Significant and sustained school improvement won't occur until those at the local school site combine their interest in school structure (that is, rules, relationships, and procedures) with attention to school culture (the beliefs, assumptions, and norms that influence the day-to-day operation of the school). If current school reform initiatives are to be more productive than earlier efforts, practitioners must recognize the interplay between the culture and structure of a school (Fullan 1994).
A Case Study
Ten years ago both the structure and the culture of Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, reflected its commitment to the traditional task of sorting and selecting students. The school assigned students to one of five ability levels in academic areas—honors, accelerated, regular, modified, or basic. Student placements were based on a nationally normed test administered in the fall of 8th grade. First, the entire class was ranked from top to bottom solely on the basis of achievement on that test. Next, artificial caps and quotas were applied to ensure that the incoming class was distributed among the five levels according to the bell-shaped curve.
Although the basic level purported to be remedial, it actually served as a four-year holding pen for the least capable students. The curriculum was less rigorous and moved at a slower pace than the standard high school curriculum. Consequently, these students never moved to a higher level, and each year they fell further behind their schoolmates and the national norms on a variety of achievement tests. If parents sought a higher placement for their student, the school stood as a barrier to their aspirations and explained that the student failed to meet the prerequisite ranking.
Predictably, this structure had a significant impact on the expectations and beliefs of the teachers who worked within it. Teachers were vigilant in their efforts to verify that students had the necessary aptitude to succeed in their courses. If a student struggled, teachers recommended the student's transfer to a lower ability level. Hundreds of level changes were initiated each semester; 75 percent of them moved students to a lower level.
In this structure, teachers saw themselves as quality control inspectors. Their job was to present information as clearly as possible, assess the aptitude of each student, and promote student success by placing students at the appropriate ability level. Assigning grades according to a bell-shaped curve was a common practice that, by definition, limited the number of students who could achieve at a high level and ensured that a certain percentage were destined to fail. The “teacher as quality control inspector” had little need to collaborate with others. There was no compelling reason to coordinate curriculum, instruction, or assessment with colleagues teaching the same course.
Teachers were not only isolated from one another but from parents as well. No active parent organization existed other than booster groups for specific student activities. Teachers were required to communicate with parents only when a student was in danger of failing. Further, the primary means available to communicate student failure was an individual letter to each parent. Thus, parents received a progress report only if failure was imminent. The majority of parents had no idea how their child was doing until they received a report card in the 10th week of the semester.
Clarifying Vision as a Catalyst
In the mid '80s, the Stevenson community and staff considered what they hoped their school might become. A task force of representative teachers, parents, community leaders, and students invited those within the school and the community to describe the characteristics of an excellent high school. After several months of discussion, the task force developed a vision statement that reflected the shared aspirations for the school.
The Stevenson vision statement called for the school's commitment to the success of each student. It soon became evident that if the school was to make progress toward that goal, it would have to make a transition from a school dedicated to identifying winners to a school committed to creating winners. Changing the school's structure would carry the improvement initiative only so far. Meaningful improvement meant changes were also required in the school culture.
The changes that initially were most visible took place in structure. The five ability levels were reduced to three—an honors program for those seeking the opportunity to pursue college-level work while still in high school, a regular level offering the traditional college preparatory program, and a basic level for those needing remedial assistance. However, the school redefined the fundamental purpose of the basic program and designed it to provide students with the knowledge and skills that would enable them to move to the regular program by their junior year. Remedial courses were virtually eliminated after the sophomore year because the school developed other strategies, such as tutorial services and supplementary materials, to help students make the transition to the regular program. This meant that the pace of the basic program had to be accelerated and the content made more rigorous during the freshman and sophomore years.
Stevenson also abandoned procedures that assigned students to levels on the basis of artificial caps and quotas, and embraced the concept of placement according to demonstrated proficiencies. First, teachers from the English, mathematics, and foreign language departments identified the knowledge and skills that were essential to student success in the honors and regular level classes. Then, with input from junior high school teachers, they developed proficiency examinations to assess the achievement level of each student in specific skill areas. The challenge then became one of helping all students achieve the designated skill levels rather than one of sorting and selecting.
