Start Over

I asked Angela Smith, Special Assistant to the Superintendent, “Where do you even begin? How do you present hope within a devastated and publically humiliated organization?”

“I remember Dr. C asking a room full of teachers and principals, ‘Do you guys know the little bird on your emblem logo? It's a phoenix!’ She continued, ‘Y'all need to rise. You have to rise out of the ashes. It's time for us to stop with the burning. We had the fires and all of the other distractions for the past two years, but now I need you to rise. We've gotta do this for the kids. Atlanta, we are moving from what's wrong to what's strong. And what is strong is each of you.’

“For all the people in that room, that was huge. They needed to start over and she called them up to it.”

Model Expectations

According to Angela, Dr. C. hit the ground running to help change the culture; “She was out talking to everyone. She was out with the bus drivers at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. I was with her, carrying the doughnuts. She was out with the Facilities folks. She could say, ‘I was in this school at this time and the bathrooms are dirty. I'm going back in two days and I need the bathrooms to be cleaned.’ ”

Creating New Structures Transforms Relationships

APS restructured their schools based on a cluster model that Dr. C had used previously in Austin. A cluster is based on a flagship high school and the different middle and elementary schools that feed into it.

Each cluster featured a community-designed “signature program” that linked all students to a larger vision. From kindergarten students and their families could clearly see and join a building momentum toward graduation from the flagship high school. The cluster concept also brought the school principals into alignment around common purposes.

Reinforce the Message of Stakeholder Engagement

Dr. C continually stated and fortified her expectation that everyone must work together. In so doing, she slowly changed an atmosphere that encouraged unilateral actions into “a caring culture of collaboration.” She made sure that the decision making process included all stakeholders.

Design and Build New Roles

Dr. Emily Massey, Associate Superintendent, knows her focus is developing APS's human resources. In addition to getting people who fit the function, her role also looks at the cultural fit. She helps to craft roles that tap into what people naturally do best and enjoy most. She also focuses on what's strong in individuals. Dr. Massey loves work that is motivated by higher purpose and that serves others. She also enjoys dealing with the unpredictable and tackling APS's in-the-moment demands, which can be challenging to more routine-minded administrators. Dr. Massey is able to communicate ideas in a way that make them memorable and personal. Riding with her for my tour of Martin Luther King Middle School gave me another window into their change strategy of developing Teacher/Leaders.

Because principals are the leverage point for changing a district, APS is taking theirs through an intensive “boot camp” process, redesigning their role into (my words) the Chief Education Officer for each school. For the strategy to work the principals need to have mastered the teaching model and be both the example and coach for high-level teaching. Paul Brown, MLK Middle School's principal, is built like a linebacker. He radiates a welcoming smile, quiet manner, and deep conviction about a respectful, responsible culture and engaged and competent teachers. He was one of Dr. Carstarphen's first followers; he already modeled that behavior while principal at a neighboring district.

Each morning Paul stands in the foyer welcoming kids, shaking hands, patting them on the back, joking, and handing out personal encouragements or exhortations. He goes to every classroom during the first period. When he returns to his office he'll send a message over the public address system with a theme, news, and then a comment based on his impression of the tone or energy of the kids when they filed through the entrance. “Okay teachers, there must be a full moon because the kids feel energized and eager to put that energy into learning.”

Build a Culture

Dr. Donyall Dickey, the Chief Schools Officer for APS, is impeccably dressed, articulate, and keenly focused on raising the competency of the teacher core. More important, he and all the leaders I met came from successful turnaround schools in embattled communities. I saw the same unrehearsed clarity and conviction that can come from years of working together, but they hadn't. Somehow, they had learned common principles through their experiences in common crucibles. They know that the ingredients for education are students, culture, content, competency, consistency, coherence, communication, collaboration, and community. Repeat.

Donyall was born in poverty and never knew his parents. “My mother was a drug addict; my father I didn't know. My grandmother raised me.” He found school to be a ladder up and out. “So when I taught the kids in Baltimore, I was really reflecting on the idea that I may represent their only hope; their only chance to get educated.” He worked with third graders and found language (more specifically vocabulary) a key to accelerating learning. That became his obsession, and for good reason. “Because we know, the prison systems are built based on a kid's ability to read at the end of grade three. That's how prisons project their new construction needs—based upon reading level!² I knew I had a task and so it was the third-grade teaching position that shaped who I am as an educator.”

His success for building a process to accelerate reading resulted in advancement in Baltimore, then Philadelphia, and now Atlanta. His job is to build the framework and mastery among APS teachers to replicate this success. “Improvement is no mystery,” he told me. “You cannot transfer what you do not have, right? So if kids have to analyze U.S. seminal documents of historical and literary significance with a focus on themes, purposes, and rhetorical features, teachers better know what that means. And, don't make the mistake of assuming everyone knows.”

