Improving All Schools

1. Improving All Schools Ben Levin, OISE/University of Toronto Loen, Norway October 3, 2012 @BenLevinOISE – Twitter Webspace.oise.utoronto.ca/~levinben/

2. Outline for the Morning • Working in a second language • Start with your views, ideas • What is most important? • All of us together are smarter than any of us individually • Need to hear and respect diverse views

3. Ethics and Motivation • An ethical question – what do we owe our students? • A psychological question – how high can we aim? • Lots of evidence people can do better • Increasing evidence we can help them believe and do this

4. Current Status What is good/not as good about your system? What do you want to know or think more about?

5. Ontario • Big system – 2 million students • Since 2004 • Improved all student outcomes • Improved teacher morale • Improved public confidence

6. Key Actions • Will and skill • Focused plan with a few clear goals • Consistent leadership support • Positive approach • Focus on teaching and learning • Relentless implementation

7. Focused Plan • No more than 3 key goals • Simple to understand, broadly accepted • Central goals sustained for years • Clearly linked to action and implementation

8. Leadership • Leadership is all about teams • ‘Guiding coalition’ • Political and civil service working together • School and system • Teachers and principals • Students and parents

9. Leadership – continued • Key skills for leaders • Operations – have to be managed, but with minimum effort • Teaching and learning – leading this effort • Politics – also vital to success

10. Positive Approach • Respect for all partners and for different opinions • Build on and spread what is already good • Building capacity is key • Forums for debate and working together • Feedback on progress

11. Focus on Teaching and Learning • Avoid organizational and structural issues • Do not lead with accountability • Seeing teaching as a difficult technical skill • That can be learned, like any other skill • Helping teachers improve their work • Moving towards common/shared practice • Using evidence

12. Improving Teaching and Learning - 2 • Much more than courses • Must be rooted in daily practice and life of the school • A collective activity among teachers • Using ‘real’ practice as well as other evidence • Student (and parent) voice

13. Relentless Implementation • All schools, all students • Lateral learning • Building implementation capacity • Aligning all parts of the system • Nowhere to hide from the key goals • Using research and data to guide

14. Responses? • What resonates? • What does not seem appropriate? • What is missing? • What do you do next?

15. Infusing Equity • Understanding who is not successful • Within schools, not just between schools • Which differences really matter?

17. J Hattie – Meta analysis of Strategies

18. Infusing Equity • Understanding who is not successful • Understanding those students’ situations • Infusing equity concerns in every part of what the school does • Teaching practices • Curriculum and resources • Relationships with students • Reaching out to parents and communities

19. Fighting Complacency • Generally – appealing to rather than frightening people • Students – Building on their interests and passions

21. Fighting Complacency • Generally – appealing to rather than frightening people • Students – Building on their interests and passions • Parents and communities – Showing examples of what is possible • Focusing on skills as well as knowledge

22. Politics of Change • Nature of politics • Keeping people interested, aroused • Challenge for education • Finding changes that are worthwhile • Explaining them to people • Influencing political process • Indirect more than direct • Storylines, narratives

23. Working With Parents • Parents have to be advocates, not must monitors • Parents resent being homework managers • Especially when much homework is not meaningful • Important to build partnerships with parents • Listening, not just telling

24. Other Issues?