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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCHLECHTY CENTER

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W W W. S C H L E C H T Y C E N T E R . O R G

Transforming America’s Schools

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCHLECHTY CENTER

The Schlechty Center is a private, nonprofit organization committed to partnering with school leaders across the country to transform their classrooms, schools, and school districts into engagement-focused organizations.

Mission The Schlechty Center engages education leaders at the district, school, and classroom levels for the following reasons:

• To enhance the capacity of the district to support and sustain innovations at the building and classroom levels. • To redesign schools so that they are more clearly focused on providing quality work for children and so that

students become the true focus of all decisions made in schools. • To help teachers, parents, and others who work in schools and classrooms to better understand the

characteristics of quality work for students, and to ensure that teachers have the tools and support they need to design and deliver the highest quality work for students.

In pursuing these goals, the Schlechty Center provides strategic consultation and targeted advice to district leaders, technical assistance and training to school boards and educators at all levels, and tools to assist educators in transforming their environments to focus on better outcomes for students, their parents, and the communities in which they live. The Schlechty Center continually draws on what it learns from its hands-on experience to invigorate its practice and inform the field of education reform.

Basic Assumptions Regarding School Transformation The Schlechty Center uses five basic assumptions to guide its work and creates partnerships with school district leaders who share these beliefs:

1. There is an urgent need for dramatic improvement in the performance of America’s public schools. 2. The key to improving schools is improving the quality of the work students are provided. To improve the

quality of the work students are provided, schools must be organized around students and the work provided to students rather than around adults and the work of teachers.

3. Students are volunteers and knowledge workers. Their attendance can be commanded, but their attention must be earned.

4. The changes required to organize schools around students and student work cannot occur unless school districts and communities have or develop the capacities needed to support change—capacities that are now too often lacking in even the best-run school districts.

5. Leadership and leadership development are key components to the creation of district-level capacity to support building-level reform.

LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS

Learning organizations are formal social organizations that purposefully create, support, and use learning communities as the primary means of inducting new members; creating, developing, and exporting knowledge; assigning tasks and evaluating performances; and establishing goals and maintaining direction.

Transforming Organizations Systems that regulate behavior in schools are transformed from organizations that produce compliance and attendance to organizations that nurture attention and commitment. Transforming school districts from bureaucracies to learning organizations requires that school leaders make conscious decisions to do so and that these leaders gain the insights and skills needed to develop in others the commitment and capacities to move their agenda forward.

Redefining Roles Transforming bureaucracies into learning organizations requires the redefinition of key leadership roles; everyone’s role must change. Leadership development must be linked with system development—neither can be an independent endeavor. If system and leadership development are not aligned, it is unlikely that district and school leaders will develop the skills and capacity to lead change.

Increasing Engagement The core business of schools is to provide students with content-rich, engaging schoolwork. Engaged leaders and engaged staff create work that engages students at higher levels and increases the likelihood that students will learn those things that schools, parents, and community members want them to learn to be considered well- educated.

Three essential organizing concepts frame how we go about our work:

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A SYSTEMIC VIEW

Leaders in a learning organization spend time and attention on the Directional System, the Knowledge Development and Transmission System, and the Recruitment and Induction System. It is important to understand, however, that a systemic view requires an understanding of Six Critical Systems that define the way functions in a school district are carried out.

• The Directional System: The systems through which goals are set, priorities are determined, and when things go awry, corrective actions are initiated.

• The Knowledge Development and Transmission System: The formal and informal systems that define the means by which knowledge related to the moral, aesthetic, and technical norms that shape behavior in schools and school districts is developed, imported, evaluated, and transmitted.

• The Recruitment and Induction System: The systems through which new members are identified and attracted to the organization and brought to understand and embrace the norms and values they must understand and embrace to be full members of the organization. They are also the systems through which current members are brought to understand and embrace the norms and values of an organization undergoing important change.

• The Boundary System: The systems that define who and what are inside the organization, and are therefore subject to the control of the organization, and who and what are outside the organization, and are therefore beyond the reach of the systems that make up the organization.

• The Evaluation System: The systems through which measures of merit and worth are assigned, status is determined, honor is bestowed, and the method and timing of negative sanctions are set.

• The Power and Authority System: The systems that legitimize the use of sanctions, define the proper exercise of power, and determine status relationships.

OUR COMMITMENT TO CHANGE

Our focus is on transforming schools from organizations based on the assumption that the core business of schools has to do simply with producing compliance and attendance to organizations in which the core business is nurturing attention and commitment.

Schlechty Center associates proceed from the assumption that if schools and school districts are to be successful in producing the level and quality of learning that is required in the modern world, they must be transformed. To accomplish this transformation, schools and school districts will need to undergo systemic change as well as introduce innovations that are disruptive and threatening to many of the interests that are served by the present arrangement of schools. In support of this assumption, the staff of the Schlechty Center has developed frameworks to help school leaders who are committed to bringing about this transformation. One of these frameworks is “Our Commitment to Change,” which serves as the basis for 10 System Capacity Standards.

