Posted by: Dean Fink Posted on: May 16, 2001 at 1:27 PM Message: As always, I have enjoyed and learned from Professor Cubans presentation. We share a background as historians and I tend to pursue my intellectual inquiries from this perspective. As my paper on Two Solitudes (attached to this site) indicates I have found his work very helpful over the years. A few years ago he captured the change dilemma rather well when he entitled an article Reforming again and again and again. More recently Seymour Sarason wrote about the The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform. In the same vein, influenced by Mary Metz, I entitled my recent book, Good Schools/Real Schools: why school reform doesnt last (Teachers College Press). The sad reality is that most efforts at change in both education and in business fail. The search for the silver bullet that will make things magical over night continues, but is a fools game. Educational change as Professor Cuban suggests takes time, planning, dedication, money, patience, passion, and above all, tenacity. For change agents grappling with issues of implementation and sustainability, I recommend reading Professor Cubans book with David Tyack, TinkeringToward Utopia. It provides a necessary historical context for contemporary challenges. The importance of historical context is so important in determining the success or failure of change efforts at a school or district or even state level. The clear pattern in research that I am involved with at the International Centre for Educational Change suggests that schools and districts with positive change experiences over time seem to respond more enthusiastically to new directions, or at least roll with the mandates. Unfortunately in many jurisdictions the onslaught of often ill-conceived and rushed innovations in the past has left many people cynical and under-whelmed. My colleague Louise Stoll and I talk about the kidney stone effect like a kidney stone, a change may cause some pain but in time like a kidney stone this too shall pass. With the transitory nature of governments, school boards, superintendents, principals and other educational leaders, this strategy often proves to be efficacious. In Ontario for example, within the course of 10 years, successive governments have defined definite tracks in grade 9, then another government de-tracked grade 9, and within a few years another government went back to tracking. Schools that did nothing seem to be the winners, and schools that worked diligently to make the innovation work are left feeling had. Is it any wonder cynicism is a pervasive emotion among teachers in many jurisdictions? For my part Id like to pick up on 3 themes that Professor Cuban introduced briefly. The first is the importance of context. Schools sit in, what Smith and his colleagues (1987) called, nested systems a community, a district, a region, a state, a nation, and in recent times through globalization, an international community. Each of these layers influences school reform and the sustainability of change. The literature is replete with examples of change efforts in schools and districts that have been undermined by one of these layers. School communities, for example, have often brought reform efforts to a grinding halt. Metz (1991) talked about real schools as the schools the community remembers. Good schools are what educators and reformers try to create. When these two images grow too far apart, communities can coalesce quickly to curtail or even end change efforts. The challenge for educators is to create sufficient dis-equilibrium between these two images to move forward, but not so much dis-equilibrium to motivate a backlash. Change agents, as Professor Cuban suggests need to remain cognizant of the various layers around them and do what it takes to maintain support. Many projects create their own problems by over selling the results and over publicizing their activities. To get funding, project leaders must often do a sales-job on the funding agency and also maintain a high profile to sustain the funding agencys interest. Both understandable strategies breed potential failure. In the first case, as Cuban points out it becomes difficult to deliver with fidelity. In the second case, a high profile sets a project up to intense investigation, and critics are just waiting to find the warts. In my work, I have found that the most interested and often unyielding critics are colleagues from other schools or districts. In some ways some people see the success of an innovative approach elsewhere as an implied criticism of what they may or may not be doing. Perhaps this speaks to the emotional fragility of our profession especially in times of rapid change. A teacher I interviewed in a high profile model school suggested that innovators eliminate phrases like state of the art, lighthouse schools, model programs and so on from their public language. Sometimes low key and low profile get the job done. It is the old story of the tortoise and the hare. Teaching, as my colleague Andy Hargreaves, is fond of saying is a passionate profession. Teaching is a passionate, emotional activity. I periodically ask workshop participants to list positive and negative experiences they had in school. Over 80% of the answers I get for both are related to emotional, non rational (not irrational experiences). Reformers who try to improve learning by simplistic rational linear, input-output strategies and measures of intellectual accounting miss the very essence of schools and teaching. Just as childrens emotions are important so are teachers. The morally bankrupt campaign by powerful elements in our nations to undermine the profession by naming, shaming and blaming them for the ills of schools and by extension society are having their impact. Serious teacher shortages exist in most Western countries. Australian officials go to England to recruit and British officials go to Australia to recruit. In England where successive governments have publicly denigrated teachers, the Labour government is now offering large financial inducements to get young people to enroll in teacher education. School districts now offer signing bonuses to get teachers ( it is nice to see teachers being treated like athletes). Some districts have gone to a four-day week for students because they havent got enough teachers. Leaders at all levels are in short supply. While North America hasnt arrived at this brave new world, the continuing failure of change agents to account for peoples emotional responses to change will seriously undermine our educational systems. Simply stated, you cant expect to beat up on people and then have them commit themselves passionately to implementing and sustaining changes. One way to enhance sustainability is for the opinion-makers to tone down the rhetoric. While I cant say as a non-American that President Bushs educational policies thrill me, I do applaud his efforts and those of Mrs. Bush to publicly acknowledge the importance and significance of the teaching profession. It is a start. In a similar vein, as Professor Cuban has indicated, non-rational aspects of change, like its purpose, its politics, and how they interact with school and district cultures and leadership are as important, if not more so, than the structures created. In our work we teach the change frames. We encourage participants in a not only to look at structures but also purpose, politics, emotions, culture, organizational learning and leadership. Through this multi-dimensional approach change participants engage in a critical inquiry that helps them to buy in to changes. One of the keys to sustainability is this buy-in factor. Research on major systemic changes suggests that projects in which participants had ample opportunity to discuss, analyze and buy in up front had greater staying power. My final area of comment is on the role of unions. Professor Cuban is one of the few people who in the change field who even mentions the role of unions in change efforts. In Ontario, the union can make or break a change effort. This is an area in which to my knowledge there is rather limited research. I would be interested in comment on the role of unions and direction to substantive studies on the topic. I look forward to reading the comments of othersand again applaud Professor Cuban for stirring my juices.