Building Student Voice for School Improvement
Revised version for International Handbook of Student Experience
October, 2005
Sharon Pekrul Ben Levin
Winnipeg School Division Ontario Ministry of Education
Building Student Voice for School Improvement
Sharon Pekrul, Winnipeg School Division
Ben Levin, Ontario Ministry of Education
Oct, 2005 revised version
Introduction
Over the last 15 years the Manitoba School Improvement Program (MSIP) has worked to develop student voice as a key part of its secondary school improvement strategies in the province of Manitoba, Canada. This chapter tells the story of those efforts and assesses their strengths and limitations. Through research and student-centered initiatives, MSIP has developed an understanding of the importance of student voice in creating meaningful change in high schools. In fact, in some cases the voices of students provide the tipping point to shift the culture and practices of high schools. Combining collaborative and authentic tasks that build skills and confidence, and widening the arena of student influence, student voice processes can give students a credible voice in and impact on the institution that plays a major role in their lives.
In giving this account we are conscious of the need to balance advocacy for student voice with careful attention to evidence and grounding in a critical theoretical perspective. As participants in the experiences we describe, we do not pretend that our account is dispassionate. At the same time, our analysis is grounded in research – our own and others - and has evolved over time as we have confronted the evidence of our efforts and those of others. We do not claim that we have achieved a definitive understanding but we do believe that our experience, sustained over time, can help others develop their own views. MSIP has practiced what it preaches and been diligent about collecting data on its own practices, including several independent evaluations – discussed further later in this chapter. Our account is therefore not based only on our own predispositions, but on careful attention to substantial third-party evidence about our work. The quotations cited in this chapter are representative of the findings of these external evaluations.
There is, as readers of this Handbook will realize, a substantial and rapidly growing literature on student voice. The second author has been a regular contributor to this literature for more than 25 years (Bryant, Lee & Levin, 1997; Levin, 1977; 1993, 1994a,; 1994b; 1998). In developing our ideas we have also drawn on the work of other scholars such as Corbett & Wilson (1995), Erickson & Schultz (1992), Fielding (2001), Cook-Sather (2002), Rudduck and Flutter (2000), and Thomson and Holdsworth (2003), The many authors and sources in this Handbook show just how wide this body of scholarship is. We have also been impressed with work that addresses the key role of student engagement and motivation as levers for improving school outcomes (Newmann, 1992; Nicholls & Hazzard, 1993; McCombs & Whistler, 1997). An important but insufficiently known Canadian project that looks at student engagement and participation across the country can be found in Smith et al., (1998). Our overall framework for thinking about student voice in school reform is described in Levin (2000), where five arguments, both pragmatic and educational in nature, are outlined in support of a key student role.
1. Effective implementation of change requires participation by and buy-in from all those involved; students no less than teachers;
2. Students have unique knowledge and perspectives that can make reform efforts more successful and improve their implementation;
3. Students’ views can help mobilise staff and parent opinion in favour of meaningful reform;
4. Constructivist learning, which is increasingly important to high standards reforms, requires a more active student role in schooling;
5. Students are the producers of school outcomes, so their involvement is fundamental to all improvement.
The first three of these arguments involve considerations of how meaningful change in organisations is created and sustained. These ideas are widely promoted in regard to all kinds of organizations, not only schools. For example, principles of quality management include similar claims about the importance of participation by all members of an organization. The latter two arguments, however, are unique to education because they have to do with how it is that learning occurs. Our position on student voice, then, is one that seeks to embody both philosophical and pragmatic arguments. The MSIP project work described in this chapter used these multiple perspectives, supporting various kinds of work on student voice for all the reasons outlined above,
The Manitoba School Improvement Program (MSIP)
Manitoba School Improvement Program (www.msip.ca) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to the improvement of public secondary schools in Manitoba, with particular focus on improving learning experiences and outcomes for students at risk. It acts as a broker and catalyst to Manitoba public high schools and their community partners in their voluntary school improvement and change processes. MSIP is unique in Canada as an independent third party school reform entity. It focuses on school improvement planning, emphasises collaborative school cultures, and is school-centered and community partnership-oriented (Pekrul, 2000).
MSIP is highly unusual in being a self-financing third-party school improvement organization that has been in operation for nearly a decade and a half. Established in 1991 as a pilot program by the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, headquartered in Toronto, MSIP has evolved into a self-supporting organization devoted to improving learning opportunities for Manitoba youth in public secondary schools with a particular focus on students at risk. More than 50 schools in 13 districts are part of the MSIP network. (Manitoba has a total of about 200 secondary schools, so MSIP is a substantial presence.) The organization’s work has been cited in national and international literature on school improvement (e.g. Harris ***).
During the 1990s, public education in Manitoba, as in many other jurisdictions, was subject to a series of changes and reforms that created considerable controversy. Among other steps, the Manitoba government reduced real funding to schools, took away some collective bargaining rights and benefits from teachers, tightened secondary school curriculum requirements, increased province-wide testing of students, and promoted school choice (Levin, 2005). There were other more positive changes as well, it should be noted, such as growing attention to student diversity, more emphasis on site based management and a requirement for school planning, but many educators felt themselves under siege from public criticism and reduced funding. One of the appeals of MSIP, we believe, was that during these difficult years it offered schools a positive direction, opportunity to network with like minded people and some discretionary funds to support improvement initiatives.
In 1999 a new provincial government was elected whose education policy was much closer to MSIP’s approach (Levin, 2005); although the organization had worked closely with the Department of Education from the start, the link is now stronger in a number of areas, though MSIP also retains its independent status and strategy.
