If these words do not make sense to you, then chances are you are not a fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Each of these describes the last three seasons' mantras for the football team.
Coach Urban Meyer defined this year's "The Edge" as "where average stops and elite begins." But this is not about football, nor Ohio State.
As a 15-year high school administrator deeply involved in PLC implementation and now Thought Leader dedicated to transforming schools through PLC work and a focus on learning, I have always been intrigued by how we move schools from average to elite. How do we get to "The Edge?"
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| Photo courtesy of Jeff and Becca Rudzinski |
In our work at our high school, and now in working with other schools and districts, it is easy to note that moving an average school, particularly a public school, to elite has to be more difficult than moving a football team.
Those involved in transforming schools through action research and a focus on learning know that some PLC steps are easier introduce, implement and sustain than others.
For example, most districts, schools, and staff see the benefit and fairly easily adapt and embrace aligning curriculum collaboratively by teachers in same-subject teams (PLC Question 1, DuFour, Eaker, Professional Learning Communities at Work, 1998).
And many schools, districts and staffs, with the support of professional development, are in ongoing work on improving diagnostic, formative and summative assessments, leading to better common assessments and data analysis by teacher teams (Question 2, DuFour, Eaker). This is difficult work and paradigms on teaching and learning are challenged as teachers learn to give up past and often archaic assessment practices. Even question 4, responding to students who already know the material, is met with classroom and same-subject team strategies of differentiation and building enrichment fairly readily.
But the one that keeps most staffs, schools and districts from reaching the edge, from transforming from average to elite, is Question 3 of PLC work, "How do we respond when students are not learning?" (DuFour, Eaker)
How many schools or districts have systemic and mandatory student intervention as a goal? Learning target work, yes. Assessment? Yes. But intervention? Only the elite.
Intervention by invitation never works, and in order to truly transform teacher and learning in your school, in all schools, we must enact systemic, mandatory student intervention.
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| Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles, freedigitalphotos.com |
Aligning curriculum and enacting common assessments will only take a school or district so far. Our school only dramatically improved student learning after we became much better at setting SMART goals and monitoring student learning, every student's learning, by teacher, grade level and by individual student, and then by responding to students not learning.
Teachers certainly enacted classroom student intervention as good teachers always have, but now same-subject teams also discussed appropriate team invention strategies based on data analysis. In a PLC, intervention is not optional for staff or students.
Furthermore, whole-school intervention ensued, for students who are not learning become a learning emergency in an elite, rather than average, school.
We knew the name of every student who had a D or F every 4.5 weeks and responded as a building, with counselors, teachers and administrative support. And expectations for students were also clear as we provided mandated opportunities for them to learn outside of class and within the school day because cared about them and their future so much.
Did our results improve? Immensely. We were recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School and a National Model PLC at Work School. We emerged as one of the top schools in Ohio for our Performance Index score, number of National Merit Finalists and perfect ACT scores. Globally, we also outscored the world's highest performing school district, Shanghai, in all three testing areas of the PISA-- reading, math and science.
But more importantly--
The more we responded to students who were not learning, the more our students learned. The more they learned, the more doors that were open to them. The more doors open, the more lives changed.
And that is The Edge. That is moving from being average to elite.
It is not a destination, but an ongoing journey every day, in every classroom, every period, for every student.
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