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10 MIN READ

Author: Steven Dahl, M.Ed.
Director of Professional Learning & Content Development
The Center for Educational Effectiveness

Author: Erich Bolz
V.P., Research & District Engagement
The Center for Educational Effectiveness

For years, schools have written SMART goals, focused on literacy, and sometimes mathematics, and implemented various structural approaches like PLCs, RTI, MTSS, and PBIS. We’ve all been involved with a ‘flavor or the month’ implementation or steeped in an alphabet soup of solutions.

Despite decades of these policy-driven approaches leading to, at best, static results (NCLB and ESSA), schools dutifully retouch their state mandated SMARTIE goals selecting activities and one-off trainings suggested by structural approaches to school improvement. “Just one more <insert your favorite acronym here> training will transform our schools” has been the prevailing approach.

Many schools do not seek input from the wider school community about their needs for success, nor are they measuring whether staff will collaborate and undertake the challenging work required for true transformation. Those that do gather data often lack the tools for visualization of the data to make it actionable. Success hinges on a staff’s willingness to work together but that requires seeing where to focus efforts. Schools need tools to gather, measure and visualize school culture data.

This blog series will examine an evidence-based approach to school transformation, and better yet, provide practical strategies for making real transformation actionable. As a result, you will also learn strategies to forecast whether your team is truly ready for any proposed structural (aka, acronym) change in practice.

You Can’t Acronym Your Way to a Better Culture

The cliché, “What gets measured gets done” may not be a good thing at all if the things we are doing and measuring each year don’t lead to improved outcomes. It might seem counterintuitive, but perhaps the least likely to improve your student literacy outcomes in your school is to hyper focus on improving literacy.  

Implementing structures with alphabet soup acronyms may not get you any closer to improvement either. As it turns out, the rubrics used to implement, RTI, PLC, PLT, MTSS, PBIS and whatever comes next neglect one big thing - culture. We have yet to see a structural implementation and measurement document ask the question, “Is your school community ready to commit to transformation and how do you know?” 

As it turns out, school reform policy and practice in the United States has generally ignored decades of evidence that measuring, improving, and monitoring culture is perhaps the most critical action a school leader can undertake concurrent or before undertaking better-known structural initiatives. And this leads to the lesser known corollary to ‘What gets measured, gets done’ which is:

‘’What does not get measured (i.e., culture) and improved, does unto you.’’

Anyone (principal, teacher, parent or student) leaving a school culture trending toward toxic knows intuitively that the #1 thing that should be addressed is the culture. Every professional in education deserves to know whether their culture is trending positive or not-so-much.

A Research-based Clue to Transformation

So how do school and system leaders learn more about this fundamental and neglected critical element?

One might look no further than The Center for Educational Effectiveness’s (CEE) study of transformational schools in Washington state, Characteristics of Positive Outlier Schools: Illuminating the Strengths of American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Latino/a, and Students Experiencing Poverty. The Outlier Study identified schools serving historically marginalized populations of students that were most successful on academic and student engagement indicators over a five-year period. In reviewing data for approximately 2,200 schools, forty-six schools were identified as outlier performers.

So, what were the common conditions of these schools? Surprisingly, many of the outlier schools were once in the bottom 5% of Washington State schools. Their steep upward trajectory began with a catalyst that sparked momentum and often included:

• New leadership;

• An emotional charge; and

• A strong commitment to the community to begin the demanding work of transformation.

Outlier school teams made a deliberate decision to improve. They made a commitment to the community and intentionally turned to the knowledge of people who have lived experience or have studied issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and racism. Rather than dismiss an insight, school teams chose to learn from the voices in their community and experts and challenge conditions identified as barriers to high performing students.

Collectively, the outliers did something that wasn’t mandated, but was wise. They stopped chasing acronyms.

Common Pre-Conditions to Increasing Student Achievement Levels

The Outlier Study sought to ascertain if any schools in WA could demonstrate effectiveness with all students, including those historically marginalized.

The findings? Contrary to current approaches, there wasn’t a transformational algorithm that revealed a string of golden acroynms. What did manifest was the following:

• Family-like atmosphere

• Lifelong Learning by professionals

• Inclusive of family and community

• Student voice and perspective elevated

And reading this many are likely to assert, “We have that. We are that.” And our response, trust but verify. Show me your data that indicates you have created a culture aligned with the findings of the Outlier Study and we’ll show you a district with readiness to benefit and implement just about any structural approach needed. Or, as Roland Barth, founder of the Principal’s Center at Harvard, put it:

“Show me a school where instructional leaders constantly examine the school’s culture and work to transform it into one hospitable to sustained human learning, and I’ll show you students who do just fine on those standardized tests.” – Roland Barth

Barth’s use of the term ‘hospitable’ suggests the opposite may also be the current reality, or inhospitable learning conditions. You can review the recommended practices from a ‘practitioner’s view’ for yourself and see where your organization does, or doesn’t, align with the study’s findings.

