The Search for the Holy Grail for the Elements of Effective Schools Has a Lengthy History

The search for the Holy Grail for the elements of effective schools has a lengthy history. Beginning in the late 1960’s, the public, legislators, and schools themselves have sought to determine the critical factors in insuring that all students can learn the essential skills needed to become fully participating members of society. Gauthier stated in 1986 “Society expects schools to teach all students the basic skills” (Mace-Matluck, 1987). An early challenge was in defining what is encompassed by the terms “school improvement” or “effective schools” or the differences between “correlates” of effective schools instead of “characteristics” of effective schools. Much debate has taken place in an attempt to determine what measures an effective school.

The effective school movement has experienced at least four stages in its development as identified by Larry Lezotte (Mace-Matluck, 1987, p. 2). Lezotte said these four stages took place these periods: 1966-1976, 1976-1980, 1980-1983, and 1983-present. Let’s examine what were the major developments during each of these developmental periods.

1966-1976

The initial impetus for the Effective Schools Movement came from research that sought to determine if resources such as the number of books in the school library, ratio of adults to children, etc. could be expected to impact the results of student performance on standardized achievement test. These were known as input/output equity studies of which the most well known was the Coleman study and the study undertaken by Jencks and colleagues. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided the funding for the Coleman “Equal Educational Opportunity Survey.” The purpose of the survey was to measure the distribution of resources by race and to measure the quality of educational opportunity in public schools. Unfortunately, the findings actually proved detrimental for the purposes of improving educational opportunities for poor and minority students as it was determined that resources available to black students were approximate to those resources available to white students. Therefore the explanation advanced was that the lowered school performance of black students was in large part due to familial differences in background. The Coleman report made a similar assertion regarding discrepancies in performance between affluent and poor students. In 1972, Jencks and colleagues added the following in support of this notion:

We cannot blame economic inequality on differences between schools since differences between schools seem to have very little effect on any measurable attribute of those who attend them. (Mace-Matluck, 1987, p. 4)

The question then raised was whether or not effective schools do exist and researchers began to look for such schools. While recognizing that there was a difference in achievement levels related to family background other researchers disagreed that family background determined and limited a child’s ability to learn and theorized that if school resources were deployed with efficacy that all children would be able to attain mastery of basic skills. These researchers were attempting to examine the nuance between school processes vs. student factors such as aptitude. The idea was that if differences exist in performance from school to school it should follow that student performance can be changed.

The first, large-scale study conducted for the purpose of identifying effective schools was that undertaken by Klitguaard and Hall in 1974. They used standardized reading and mathematics achievement test results that controlled for student background factors to locate schools and districts where students achieved at higher levels. Their work did find that school effect was in the 2% to 9% range after accounting for non-school factors. From this work a criteria was established for defining a school as effective when one standard deviation or more was achieved. This work lead to the next two questions: Are standardized achievement tests valid measures of school effectiveness? How high does performance on such tests need to be in order to be a mark of an effective school?

A study by George Weber in 1971 looked for effective inner-city schools serving low-income students and examined such schools’ processes. He found the following common factors:

·  Strong Leadership

·  High Expectations

·  Orderly Climate

·  Careful Evaluation of Pupil Progress

·  Emphasis on Reading

Other studies during this time looked at the outlier schools on either end of the effectiveness continuum. Consistently found in the most effective schools were high staff expectations and well managed discipline. A fault found with these studies was the fact that “average” schools were not included in these studies leading to the possible skewing of how the results of high-performing schools were perceived. At the close of this period the question turned on whether schools change and can they become more effective?

1976-1980

This period is marked by the shift to case study of effective schools finding the following characteristics of effective schools (Mace-Matluck, 1987, pp. 8-9):

·  Strong Leadership

·  High Expectations

·  Goals Clearly Set

·  Effective school-wide staff development

·  Student Progress-monitoring systems

Researchers and those working in schools were being to collaborate together for the purposes of putting what was known into practice in order to improve schools. What remained, however, was a lack of a clear definition of what was and is an effective school. Four components have been identified as associated with effective school research: (a) school effects, (b) teacher effect, (c) educational change, and (d) organizational management. The following definition sought to encompass definitions found in a variety of work:

An effective school is one in which the conditions are such that student achievement data show that all students evidence an acceptable minimum mastery of those essential basic skills that are prerequisite to success at the next level of schooling. (Mace-Matluck, 1987, p. 11)

1980-1983

This time period was marked by a coalescence of the literature on effective schools with Ron Edmonds proposal that there are five correlates of effective schools:

·  The leadership of the principal puts substantial attention on teacher quality;

·  Pervasive and broadly understood instructional focus;

·  Existence of a safe, orderly climate conducive to teaching and learning;

·  All students are expected to obtain at least a minimum level of mastery; and

·  Use of pupil achievement as the program evaluation measure.

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Edmonds purposefully used the term correlate as he said all of the above are interrelated, are interactive, and are all found in an effective school. (Mace-Matluck, 1987, pp. 11-12)

Purkey and Smith in 1983 took a different approach in describing effective schools as being a “system of nested layers” with the school as the outer layer serving to set the context for the classroom as the inner layer. They felt that the outer layer formed the framework and contained the structural and organizational variables provided by the administration and must be in place before the second set of variables; the process variables.

Organization-Structural Variables

·  School-Site Management determines how to improve student performance

·  Instructional Leadership to set instructional strategies, maintain order, monitor student progress, coordinate programs, and provide teacher support;

·  Staff Stability needed to advance progress,

·  Curriculum Articulation and Organization is geared to ensure that objectives, instruction, materials, and assessment are aligned;

·  Staff Development is continuous and based in the goals of the school with strong principal support;

·  Parent Involvement and Support is marked by higher levels of participation in decision-making with regular communication;

·  School-wide Recognition of Academic Success helps students to adopt school values;

·  Maximized Learning Time is achieved by protecting instructional time that is free of disruptions;

·  District Support is provided to guide and identify goals and policies.