“Charlie has special needs. He could also take your wallet while he's grinnin' at you. He was neglected and underserved for years, and you saw that in his performance. I worked on phonetics with Charlie, as his principal, for two years. I then insisted that he participate in class and learn grade-level subject matter like the other kids.”

One of my assistant principals was covering a class for a teacher, and I sat in, too. He said to the kids, ‘Can you define the word transdermal?’ Charlie raised his hand and the AP ignored him. Charlie, raised it again and spoke out, ‘I know. Trans; when you see trans in a word, it means across. When you see derm, it means skin. It's referrin’ to across the skin. When you see “a-l” at the end of a word, it means related to. Sir; I think transdermal means something that goes across the skin.' Blew them out of the water!”

“Kids don't understand what they read in a chapter because they don't understand what they read on a page; because they don't understand what they read in a paragraph; because they don't understand what they read in a sentence; because they don't understand an individual word; because they don't understand individual word parts. A kid reading at third grade level has learned 25,000 words compared to 2,500 words for a kid far below grade level. How do you multiply that? Through learning word parts. There are thirty prefixes, thirty roots, and thirty suffixes that if learned provide them with 95 percent of the working words they need to master. When you build Charlie's knowledge of word parts, you build Charlie's knowledge of anything that he reads.”

The APS story demonstrates what leading change in a school looks like.

• Culture before strategy
• Reframe the old story
• Build on strengths and bright spots
• Be visible and model behavior
• Remind leaders how “we” make decisions and treat one another
• Engage all stakeholders
• Create relational eco-systems
• Practice well what you preach
• Invest in roles that have high leverage in the system
• Grow teachers from competency to mastery
• Embrace first followers
• Build an “A” team at the core
• Stabilize with a surge of support
• Don't make assumptions regarding teacher skills
• Support and train
• Refocus and rebuild the fundamentals

How Did “We” Get Here?

According to Jack, “No one looked for blame. The questions that were being asked were basically, ‘What can we do to improve the K–12 piece?’ Columbus possesses an imbedded philosophy; responsibility precedes accountability. In other words, “We should be willing to accept personal responsibility before we ask for accountability from others.

“This atmosphere allowed the Superintendent to open his remarks with, ‘I know this is bad news, the data is not great, and we can all point fingers, but the bottom line is that I can't get this done alone.’ Employers acknowledged they had not given enough direction about the kinds of skills and careers they needed. The postsecondary schools recognized they had no degree programs that lined up with the community's strengths. There was no working relationship between the postsecondary and K–12 system. There were no career pathways defined and the schools had neglected their career/tech-education departments.”

“Everyone invested a lot of time doing personal inventories over months, discussing how they cocreated the situation. They used this time to build a key component to the stakeholder process called shared understanding, which leads to collective action.

The Stakeholder Engagement Process³

The Institute for Coalition Building has since mapped what the community learned into a process that takes the shape of a four-quadrant wheel (see Figure 16.1). The right half of the wheel explains the steps for reaching Shared Understanding. The left half of the wheel explains the steps for Collective Action.

Once there is a shared understanding and resolve, action begins around a series of small projects. According to Jack, “This is a system thing, not a single issue, and you can't attack a whole system.”

“You can strategically shift a system through multiple small interventions that also change the nature of the working relationship among stakeholders. This is a subtle but significant difference in approach. Instead of the natural focus to tackle issues and solve problems, the process shifts the emphasis to working on relationships in the system through collective efforts to address issues and problems. Transforming the system is ultimately about transforming relationships among those who shape the system.”

The Atlanta Public Schools discovered this same truth when it adopted its cluster strategy. Clusters created a structure that brought principals together who had never before had common interest or common cause.

Columbus used small projects in a similar way, as a structure to bring entities together with common interests to create common cause. One team in Columbus worked with the high school to create better linkage to the postsecondary schools. A second project worked with the postsecondary degree programs to align with business needs. One effort led to another until these efforts numbered more than 30 projects.

Jack said, “Early on, the process is the structure and the structure equals relationships. Good collaboration processes create new conversations . . . and slowly shift the values of the system.” That's why linking cluster principals or project teams to work together produced new relationship dynamics.

The problem also gets distributed. Jack recapped how employers, educators—K–12 and postsecondary—and community leaders recognized, far more than only their piece of the problem, how their relationship to the whole created the situation. This also means the solutions are distributed. In other words, programs, funding, and initiatives without distributed decision-making will fail.

Who?

The upper right quadrant of the wheel defines the “who” questions. It begins with, “What is the collective issue we face?”

What is the problem that is too big for any one entity to tackle? What is the story that conveys its complexity and importance? What group of stakeholders is willing to take responsibility for the success of the system? Who are the right participants?