No single reform strategy has been able to show substantial lasting effects on secondary school performance across many schools. Given that backdrop, evaluations of MSIP have shown some significant impacts. Documented results of MSIP initiatives (Earl & Lee, 1998) include improved academic performance, increased student enrolment, increased family and community involvement in schools, reduced disciplinary incidents, improved class attendance and increased student graduation rates. The most recent evaluation of MSIP (Earl et al, 2003) provided additional support for the organization’s impact and identified a number of processes MSIP uses to support schools’ success, described more fully below.
An elected volunteer board of directors drawn from the business, education and community sectors governs MSIP. The six or so staff work with a volunteer Education Advisory Committee (EAC) that provides input on its programs and activities. Community and corporate foundations, private donations, the Manitoba Department of Education and MSIP’s participating schools and school districts (called ‘divisions’ in Manitoba) fund the work of MSIP.
MSIP works as a ‘critical friend’ to schools, providing both pressure and support through school-based planning, data driven analysis of issues and strategies, consultant services, and grants to schools and school divisions to support change and improvement. MSIP has also built networks of schools and districts interested in improving outcomes for students. MSIP works with these networks to provide professional development to staff and students. In addition to working with schools, MSIP has several partnerships with school divisions that bring the division into better alignment with all its secondary schools. In recent years the organization has also placed more emphasis on trying to affect the broader policy context around secondary education by working with community groups and the media as well as by influencing government policy.
Evaluation is a central part of all MSIP work, both for participating schools and for the organization itself. MSIP began with a strategy for reform that was to be bottom-up and staff driven at the level of individual schools. Over the years based on what the organization learned, including three independent external evaluations (Earl et al., 2003; Earl & Lee, 1998; Fullan et al, 1995), MSIP gradually began to provide more direction to the schools with which it worked, although staff teams in each participating school continue to play a key role. For example, early on MSIP required schools to gather some data on their situation at the outset because we learned that this step was vital to schools’ being able to identify their true improvement needs. Another requirement was an authentic process of engaging the broader school community early in the process, as against the common tendency to want to have everything sorted out in the staff before communicating with parents. Increasing focus on drawing school divisions into the process and on influencing the public policy context were also changes in strategy growing out of the evaluations, as it became evident that school change would not occur or last without support at the district level (Fullan, Bertani & Quinn, 2004; Togneri & Anderson, 2004). The organization has also asked all participating schools to think about how to engage students in the improvement process, as described more fully below.
Figure 1 illustrates MSIP’s School Improvement Framework. This framework has developed over time through dialogue between MSIP’s staff, participating schools, and the Education Advisory Committee. The process has benefited from the presence on the EAC of such outstanding thinkers in educational change as Michael Fullan, Andy Hargreaves, Louise Stoll, and Lorna Earl.
The chart shows the multiple elements that require attention if real change is to occur. In the MSIP model, student learning and engagement must be at the centre of all change efforts. This focus is not as automatic as it might seem; it has required ongoing effort to get school change proposals focused on learning rather than on structures and organization. Our model also gives priority to engagement of all partners – students, parents and the broader community. While teachers continue to play a critical role, our belief is that change that is owned only by the staff is less likely to have the desired impact. The models also advocates distributed leadership, not only across the staff, but with students and community members as well.
The MSIP change model also pays attention to affective as well as cognitive dimensions. We recognize the importance of ‘will’ – the motivation to change – as well as ‘skill’ – the ability to do things differently. These attributes must be developed together through a process of data-based inquiry and capacity-building.
The Development of Student Voice
MSIP had an interest in students as partners in school reform from its inception, but an organizational focus on supporting student voice work began to emerge later in the 1990s as part of the changes in the strategy just described (Pekrul, 2004). Based both on our initial work with schools and our continued engagement with the relevant research, the organization put steadily increasing emphasis on a stronger role for students in secondary school improvement work. Over the last few years, a series of ‘student voice’ activities has been undertaken, using at various points all five of the rationales outlined in Levin (2000). These projects were designed as individual activities in order to attract the necessary funding. However all were part of a larger commitment by MSIP to give priority to various aspects of student voice, and all have been part of our learning, including external evaluation, of what works in this area. Specific activities have included:
1. Students as learners/doers: Students were given a steadily more significant role in the MSIP application and planning process in all participating schools. Schools were asked to involve students in their planning, to collect data from students as part of their internal needs assessment, and to look specifically at how student engagement in change could be built. At the same time, support to schools has given increasing emphasis to changes in teaching and learning in classrooms, again with attention to the views and roles of students. MSIP and its network of schools together created a Student Voice curriculum as part of the Students at the Centre initiative outlined later in this chapter.
2. Student networking: MSIP, in partnership with its schools and school divisions, organized various activities to provide high quality training specifically for students on ‘What is Student Voice’. Activities included facilitation skill development and opportunities for students from across the province to network, including an annual student voice conference, planned and led largely by students, that brings together students from many schools.
3. Students as advocates: With support from Manitoba Association of School Trustees (MAST), MSIP has conducted the Student Perspectives in Educational Decision-Making (SPED) project to foster student participation and engagement in the democratic process of school district policy development;
4. Students as researchers: Working with partners, MSIP supported student action research initiatives and presentations on educational issues by students to other students, school staffs, parent advisory groups, school boards, provincial organizations such as MAST, forums held by the Manitoba Department of Education, and community organizations such as service clubs;