Educationally Speaking: 2013

A school improvement plan (SIP) is a four year map of how a school will work to increase its overall performance in specific areas. Usually these areas are tightly focused around the End of Year testing data associated with math or reading. Most school improvement plans take the data from the tests and create what seems to be an arbitrary number on how they will increase their composite score over a four year period; thus not be labeled a "priority school" which is simply a fancy term for failing school.

Most SIPs have at least three different goals. One tied primarily to the tested academic area of the greatest need. The other tied to the overall composite score for the school, and the final tied to character development. These goals are supposed to be achieved be creating SMART goals. Herein lies a question, how is an organization supposed to achieve greatness and overcome the pressures facing them from mandated legislation such as NCLB and the Race to the Top Grant when they must work on three different goals in concert with one another?

The Answer...

IT CAN'T!! No organization can be effective and put 100% focus on four different goals. When former Apple CEO Steve Jobs returned and reinvigorated the company he stated that Apple would do one thing, and do that thing very well. Before Jobs era 2.0, Apple was making printers, computers, software and other peripherals. The stock had plummeted and what had made Apple "insanely great" to begin with had been lost. Jobs returned and refocused Apple towards its core. (Pun intended.) He challenged the company to "Think Different". This process was painfully slow, but to this day no one can state that their lives have not been affected by Jobs's resurgence in some way.

As an organization, the school creates the SMART goals, that usually are not measurable and recycled from former plans, and expect scores to increase and the focused academic goal to show improvement. In some cases, when the faculty truly drills down and does the necessary research and sets up the necessary programs for the particular school in question at least one to two of the goals is marginally achieved. But, to be "insanely great" as Jobs inspired those at Apple to be and do there was buy-in from his employees at Apple as well as the consumer base. Who are the consumers at a school? The students! The students must buy-in to the SIP and take ownership of the goals set forth; otherwise it stays an ethereal document that is simply dusted off and updated every four years.

How can the students truly buy-in to the plan? The students must take responsibility for their learning! A true Professional Learning Community (PLC) has a mission, vision and main goal it will achieve; often each faculty member has his/her own mission and vision aligned with that of the PLC. Why not have the students do the same?

Stephen Covey and Students

Students must learn how to create a mission, vision and plan for themselves. One school in Wake County works with their students to create an environment where the teachers and students utilize Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to generate student buy-in. Each day the students create daily goals and propose how they will achieve each goal. At the end of the day, the student evaluates how he/she did and whether or not his/her goal was achieved. This creates data points for both the student and the teacher each day. With this amount of student generated data as well as data generated by formal and summative assessments the faculty can truly drill down on the primary goals in the SIP. It is as if each day utilizing Covey's outline the students are creating mini-SIPs for themselves. The students work with a program called The Leader in Me and therefore not only become students as consumers, but collaborators and partners in the SIP process. It is interesting to note that before this school utilized this program that it was head towards being a "priority school".

The innovation of this one school can shine a light to others. There are other programs that emulate The Leader in Me such as The Responsive Classroom, but again the idea is to create students who are not simply dependent on the teacher to facilitate and be the sage of all knowledge. The goal is to create student collaborators working interdependently on their own goals along with those of the SIP. Therefore, taking the lead of the transformative school in Wake County, schools should open up their SIP and let students see what is inside of what could become an esoteric document and have them work interdependently and own the goal that they see themselves being able to accomplish. (Remember, what is the one thing that will make us "insanely great"?) With all persons engaged, collecting daily data and focused on their one goal the SIP should and will be completely achievable.