Process Variables

·  Collaborative Planning and Collegial Relationships are designed to lead to consensus and facilitate unity of purpose;

·  Sense of Community through ceremony, symbols and rules are used to improve student and teacher performance and to minimize alienation;

·  Clear Goals and High expectations facilitate aligned energy and effort;

·  Order and Discipline are encouraged through the use of rewards rather than punishment.

The Excellence Movement also made an appearance during this time with a focus on the secondary level emphasizing higher-order skills and beyond basic skills competency. It sought to be sure that the best and brightest students had access to more demanding curriculum and to perform on achievement tests at more advanced levels while the Effective Schools Movement focused on success for all.

1983-Present

Funding was established in 1985, by the U.S. Office of Education to continue to conduct research on effective schools. Work continues to build on what is known and in the application of this knowledge.

Not all agree with the efficacy of the Effective Schools Movement (ESM). Five concerns have been noted (Thomas & Bainbridge, 2001) and provide a caution for those that may see ESM as the salvation for failing schools.

Fallacies identified

1. All children can learn the same curriculum at the same time and at the same level. Much of the mandates coming from state public education departments assume that students do learn in lock step to one another. Ignored is the impact of nutrition and environmental enrichment on the development of the brain.
2. Principal as instructional leaders: Teachers remain accountable and are the providers of instruction thus the impact of principal leadership may be overstated.
3. Standards setting by example: Overreliance on success stories of those limited numbers of children who have succeeded despite poverty or other limiting factors leading to under-allocation of needed resources need to raise the achievement levels of the majority of low-income, minority students.
4. Uniform academic standards for all children: ignores a long history of research that says human development does not proceed evenly and fails to account for the reality that opportunity to succeed is not equitable.
5. Work smarter, not harder: Ignores the capabilities of teachers and ESM seeks to remove the instructional prerogatives’ of teachers.

It is clear that the debate continues as to what is present in an effective school with the following questions remaining: How do we use what we know about school effectiveness? How can such knowledge be applied to schools in need of improvement? What are limitations for which legislators, policy makers, districts, and communities need to consider before issuing mandates?

As work continues in the Effective School Movement, the following beliefs have been reaffirmed:

·  All children can learn and come to school motivated

·  Schools control enough of the variables of learn to assure that all children will do so

·  Schools should be held accountable for student achievement

·  Assessment should be disaggregated to be sure that regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status to ensure that all students are mastering the curriculum

·  Stakeholders; both internal and external to individual schools are the most qualified to plan and implement changes that will lead to learning for all (Lezotte, Revolutionary and Evolutionary: the Effective Schools Movement)

Larry Lezotte, in Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation identifies changes to the correlates:

1. Safe and Orderly Environment places more emphasis on desired behaviors such as cooperative team learning. A commitment will be needed to advance an environment marked by cooperation and collaboration for students and especially teachers to change from isolated work. He points out that we, as a nation, are now a nation of minorities and must learn to respect diversity through multicultural education.
2. Climate of High Expectations for Success in the second generation will require teachers to become more skilled in strategies to reach all students. Once a lesson has been delivered and assessment occurs a teacher may well find there are still students who have not mastered the curriculum. Lezotte makes the critical point that in order to help all students’ progress, recognition must be made that a whole school response will be needed, and teachers must to be willing to go beyond their own classroom for assistance.
3. Instructional Leadership in the second generation will include all in the school building and the role of the principal will transform to one of “leader of the leaders” requiring new skills.
4. Clear and Focused Mission in the new iteration of ESM looks to a greater balance between mastery of basic skills and higher-level learning. Much work will need to be done to develop staff skills in meeting this shift and backward design moves to a more prominent role with “Learning for All” including educators taking a prominent seat.
5. Opportunity to Learn and Student Time on Task will necessitate that teachers become skilled at interdisciplinary curriculum and comfortable with “organized abandonment” in order to maximize time on task so that students are able to master the curriculum as opposed to coverage of the curriculum. Lezotte makes the case that it must be recognized that some children do come to school less equipped than their peers and it is unrealistic to think they can learn what they need to master in the same timeframe, opening the debate for change to the typical school calendar.
6. Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress will be facilitated through the use of technology allowing both teachers to more quickly adjust the teaching but also provide students with real-time feedback on their performance. My personal prediction is that the next ten years will usher in transformative changes in education via technology. We have already seen an increasing shift from multiple-choice assessments to assessments that provide us with more in-depth assessment of student learning through performance and/or portfolios. Two questions will play more significant roles in aligning instructional goals, teaching, and assessed: What is worth knowing? And How will we know when they know it? (Lezotte, Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation, 1991).
7. Home-School Relations requires teacher training in how to create more authentic partnerships and parents need more help in understanding how they can work more effectively. More trust and communication is needed to reduce what is all too often an adversarial relationship.

Haberman (2003) said the onus is on principals to “create a common vision, build effective teams to implement that vision, and engender commitment to task – the persistent hard work needed to engender learning” (David J. Kirk, 2004). Principals as leaders must remember that schools are complex organizations and with such complexity, run the risk of “drifting” from the mission of the school (Lezotte, Revolutionary and Evolutionary: the Effective Schools Movement). Perhaps the most critical task a principal must perform, is that of captain of the ship, setting the compass to maintain the heading for the destination – that of mastery of student learning.