Schoolwide professional learning must be a precursor to school innovation
December 01 2009 by 
Stephanie Hirsh
Washington is abuzz these days with discussions about innovation and effective teaching, but stepping back from the conversation, I find myself once again hoping that the government does not overlook what decades of research has consistently proven: The key to increasing student achievement is changing the culture and organization of schools to ensure great teaching for every student every day.
The expertise to raise student and school performance already resides in most schools. The way to make it spread hinges on how we change the culture of most schools and provide support to school and teacher leaders to make it happen. Previous reform efforts have acknowledged the importance of this, but none have targeted federal resources to large-scale demonstration efforts focused on bolstering instructional leadership and quality professional learning across schools and districts.
In schools and districts that focus on continuous improvement and building schoolwide learning communities in every school, no one works in isolation and everyone is focused on the daily changes required to improve student learning. Every teacher is a member of at least one grade, subject, or interdisciplinary learning team charged with tackling crucial problems in the school, subject, grade or classroom that inhibit learning and results.
Central office needs to take the lead in organizing principals into learning teams that focus on their roles as school improvement and instructional leaders. Principals need to engage teacher leaders in the school improvement process as well as team learning processes. Everyone must learn what it takes to lead effective meetings and how to use protocols that result in deeper knowledge about effective teaching and better results for students. Teachers will have to be willing to open up to colleagues about what is working and not working and admit where they can use help. Student data will drive school improvement priorities and strategies and ongoing assessments will provide learning teams with information on the impact of their learning and development efforts.
Equally important, federal Title II support needs new ground rules to ensure that support from technical assistance agencies and universities no longer promote the new best adult pull out program but focus on ways that bolster knowledge and skills across schools and classrooms. The evidence supporting scaled-up schoolwide professional learning is growing stronger.?In a recent study, C. Kirabo Jackson and Elias Bruegmann of the National Bureau of Economic Research conclude that when teachers work together on tasks such as designing curriculum, planning lessons, and assessing student learning, there is a significant and positive spillover effect, resulting in improved teaching and greater student learning overall, in all classes.
Similarly, a number of rigorous studies have shown that when teachers engage in professional development that is intensive, ongoing, highly collaborative, focused on the teaching and learning of specific academic content, and linked to other school initiatives, there is a strong correlation to student achievement gains. When such programs are sustained over time, providing teachers with 50 or more hours of support per year, student test scores rise by an average of 21 percentage points.
For the past decade, NSDC has consistently reported on school systems and schools that produce significant gains for students and how they do it. We have yet to find one that has made these gains without its own investment in professional development and new ways of professionals working together. The Education Trust has made the same observation. Two of the top four techniques responsible for improvement in the schools making the most progress with the most disadvantaged students are ensuring that teachers routinely collaborate and using real student work as the focus for their discussion and teachers are highly focused on learning.
It is time we take these findings seriously and apply them across the board. Arne Duncan talks about a quality education as the new civil rights issue of the decade, but I believe demanding that schools reorganize to support collective responsibility grounded in collaborative learning and teamwork is a moral responsibility of all educators. We can no longer accept it when students in one classroom work with a teacher who is struggling when students next door have an experienced teacher moving them along successfully. We must implement ways that engage these teachers as colleagues with other teachers in the same subject or grade level so that the best knowledge and skills are transferred in an ongoing way between classrooms and then we must replicate this process so it occurs among principals and across schools.
Stephanie Hirsh is NSDC's Executive Director.
Posted in Stephanie Hirsh | 
Dec 1, 2009 at 6:06 PM
Stephanie,
Your post points out a very important issue. The culture of a school is possibly, the single largest determinant of a school's ability to learn and change. All plans, all of them, will fail on the "rocks" of culture unless it is addressed.
While I promote innovation in education, it might be that the key innovation needed in innovation is how schools can address issues of organizational culture and how to better convince that teachers, and teacher collaboration are the KEY factors in great schools.
Dec 2, 2009 at 8:54 AM
I completely agree with your article. Involving educators in more than learning community and then focusing teacher enrichment around these communities will change the culture of the school or district. To often I have gone to inservices that I felt were not at all realative to me personally and therefore did not focus well. This year our district placed each of us in different learning communities based on experiences, certifications, and teaching assignments. We are required to meet with these groups once a month. They also placed us into learning communities within our own building and then each of us are part of a team as well. I believe that this allowed us to have more specific training and expanded our interest in other areas of the building and district further. Professional learning communities has had a very positive effect on my district.
