Change in Education

William Allan Kritsonis, PhD

Questions

You are the principal of a medium-sized, south-Texas high school and have

been asked by your superintendent to address the issue of discipline in your

school. The number of student discipline referrals has soared and tend to be the

result of confrontations between students and teachers and students with other

students. After much research and community input, the Boystown Model of

discipline is to be adopted by your school which has been proven to be highly

successful in improving human interactions in the school setting. You have a

veteran staff that has seen changes come and go over the years and is actively

and passively resistant to change. Describe the steps that you would go through

in order to implement this change and describe possible sources of conflict and

how you would address those issues.

You have just been elected to the local school board. The primary issue on your

campaign platform was the promise to change the school calendar from

traditional to year-round school. You have a majority of support among your

fellow school board members and the community. The school board president

has tasked you with spearheading the change by working closely with the

superintendent. Describe the steps that you would take to implement this

change and the potential problems, and solutions, which you would use to

address the concerns of the dissenting members of the district and community.

Topic discussion

The issue of change has been at the forefront of the educational debate

ever since the first schools were organized. Change is often feared, and those

who advocate change are viewed with suspicion. Educational change is the

source of much stress for administrators and teachers because of the lack of

clear goals and objectives. Community members clamor for educational change

when TAAS scores are low, but without giving much thought to what the actual

changes should be. Many school board members are elected promising change

and find themselves ill-prepared to brings those promises to fruition. Some

prominent researchers have suggested that one major dilemma facing the

movement toward educational change is that some solutions create even more

problems than they solve. Perhaps the most extreme belief is that some

educational problems are so complex and deeply ingrained in our society that

they are beyond the reach of any change. In order to be an effective leader, one

must be able to understand the steps involved in deciding when change is

appropriate, and if so, what has to be done in order to insure successful

implementation and follow-through.

Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by those in favor of change in

education is one of bridging the gap between theory and practice. There are

many educational research experts who know what the problems are in schools

today as well as those who know what should be done. The great difficulty lies

in deciding exactly what to do and how to do it. As stated by Firestone and

Corbett (1987); Fullan (1985); Clark, Lotto, and Astuto (1984); Huberman and

Miles (1984) suggest that, “there are no hard and fast rules, rather a set of

suggestions or implications given the contingencies specific to the local

situations…the uniqueness of the individual setting is a critical factor-what

works in one situation may or may not work in another.” The key consideration

for those advocating change is that there are generally accepted guidelines that

will assist with the process, but one should be careful to remain keenly aware of

local conditions or situations that could have a significant impact upon the

process of change.

In his book, The New Meaning of Educational Change, Michael Fullan

outlines three broad phases and describes each sub-step in detail. The process

begins with initiation, which is the time leading up to and including the decision

that a change is actually needed. Initiation is closely followed by

implementation, which is the sometimes-lengthy phase where ideas are turned

into action. The next step in the process is the continuation phase in which the

change is incorporated into the structure of the school or institutionalized as a

regular practice. Additionally, the change may disappear or be discarded for

various reasons at this phase in the process. Once the three phases have been

achieved, the resulting outcomes determine the effectiveness of the change and

whether desired goals have been met, more problems created, or if more

changes are required.

There are many possible factors that can affect the initiation of

educational change. These factors may combine to enhance or inhibit the start

of any program whose goal it is to implement educational change. One of

which is the existence and quality of innovations. Some educational issues

have been researched for decades and therefore have much research to draw

from. Other educational innovations may not be widely disseminated and

therefore not readily available from schools to draw from to solve their

problems. Additionally, some problems may be so unique to a situation that

researchers have yet to conduct studies on them. Limited access to educational

information in some communities puts the schools at a further disadvantage.

Teachers and administrators may be unaware of the latest educational programs

and the community members may lack the understanding of the educational

process to encourage their representatives to pursue specific programs that will

benefit their schools.

Some of the biggest advocates of educational change are the central

office administrators. Fullan identifies several studies that demonstrate that

administrator driven programs tend to have the resource allocated to them that

they need in addition to the proper level of encouragement for the staff. The

opposite is also true that initiatives for change that are not favored by the

administration tend to die before they are ever implemented.

Teacher advocacy for educational change is unique in the sense that it

rarely extends beyond the individual level. Teachers are often viewed as the

least innovative on a global scale, but tend to innovate within their own

classrooms at a much higher rate than anyone else within the educational

system. Many teacher innovations are not spread to other classrooms unless an

active and supportive environment is fostered for such a spread of ideas by the

campus administration.

The sources of change can be many and varied. Change may be directed

as the result of the passage of new legislation or from other federal directives

designed to promote the strategic interests of the national government. These

mandates from outside of the community are referred to as external change

agents. These changes may be accompanied with federal grant money in the

form of program grants that are to be implemented nationwide and cannot be

ignored.

The actual process of initiating change in education is one that has

several important underlying components that are critical to its success. The

three components are relevance, readiness, and resources. Relevance refers to

the need of the change in concert with its practicality for those who will have to

implement it, usually teachers, or those who it is supposed to help, the students.

A perceived lack of relevance may undermine any desired change before it ever

gets off the ground. Readiness refers to the capacity of the school for change.

Not only does the school have the need, but do the teachers and staff have the

desire and willingness to implement the change. Finally, the necessary

resources must be in place, in part at least, to get the change started. Necessary

funding for training, time, and additional support must be coordinated.

