When you come in please:

1. When you come in please: • Help to move the furniture so that we can meet in 6 small groups (try to spread out among all the tables!) • Try to sit with someone you have not talked with (much) before • Check out Pigeonhole Live together and add a question/comment or vote for one for us to discuss in class https://pigeonhole.at/LMFZXI (passcode: LMFZXI) • If you still have time check out the map:https://www.google.com/maps/@0,0,3z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!6m1!1sz78pwbA0lzto.kQzJ9uR5vWx0?hl=en • Add to the map the (potential) focus of your critique (if you haven’t done so already)

2. C&T 40049/23/15 Goals • Deepen understanding of some of the key problems with recent reform efforts • Gain familiarity with key authors and seminal pieces on reform • Develop analytical skills and ability to identify gaps in design and logic Agenda • Pigeonhole Live questions • Who said what? • Comparing Cohen, Elmore, & Payne • Developing a focus for the “improvement” critique • Next Week • Book group assignment

3. Who said what? Why do you think that? 1. seemingly irrational (dysfunctional) organizations (schools) are composed of individuals all responding logically and rationally to the situation in which they find themselves. irrational schools are incapable of pursuing even those ends that are clearly in their self-interest. 2. It is futile to use performance to drive improvement in classroom teaching and learning if the schools or teachers do not know what to do to about improved performance. 3. We cannot simply implement reforms that focus on the behavior of individual teachers; we must confront the general malaise, the overall dysfunctional climate. 4. change does not fail because teachers are entirely unwilling or resistant. […] change fails because teachers do not have the knowledge necessary to make the change a reality. They may have new methods, tools, ideas, and structures, but they often lack the new knowledge that can override old habits and practices. 5. To say that policy and practice have been engaged in parallel play is not to say the two discourses have not influenced each other, usually in unintentional and perverse ways. 6. practice changes policy

4. change does not fail because teachers are entirely unwilling or resistant. […] change fails because teachers do not have the knowledge necessary to make the change a reality. They may have new methods, tools, ideas, and structures, but they often lack the new knowledge that can override old habits and practices. practice changes policy Who said what? Why do you think that? seemingly irrational (dysfunctional) organizations (schools) are compos of individuals all responding logically and rationally to the situation in which they find themselves. irrational schools are incapable of pursuing even those ends that are clearly in their self-interest. we cannot simply implement reforms that focus on the behavior of individual teachers; we must confront the general malaise, the overall dysfunctional climate. It is futile to use performance to drive improvement in classroom teaching and learning if the schools or teachers do not know what to do to about improved performance To say that policy and practice have been engaged in parallel play is not to say the two discourses have not influenced each other, usually in unintentional and perverse ways.

5. What’s the Problem? (From your author’s perspective…) Compare your charts/notes from the readings with 1 or 2 classmates • What are some of the key problems with improvement efforts from the perspective of 1, 2, or all 3 authors? • Who are the key participants in reform efforts from their perspectives?

6. What’s the Problem? (From their perspective…) • Cohen – the problem is in the classroom with the individual teacher, the solution is better PD/infrastructure for teaching and learning • Payne – the problem is in the school, in the social infrastructure, the relationships and the “organizational irrationality” • Elmore – the problem is in the disconnect between policy and practice, and we need to create an instructional infrastructure that policy can work on to be effective. • All – Teachers/staff are treated by policies as both the problem and the solution • All – Improvement efforts often try to provide rational responses to irrational situations and conditions

7. What’s missing?

8. Developing Improvement Critiques • Go to the google map:https://www.google.com/maps/@0,0,3z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!6m1!1sz78pwbA0lzto.kQzJ9uR5vWx0?hl=en • Add to the map the (potential) focus of your critique (if you haven’t done so already) If you have no idea what to do, come see us. Otherwise, find 2 or 3 others who are planning the same type of critique you are (improvement initiative, school model or policy), share your potential plan and get/give some feedback. Is this likely to be a productive focus?

9. Suggestions for critiques You may find that there is more to critique if you select an initiative, school, program, or policy that: • Affected a significant percentage of people within an organization/school • Seems to be “working” well in some ways and not working well in others • (If possible) you have experienced personally (or where you know someone who has experienced it…) Avoid simplistic explanations (it was the principal’s fault; there wasn't enough money or time etc.) Make connections to larger systemic issues and issues we've addressed in the course (e.g. don't just explain why something worked in your case; explain why it worked in your case, but doesn't work in many others)

10. Next Time Tools for change #1: How might schools change? Goal:  Get a general understanding of the “logic” underlying reform efforts and how that logic can unearthed and critiqued. • What problems does the program focus on? Why? What’s the rationale? • What strategies/activities do they pursue? • What resources do they use to address the problems? • What outcomes are supposed to be achieved? • What is assumed or taken for granted? What might make it difficult to achieve the outcomes? Read about the Common Core http://www.corestandards.org/ to prepare to discuss the theory of action behind it

11. Theories of Action Theories of action are the beliefs and assumptions, often implicit and unarticulated, that lead people and groups to act in certain ways. • People use the term theories of action in different ways • Policies and reform efforts reflect theories of action about many different things including: theories of learning (how students and teachers learn and develop); theories of schooling (how schools should be organized and what role schools should play in society as a whole); and theories of change (how improvements can be made). • Policies and reform efforts are complex, collective, and often political, products; the reflect the theories of many different people. • People in the same organization may have different theories. In fact the same person may operate on several different theories at once… • What a policy or reform effort says should happen is not always what happens in practice; What people say (espoused theories) can differ from the instruments and activities used (design theories) which can differ from what people actually do (theories in action).

12. Planning for future classes • Please start talking with your classmates about your ideas for school designs. Use this Google doc to list your group members and share some of your (potential) interests: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aAwB0YivAVCZG2J9-hXiNEwnUmgThnzk0hVG6qUKMYA/edit?usp=sharing • Look at the assignment for October 28th, and begin thinking about what book you would like to read. Enter your top 3 choices here:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZDB5SCR