It is with this that we turn to considering how culture impacts learning.

Know Thy Culture’s Impact

Linda Darling Hammond and Channa M. Cook-Harvey (2018) describe the stark contrast between students experiencing a supportive school climate and those experiencing a non-supportive climate:

“Non-supportive school conditions undermine student motivation and learning, facilitate student disengagement from school, and contribute to school failure and high dropout rates, especially for students of color, who graduate at much lower rates than their White peers.

By contrast, research has found that a positive school climate improves academic achievement and reduces the negative effects of poverty on achievement, boosting grades, test scores, and student engagement.

Indeed, new knowledge about human learning and development demonstrates that a positive school environment is not a “frill” to be attended to after academics and discipline are taken care of.  Instead, it is the primary pathway to effective learning.”

Adults (administrators, teachers, parents) embody the culture students experience every day. We are what they see, hear and experience. We serve as the lens through which each student learns.

Darling Hammond and Cook-Harvey (2018), summarizing research on the intersection of neuroscience, developmental science, and the learning sciences, point out core principles relevant to the importance of culture over any structural change:

• Human relationships are the essential ingredient that catalyzes healthy development and learning.

• Adversity affects learning – and the way the schools respond matters.

• All learning is social, emotional and academic.

• Children actively construct knowledge based on their experiences, relationships, and social contexts.

We are moving at the speed of relationships, and so are our students. Culture is visceral.

John Hattie’s now infamous and research-backed exhortation to ‘know thy impact’ is thankfully well-traveled. Systems that understand Hattie’s exhortation to ‘know thy impact’ work to increase ‘collective efficacy’ relying on high levels of relational trust and collaboration in service of adult and student learning. In a 2024 interview on the National Association of Elementary School Principals’ Leadership Conversations, John Hattie emphasizes that culture at the classroom and school levels must be characterized by high levels of trust:

“We’ve know for years, from the management literature, that culture comes first.” John Hattie  (at 4:00 - 4:08)

“The comments I made about the classroom, I also want to apply to the staff room. In the staff room, I want to see that high trust, teachers to think aloud, teachers to work collaboratively.”  (6:07 – 6:22)

“When teachers work, and critique together, and trust each other, the kids feel it and the effect is dramatic. Without this sort of innovative learning environments – and some teachers can’t work together - we all know they use book cases and plants and filing cabinets to create their own space - and it doesn’t work.” (8:17 – 8:36)

This is why CEE’s solutions make it possible for schools and districts to gather perceptual survey data to ensure they:

• Amplify Student, Family and Staff voice

• Make data visible to all stakeholders

• Make data actionable

• Ensure continuous and collective inquiry occurs

Working in concert to improve the culture fosters the learning conditions that transforms student learning opportunities into desired outcomes.

When You Know Better You Can Do Better

Maya Angelou’s wisdom is apropos: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

We think that schools are doing the best they can. In the vast majority of cases, they simply don’t know how to do any better. The spirit in which this blog series is offered is to change that narrative and make it possible for organizations to know what would be better, and then to do that.

We know more than ever about the few key actions needed by school teams to improve the educational outcomes for our students who need us more than ever, and the stakes have never been higher. Our role in changing educational outcomes can indeed lead to better life outcomes and stronger communities. Everyone can agree that student achievement is a vital indicator of a healthy, vibrant educational system. What we should also agree that myopicallyly focusing on ‘achievement data’ has little potential for actually improving achievement data.

They say an image is worth 1,000 words. Here we see the 3 sources or ‘buckets’ of data leaders should consider prior to the lagging indicator of achievement data:

For those who prefer a good analogy, think of this recommendation as a sort of PEMDAS (order of operations) for leadership. Prioritize your culture data and improvement efforts to raise your student achievement results.

Wrap Up

We’ve covered a lot of ground in this article, so to summarize:

1. Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

2. You can’t acronym your way to a better culture.

3. Culture can, and should be, measured.

4.  Organizational culture impacts levels of student achievement.

5. Research supports prioritization of culture.

6. When you know better, do better.

As the great Thurgood Marshall once shared, “Unless our children begin to learn together, then there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together.” As a profession, we simply must continually aim to be a cohesive ‘all in service of each’ to realize Marshall’s vision.

In our next blog, we will explore the importance of discerning staff readiness to implement any change (in practice, a structure, or a new acronym). We will explore why it is vital for organizations to prioritize their own development, and why leaders may struggle to do so effectively. We will continue to support ‘knowing better’ and provide specific, proven strategies for ‘doing better.’

If this article has challenged your thinking and you would like to discuss further, please connect with us. Click here to schedule a conversation.

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