Additional resources may be allocated once the process begins and starts to

gather additional momentum.

Factors Affecting Implementation

Factors related to the characteristics of the change include need, clarity,

complexity, quality and practicality of the program. Few changes survive the

planning stage if the participants realize that a perceived need is not in

alignment with school goals or objectives. Additionally, lack of a clear vision

or a vision that is too complex may hinder its implementation. Furthermore,

some programs may look good but have little significant impact on the quality

of the school or prove to be impractical due to great cost in time or other

resources. Each of these characteristics combines in unique combinations

depending on the individual situation and may vary from issue to issue within

the same district or school.

Recent research on the role of organizations within the community has

indicated that, “planned change has become a matter of both motivating from

without and orchestrating from within” (Firestone & Corbett, 1987). Local

factors often result in the failure of one innovation that was extremely

successful in another. Some communities have a reputation for innovation and

view change as a good thing that is good for the students, while other districts

view change as a means of coercion in which change is used to keep people off

balance and vulnerable. These factors include the school district, the school

board and community characteristics, the principal, and the role of the teachers

as viewed from the organizational theory standpoint.

The Implementation Process

Several key themes dominate the implementation process and must be

considered carefully and adapted to fit local considerations for any change in

education to be successful. Vision-building among and between key people

involved in the change process is critical to the start of any change process.

The clear establishment of the desired end result of the change must be

effectively communicated so that the participants will focus their energy and

effort toward a common goal.

Once the move towards change has been implemented, evolutionary

planning becomes critical to further success. The planning that is done by the

leaders and the staff must begin to reflect on the immediate success and areas

that need improvement. Actions develop and evolve to meet unforeseen

problems and take advantage of unforeseen opportunities as well.

Initiative-taking and empowerment is the next phase in the educational

change process. Teachers must be actively encouraged to take responsibility

for the success of the changes and use their own experiences and creativity to

implement changes or make suggestions to help the process. The involvement

of the teachers in the process will foster a healthy feeling of empowerment that

will cause the teachers to feel that their input is important and wanted.

Staff development is one of the most important aspects of change

initiation, yet is usually misunderstood and, as a result, in-effective.

Traditionally, educators have viewed staff development as a series of unrelated

workshops that are attended, but never applied in the classroom. Staff

development can be a powerful tool for implementing change because, well

thought out and continuous training can have the effect of reinforcing previous

goals and regaining a sense of purpose and focus when energy to continue may

be waning. Many new programs that seemed like a good idea at the start of the

school year fizzle out after the first 6 weeks of school when the stress builds

and teachers lose their initial enthusiasm. Effective staff development at these

critical low points can re-energize and rejuvenate the staff to continue the

change process and see it through to a successful completion.

Monitoring and problem-coping becomes the next important phase in the

change process. Once the staff and teachers know what they are supposed to do

and the goals of the change, the educational leader must be prepared to sustain

the changes through maintaining awareness of problems or concerns that may

arise. Whenever anything new is attempted, problems will naturally occur as a

result. Effective agents of change faced problems as a challenge to be

overcome, instead of being afraid and avoiding the issue. Leaders must be

prepared to be supportive of their staffs and realize that they will be looked

upon as a source of strength and understanding.

We live in a society that is in a constant state of change. In order to give

students the academic skills that they will need to take them into the next

century, we as educators must be ready and willing to accept change as a

natural part of the educational process. Change may be welcomed by some, yet

feared by others. Educational leaders must be at the forefront of the efforts for

change because the very reason for our existence is the preparation of our youth

to function as productive members of our society and community. As these

needs change, so too should the schools methods and curriculum change to

meet these needs directly. We can no longer afford to view change with dread

and fear. We must embrace change and take control of the process to insure

success because our failure will only serve to harm our nations greatest

resource, our children.

Key Terms and Definitions

Initiation- The process leading up to and including the decision to proceed with

implementation. It may take many forms, ranging from a single decision by a

single authority to a broad-based mandate. Also known as mobilization or

adoption.

Implementation- Involves the first experiences of attempting to put an idea or

reform into practice, usually the first two or three years. Also known as initial

use

Continuation- Refers to whether the change gets built in as an ongoing part of

the system or disappears by way of a decision to discard or through attrition.

Also referred to as incorporation, routinization, or institutionalization.

External change agents- Facilitators outside of the district, that is at the state,

regional or national level. Many of these entities are formally charged with the

responsibility of stimulating and supporting change.

3 Considerations in Planning for Adoption

Relevance- Includes the interaction of need, clarity of the innovation (and the

practitioner’s understanding of it), and the utility, or what it really has to offer

the teachers and students

Readiness- Involves the school’s practical and conceptual capacity to initiate,

develop, or adopt a given innovation. May be approached in terms of individual

and organizational factors.

Resources- Concern the accumulation of and provision of support as a part of

the change process.

Web Links

The following is a set of linked articles that will be useful for those seeking

further information on school change.

School Change Models and Processes: A Review of Research and Practice.

http://www.goodschools.gwu.edu/cgi-bin/bibliography.cgi?sr=SR000156

School Change Models and Processes: A Review and Synthesis of Research

and Practice. Draft.

http://www.goodschools.gwu.edu/cgi-bin/bibliography.cgi?sr=SR000156

Parent Consultants for Whole-School Change

http://www.goodschools.gwu.edu/cgi-bin/bibliography.cgi?sr=SR000156