5 years to recover; and if they have three consecutive years they will never recover.

So how do Head Teachers currently address such problems?:

They either move teachers around to ensure that pupils don’t get two consecutive years of poor instruction; or

they attempt - all to rarely - to remove such teachers from the system;

Elmore expanded upon these when he suggested there were only three ways to improve the quality:

1. Change the role of the student;
2. Raise complexity of content through more challenging instructional tasks; or
3. Increase the knowledge and skills of the teachers; this would necessitate

*you cannot do one without the other

I’m certainly taken by these ideas, particularly the notion of establishing unambiguous, consistent, shared and rigorously upheld norms of instructional practice which permeate a school and an educational system.

Inspirational!

This was a presentation by Millie Pierce on the pupose of public schooling. Some of us a had a difficulty separating schooling from education but we agreed to accept the term.

Millie set out an alternative 3 Rs – rigour, relationships and relevance:

1. Rigour: academic/disciplinary learning
2. Relationships: children need to have something to believe in – “I am here to save your life” - her challenge was to accept the role of being the interrupter in children’s lives in order to break the cycle of pernicious poverty
3. Relevance: relevant curriculum and connect to life skills

She then proposed that the role of the school leader is to be an advocate for every child in the school

Parents sometimes say - “I don’t care about other children in the school” – is this acceptable? We need to challenge this perception - all to often we compromise our values to keep a parent happy.

We felt that it’s the leaders job to maintain balance between the needs of the individual and the needs of the whole school.

We sometimes need to share the baggage carried by children with other staff – need to share confidential information – break free from traditional assumptions – trust the professionalism of teachers not to share – teachers need to learn not a to treat children’s behaviour as being personal attack.

Fact - Reading scores in third grade determine the number of prisons which will need to be built in 25 years time”

Corporate parenting responsibility – this is something which all teachers need to accept.

Fact - Measurable drop in discipline referrals following case conferences – touch teachers compassion – when they understand they change they the way they behave towards children in crisis.

Fact - 95% of children are capable of attaining their potential – only 5% have learning difficulties, which inhibit them from attaining their potential

Millie once stopped a teacher teaching by removing her from her class - she had damaged too many children - when she was asked by her superintendent what she was doing? - she reponded – “I can do anything I want – I’m the Principal”

Fact - If you have a bad teacher for one year sets you back three years and a bad teacher for two sets you back five – or perhaps for life?

Give every child what you want for your own children

“Do what you want to do and you’ll find a way to earn” - this is a message for children.

The group feel that there is incredible resonance with what Millie was saying and how it relates to what we are trying to achieve through A Curriculum for Excellence and Integrated Children’s Services.