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Ambitious student learning goals require powerful strategies

by Dennis Sparks
RESULTS - November 1997

Staff development plans that contribute to all students and staff members learning and performing at high levels are based on a compelling vision of the desired results, a thorough assessment of reality, and powerful strategies to move the organization toward its vision, according to Robert Fritz in Corporate Tides: The Inescapable Laws of Organizational Structure . (See the Oct. 1997 column for a more complete description of Fritz's views.) Fritz emphasizes the importance of a compelling vision, arguing that not all visions are equal in their ability to move people to positive actions.

Another way to identify organizational aspirations is through stretch goals, an aspect of a compelling vision that can be a powerful motivator for comprehensive change. Stretch goals are goals that the individual or organization doesn't know how to achieve at the time they are set. Many schools may need such goals before they can create classrooms in which all students and staff members learn and perform at high levels.

Here's an example of an important stretch goal for elementary schools: All students will read at grade level by the end of third grade. Reading is picked because it is fundamental to success in other academic areas; third grade because of research that links below- average reading abilities at this level with later academic and behavioral problems in school.

But such an aspiration must be supported by powerful strategies that work in combination to drive deep changes in instruction, curriculum, assessment, and relationships with parents. Unfortunately, schools too often choose weak strategies to accomplish important purposes. For instance, a school's staff development program in reading for the year may be a two- or three-hour workshop on a reading strategy which may or may not be supported by research. Participation may be voluntary. Even if all teachers attend the workshop, it is unlikely that there will be sustained follow-up to tie the workshop to reading instruction in all classrooms.

To get a sense of the types of strategies required to achieve the goal of all students reading on grade level by the end of the third grade, I talked with Faith Schullstrom, executive director of the National Council of Teachers of English. Schullstrom said it's critical that schools have high expectations for reading success across classrooms. "Every teacher and principal must believe that every student can learn to read," she said. "We must look at each child who is not successful and find out why, and hold ourselves responsible for that child learning to read."

Schullstrom also suggested that schools invest more resources for reading in the primary grades, show parents how they can help, and provide a camp-like summer school for students who need additional support to become successful readers. In addition, she said schools must ensure that all teachers have a wide repertoire of assessment and instructional strategies through sustained staff development. "Teachers need to connect the theory they are learning with real children in real classrooms," she said. "A part of the professional learning can be as simple as teachers watching children read and sharing their observations. They can ask one another, 'What would you do next?' "

VISA founder Dee Hock said, "It is no failure to fall short of realizing all that we might dream. The failure is to fall short of dreaming all that we might realize." Likewise, we must support our dreams with powerful, research-based strategies so schools truly become places in which all students and staff members learn and perform at high levels.