Inside the Black Box of School Reform
Inside the Black Box of School Reform: Explaining the how and why of change at Getting Results schools
By Dennis McDougall, William M. Saunders, and Claude Goldenberg
Published in the International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2007).
Summary
This article reports key findings from a process-focused external evaluation that compared a subset of four Getting Results (a.k.a. “Learning Teams”) project schools and three comparison schools in order to understand the dynamics of school-wide reform efforts at these primary schools. Findings shed light on the “black box” of school reform and illuminate the limited empirical basis for understanding the inner workings of most reform efforts. Researchers describe how Getting Results Model elements—goals, indicators, assistance, leadership, and settings—worked in concert to improve teaching and learning at project schools. Researchers also describe factors that inhibited and promoted change, as well as implications for how whole-school reform might be accomplished through purposeful manipulation of these essential change elements.
Findings
· LT implementation transformed grade level meetings from settings where non-academic topics were discussed to settings where teachers engaged in systematic academic planning, instructional modeling, and analysis of student work.
· The LT model established “tighter linkages” between teacher and administrators in their schools’ ongoing efforts to focus on academic goals and improve student achievement.
· Teachers in LT schools were more likely to shift attributions for student achievement toward “specific, teacher-implemented, instructional actions” and away from external factors such as student traits or other non-instructional explanations.
· LT implementation fostered a “group ethos” among grade level team members and leadership team members and a “collective willingness” to address instructional processes and academic needs.
· LT implementation impacted teachers’ expectations for student achievement in small but significant ways. Specifically, the practice of collaborative goal-setting allowed teachers to voice their expectations and assumptions and examine the implications of those assumptions.
· LT implementation required teachers to assume academic leadership roles which promoted more distributed leadership and fostered a heightened sense of professional responsibility.