Dec 16, 2009 at 4:42 PM
I, too, wholeheartedly agree with this article, and want to point out what I think are two missing pieces in many of our schools' learning communities. First, not only does the principal need to be well-versed in quality professional development, but he or she needs to understand the dynamics that must be created while working with seasoned teachers so that they feel honored for the knowledge they bring to each of these meetings. Too often, teachers feel that this is a top-down process where the only ideas that matter are those of the outside expert.
Additionally, I think Stephanie's point of building these meetings around artifacts of student work is tantamount to keeping the discussions focused on the true curricular needs.
Dec 16, 2009 at 8:13 PM
"It is time we take these findings seriously and apply them across the board."
I agree with ever word of this article as penned by Hirsch. She addresses professional levels at so many levels and brings to light that quality education is for the children first and also for the education providers. Quality education (in the form of professional learning) should occur for instructional leaders, teachers, teaching assistants, and all stakeholders. Now is the time to really move in the direction of "every." It is time out for talking about what we know and doing it. Before we innovate we have to reflect on our current practices (as Hirsch has written) to see where we are on our professional learning journey and where we need to go in order to reach our bottom line - increasing student achievement.
Kevin Simpson
KDSL-Know Do Serve Learn
kdsl.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/KDSL07
Dec 17, 2009 at 5:20 AM
As a school administrator, the implementation of professional learning communities in my district has been a top down process. I had received the training from the Dufours and read all of the materials. What I found in my two years as school principal is that CHANGE is still a huge, challenging process. To impart the principles of professional learning communities and to let that mindset take hold will require several years of implementation. I do agree with Hirsch that this transformational process must take place in order for our schools to succeed. Collaborative thinking and work is a 21st Century skill that teachers must development to ensure student success!
Dec 19, 2009 at 8:34 AM
As a school administrator who is well versed in collaborative teaming and the effect it has on teacher learning and student achievement, I still find it hugely challenging to implement a collaborative culture into a secondary school. Having to jump through so many hurdles (i.e. district hurdles and scheduling hurdles based on district limitations)is exhausting and tremdously slows down the process. In addition, there is such a HUGE need for professional learning in the area of instructional leadership. Principals need the support and learning in such as areas as empowering teacher leaders, instructional coaching,implementing protocols within collaborative teams, data analysis, etc.. Principals make or break anything that goes through our school doors.
Dec 21, 2009 at 5:45 AM
I agree with everything you said and appreciate you taking time to posting it. And while it is extremely difficult if our goal is higher levels of learning and performance by all staff and students, I do not think we have any other choice.
Dec 23, 2009 at 12:20 PM
I agree wholeheartedly with your post, Stephanie. In my experience as a principal, both the central office administrators and principal colleagues never thought of themselves as "staff developers". The concept of continuous, high level learning was something we erroniously assumed that teachers must do. The culture shift needs to occur throughout the system. All stakeholders must believe they have the capacity to be the "in house" expert and be encouraged to share their talents; this includes central office administrators, principals, teachers, and yes, even our paraprofessionals! The culture of collaboration must be embedded in all that we do. We also must be brave in counseling those within our ranks who undermine attempts at professional learning...they need to leave the field if they truly do not have the burning desire to guide all students to reach their maximum potential.
Dec 23, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Frances Miller writes: We also must be brave in counseling those within our ranks who undermine attempts at professional learning .. And I applaud this statement and add this includes those who view professional learning as an individual right vs a collective responsibility.
Jan 3, 2010 at 5:54 PM
I firmly believe that empowering teachers to be instructional leaders collaboratively with administrators is a proven venue for achieving improved student performance. I am currently serving as a principal of a TAP(Teacher Advancement Program) school in Texas. Grant funds are provided to focus on daily teacher development through targeted weekly professional development with master teachers, and then opportunities to implement the new strategies learned while a coach visits the classroom to observe and provide timely feedback on the implementation. Student data and work is used to monitor progress, and instruction is adjusted as needed. Strategies that are taught to teachers are directly connected to our campus areas of deficiency based on state test data. It has been my experience that teachers appreciate these opportunities for on-the-job professional development with coaches to support them. Some admittedly do regret the time crunch and express their concerns when they are held accountable for what they have learned, but the majority are responding very positively to our campus professional learning communities. I wholeheartedly believe we will see a payoff in improved student achievement with a professional learning focus! I look forward to hearing about what others are doing in our profession to provide protected time for teacher development.
Jan 4, 2010 at 4:38 PM
I am very impressed with the TAP model and have heard from many TAP principals and teachers that the true benefit of working in a TAP school is the professional development. Thank you for sharing your views and keep up the important work.