During this phase, which can extend for several months, a sponsor-facilitator works to bring people together, hear divergent perspectives, and clarify the complex issues or problems “we” face. Each stakeholder is like a blind sage trying to describe an elephant. Their passionate descriptions of the problem captures only a limited and small view, even though, to that person, it looks like the whole beast.

Why?

The bottom right quadrant works to establish trust and shared understanding. The first step asks, “What outcomes and benefits do the stakeholders collectively desire? What creates value for each stakeholder?”

The “why” quadrant of the wheel works to create common interest and common cause by developing “two to three themes that would align the interests of the stakeholder group.” A lot of the work in this phase is determining what information is needed, what projects are of interest, conducting and listening to “voice of the customer,” mapping social assets, and mapping the different networks and nodes in the system. This phase reaches closure when participants arrive at a shared understanding of the research and data and its implications.

What?

The alignment achieved through the “who” and “why” leads to grounding the work. “What is?” and “what is desired?” are fleshed out in a current state and future state mapping exercise. The mountain ahead is what lies between. The “what” quadrant is on the bottom left of the circle. It has moved from the Shared Understanding and Alignment to Collective Action.

Jack explains, “The initial work looks like coordinating and aligning what is already in place and working. Identify where the strongest interests reside and tap that energy, which leads to small initiatives that test the system's resistance and leverage points. Small wins, pilots, and experiments set the stage for a broader effort to scale.”

How?

The fourth phase is the upper left quadrant of the circle. Collective action is taking on a self-directed life of its own. This activity begins to shift system outcomes. Restructuring key relationships to tackle common interests is one of the most effective means for changing the system. Aligning the Atlanta Public Schools' principals in a cluster model restructured their relationships. The different relationship structures changed the nature and focus of their work, leading to a more integrated curriculum that creates a more cohesive learning experience. It also shifted a model of school autonomy to a community with a Signature Program. That identity, pride, and social capital is now cascading into the neighborhoods.

Day in the Life

Administrators and community members followed a student for a day. They quickly discovered a normal day was boring, unchallenging, passive, and focused on preparing for the next test.

Homework Audit

The staff collected two weeks of homework from several students, made copies of everything, and simply stacked it in piles on a desk. That, of course, created a visual and visceral “wow!”

Student Survey

A survey was sent to students; one question simply asked how much of their school time is boring. The average was over 50 percent.

Book Club

At the same time the committee read Windows in the Future and viewed videos like Ken Robinson's TED Talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity?. All of these experiences helped to reach a tipping point.

Future Summit

Shannon's team invited the community to participate in a Future's Summit. The questions about twenty-first-century skills were put on the table. One exercise looked into the future, using a scenario-planning matrix.

A yearning for change began rumbling through Coppell. Soon, the city heard a collective “aha.” Everyone reached the same conclusion. The leaders heard a chorus of new thinking. “Even if we have top scores on current assessment measures, even if we're leading other schools we still don't believe we are doing right by our kids if we don't prepare them for the twenty-first century.”

At this point the culture shifted from “preserve our rankings” to excitement about building for the future. As Jack Hess says, “A system is transformed when the type of system it is thought to be changes.” The Coppell culture valued high-test scores and competing to win against other schools. But then, because of those leading change, it shifted to value kids learning twenty-first-century skills. That shift enabled radical changes.

Out of seven school options the committee narrowed them down to two, a ninth grade academy and a choice school. The board selected the choice school.

New Tech High

The board and school leaders invested considerable work in researching emerging pedagogy, visiting early adopter schools, looking at different schedule structures, redefining roles and designing a new learning experience and new kind of space. The same engagement approach was used for this phase as well. Their process mirrors the stakeholder wheel. Small groups addressed the campus strategy, learner outcomes, design principles, new teacher profiles, a hiring process, finance, technology, facilities, human resources, professional development, teaching methodology, restructuring the school day, learning pathway, and intramural activities.

Coppell chose a New Tech model for project based and team learning. They adapted a modular scheduling structure they saw working well at West Side High School in Omaha, Nebraska.

New Tech created a new process for Coppell's own version of the Stakeholder Engagement Process. When it was time to build a new school for Lee Elementary they partnered with Stantec and Balfour Beatty to create an equally innovative school in Coppell on the inside and out. It was the first Net Zero (energy consumption) elementary school in the United States.

Schools Within a School

Lee Elementary stretched even further into the future designing a building based on campus strategy and learning experience. That central strategy is to create community and continuity for kids during these early developing years. We shared Lou Cozolino's research on the value of chunking down the size of a school to recreate a “tribal” intimacy--or human scale--fostering safety and connectedness. The 550-plus students are divided into six vertical “houses,” like schools within a school. Each house has a team of teachers that cover K–5. “The school itself is an architectural and design feat; it's completely flex space, with only a few movable walls and plenty of collaborative spaces and communal facilities.”