Stevenson also took a different posture with parents who appealed the initial placement decisions. Instead of simply rejecting the students as unqualified, the school developed summer offerings to help them acquire the prerequisite knowledge and skills. The school encouraged parents to enroll students in these courses and assured them that those who completed the course would be given another opportunity to demonstrate their proficiency. Rather than resisting parental efforts to improve the placement of their students, the school offered services designed to help students qualify for the higher level.
Transforming Culture
These structural changes succeeded because they corresponded with efforts to transform the school's culture as well. The district vision statement described a school in which teachers identified specific performance standards for each course, accepted their responsibility to help all students achieve those performance standards, collected information on student achievement, and continually sought new ways to be more effective in achieving success for every student. The concept of “teacher as quality inspector” was inconsistent with this description of teacher responsibilities.
John Gardner (1990) has observed that “all great teachers are leaders,” and it was this analogy of “teacher as leader” that shaped the efforts to redefine Stevenson's culture. Just as effective leaders have a clear sense of where their enterprise is headed, teachers formulated clearly articulated goals. Just as effective leaders connect the organization's vision to the personal goals and aspirations of those within the organization, teachers connected course goals to the personal experience and interests of their students. Just as effective leaders motivate and inspire, teachers helped students believe in themselves by expressing confidence in their ability and refusing to accept less than a best effort. Above all else, just as effective leaders are willing to accept responsibility, teachers committed themselves to the success of their students.
Another important cultural change occurred in the area of teacher collaboration. Because the school had committed to common performance standards for each course, staff members needed to work together if they were teaching the same course. Teachers joined teams where they could develop common course outcomes, identify target levels of student proficiency, write uniform course descriptions, and develop common assessment instruments.
These teams assessed the results of student performance at the end of each semester and developed strategies to address those areas where students had not met anticipated proficiency levels. In keeping with the concept of “teacher as leader,” the teachers responsible for any given course made all the important instructional decisions—content and pacing, instructional materials, and assessment and improvement strategies.
Parents became more active in the educational process, too. A parent organization was begun and parents participated in various school improvement task forces. The principal invited all parents to spend an afternoon at the school as his guest. The school solicited parent volunteers, and the parent organization funded the position of coordinator of parent volunteers. And teachers began to communicate with parents on a regular basis. The school abandoned the two nine-week grading periods for each semester in favor of three six-week grading periods, and the written progress reports became a series of computerized statements. Every parent in the school began to receive either a progress report or a report card every three weeks. With this ongoing feedback, parents were able to monitor the progress of their students and intervene when appropriate.
Gratifying Results
Efforts to eliminate caps and quotas in student placement have produced extraordinary results. In 1985, Stevenson did not rank among the top 50 schools in the 13-state Midwest region in terms of student participation in the College Board Advanced Placement Program. By 1992, the school ranked first in the region, and by 1994, it was among the top 20 schools in the world. The honors/accelerated program was now more accessible; almost 80 percent of the most recent graduating class had taken an accelerated or Advanced Placement course sometime during their high school career. Last year the school established new records in every traditional indicator of student achievement, including grade distributions, failure rates, average ACT scores, average SAT scores, percentage of honor grades on Advanced Placement examinations, and average scores in each of the five areas of the state achievement tests.
Stevenson became the first public high school in the county to receive the Excellence in Education Award from the United States Department of Education and the first in Illinois to receive that award a second time. Redbook Magazine has twice named Stevenson one of the top high schools in America.
Unresolved Issues and What Was Learned
This decade-long effort at school improvement continues today. Although our effort has resulted in significant gains, one of the most persistent topics of debate is the appropriate balance between institutional accountability and the responsibility of the individual student. Nevertheless, much has been learned: the importance of a shared vision as a catalyst for change; the importance of people as the source of renewal for an organization; and the need to consider school renewal as an ongoing process rather than a task to be accomplished. As Robert Waterman (1987) has observed, “Some problems are for solving, others are for living with.... Renewal is one for living with. It is a constant challenge, never ... quite ... solved.”
Finally, the importance of the interplay between structure and culture has been one of the most valuable insights gained in this process. A school's structure has a significant impact on its culture; however, changes in structure do not necessarily result in changes in culture. Conversely, asking teachers to embrace a culture that is incongruent with the structure in which they work sends a mixed message that reduces the likelihood of change. Those who seek to bring about meaningful change in a school must address both structure and culture to create the best climate for improvement.
