Synthesizing multiple research studies regarding effective central office support of student achievement, I see some clear winners that are represented in multiple studies. These studies included Waters & McNulty (2006) which encompassed 2,817 districts and the achievement scores of 3.4 million students, Ansingh (2012), and Zavadsky (2013), to name a few. Some of the key practices found to have a high likelihood for improved student results can be coalesced into 3 key domains: Learning, Culture, and Relationships.

In regard to learning, this learning is for both adults and students. Furthermore, this learning is also in relation to instructional leadership on the part of central office, school level administrators, and classroom teachers. The key is to recognize the axiom paraphrased from Richard Elmore, “There are no schools in which the learning curve for students is moving upward, and the learning curve for adults is flat!” Like Michael Fullan has said, “Learning is the work.” When we power up this conception with systems thinking, then we position ourselves to be able to scale improvement from islands of excellence within individual schools to systemic improvement across districts. “When we stop learning we have become in perfect homeostasis with the environment,” which is “old” science teacher talk for your dead!

This type of focus on learning does not take place in the absence of a “growth” culture. In my experience, the “growth” mindset, as described by Carol Dweck, might start with the leader or other passionate educator, but unless this view of the world becomes prescribed to by at least a strong guiding coalition across the school or district, improvement will be tough to manage. In addition, this growth mindset is not just in reference to student results, but is also important in relationship to how colleagues view the other adults within the system. Culture is critical, but much like goals, it is not the aspiration of culture that is as important as the actions we take in the journey to create the culture that supports learning for all, both students and adults.

Lastly, relationships are critical to school effectiveness. John Hattie has found strong evidence to support that one of the most important factors influencing student achievement can be related to a healthy student/teacher relationship. Relationship between the adults in schools can also impact colleagues being willing to engage in a search for positive and negative evidence of the impact of teaching on student learning. Only when relational trust is high, when people feel safe, can the crucial conversations that lead to growing professional practice and the dispensing of effective formative feedback be given and have a higher likelihood of being received. We measure what we treasure, but if we have very low trust relationships we will never talk about it!

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Researchers have found a statistically significant and positive relationship between district-level leadership and student achievement when the superintendent, central office staff, and school board members do the work most highly correlated with positively impacting student outcomes. In addition, positive correlations that have been found between the length of superintendent service and student achievement seem to confirm the value of leadership stability within schools. The reality is that the average tenure of a School Superintendent is 2 years, whereas the average tenure of the CEO’s at Dell, GE, Fed Ex, and Microsoft was found to be 24 years! According to the research (Waters & McNulty, 2006), school board members need to hire a superintendent who has the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to carry out the appropriate leadership responsibilities focused on improving teaching and learning. Successful boards were the ones found to support the collaboratively developed district goals for achievement and instruction. Lastly, according to the research, to increase the likelihood for district success school boards need to support district- and school-level leadership in ways that increase, rather than decrease, stability.


How does this research make sense based on your professional experience?

The biggest failing I have seen in the Common Core at this point has been the implementation. Add to that the incessant need it would seem from "the top" that a standards change was not enough - we also need to revamp the evaluation and accountability systems, and by the way, "Do it all now!" What you have is a quality over quantity debacle that has really created the perfect storm. It will take astute leadership and courage to navigate from here to success, unfortunately, I do not see an overabundance of either. We must move forward with our heads out of the sand and determine what our greatest priority is, improved standards, improved evaluation, etc. Those that discount a need for focus on fewer and more effectively, thus more deeply implemented innovations, I would ask my favorite Dr. Phil question, "How is a lack of focus and quality implementation working for you thus far?"

What do you think?