According to Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, there are two kinds of innovations: sustaining and disruptive.

Sustaining innovations are those innovations which are congruent with existing systems and which existing systems have the capacity to support and sustain over time. Sustaining innovations can be introduced through strategies that are quite similar to the strategies used in improvement efforts since such innovations do not require much in the way of systemic change. In other words, sustaining innovations can be introduced through well- articulated, codified, and pre-packaged projects and programs of action.

Disruptive innovations are those innovations which are incongruent with existing systems and/or which are beyond the capacity of present systems to support and sustain for a long enough time to demonstrate their effectiveness. Improvement can result from actions intended to enhance or improve the skill with which persons employ the present technology (or means of doing the job). These actions are properly viewed as training activities and are sometimes also referred to as “staff development.” They are also frequently associated with the introduction of sustaining innovations. Sometimes, the improvements needed go beyond the technologies the present system has the capacity to support and require the introduction of innovations that require supportive changes in systems as well as changes in the orientations and performance capabilities of individuals. Such innovations cannot be introduced through programs and projects. These innovations and the systemic changes that are needed to support them can only be introduced through leaders who understand the nature of systems and systemic change. Such leaders must possess the courage and the fortitude to bring about changes in the structure and culture of the school to enhance the possibility of success. The structure and culture of the school gain expression through systems of norms. Both structure and culture determine the capacity of the school to accept and incorporate new technologies. (The structure of the school refers to existing systems of rules, roles, and relationships. The culture refers to the values, commitments, traditions, lore, and shared meanings of the school.) The normative system is organized around functional areas that are critical to the life of the school district and school: the Directional System, the Knowledge Development and Transmission System, the Recruitment and Induction System, the Boundary System, the Evaluation System, and the Power and Authority System.

OUR COMMITMENT TO CHANGE (CONTINUED)

For schools to be able to support and sustain the systemic changes needed to introduce disruptive innovations, they must possess the following capacities: • The capacity to focus on the future. • The capacity to maintain direction in the face of adversity. • The capacity to act strategically.

The capacity to focus on the future requires that leaders: • Clearly identify and articulate the core business of schools and persuade others regarding this matter. • Articulate and share with others beliefs that are consistent with the nature of the business as it is defined and

gain consensus on those beliefs. • Develop a vision of the school or school system that is based on and congruent with the beliefs that guide the

system and help others to see the meaning of this vision for the positions and roles they occupy. • Develop a shared understanding of the problems that must be addressed and the changes that must take

place if the vision that has been articulated is to be realized.

The capacity to maintain direction requires that leaders: • Center all activity on the pursuit of the core business and make all decisions with an eye toward enhancing

the capacity of schools and those who work in schools to conduct this business effectively, efficiently, and ethically.

• Use the beliefs and values that guide the organization as standards for assessing the merit and worth of decisions and the consequences of actions that result from those decisions.

• Ensure that those whose support is needed and whose actions are required to install the innovation have sufficient involvement in decisions that affect them and their interests to encourage them to voluntarily “buy in” to the actions, even when their short-term personal interests may appear to be threatened.

• Ensure that systems are in place to support continuity of leadership, including but not limited to the development of appropriate induction systems and evaluation systems as well as leadership succession plans.

Strategic Action

Direction and Focus

A Future Orientation

OUR COMMITMENT TO CHANGE (CONTINUED)

The capacity to act strategically requires that leaders: • Ensure that those who support the innovative effort are themselves provided the training and support

they need, including but not limited to political support, resources (time, people, space, information, and technology), and social support (for example, collegial support).

• Encourage a spirit of experimentalism by reducing the risks attached to failure on initial tries and by encouraging the expression of contrary and controversial views.

• Ensure that the hardware, software, and skills required to install the innovation are present and accessible to all who need them.

• Identify and develop those partnerships and other collaborative arrangements that will enhance the installation of the innovation and develop strategies to protect the innovative effort from forces inside or outside the existing system that would be distracting.

When an organization has developed the capacity to install disruptive innovations, it has developed the • clarity of purpose and values, • sense of direction, • assessment mechanisms, • leadership commitment, • infrastructure for taking action, and • resource allocation flexibility that are needed to change critical systems in ways that respond to and support the requirements of the innovation that is to be installed.

We focus attention on student motivation and the strategies needed to increase the prospect that schools and teachers will be positioned to increase the presence of engaging tasks and activities in the routine life of the school.

According to Phillip Schlechty, engagement results when students are attentive, persistent, and committed. Students value and find meaning in the work and learn what they are expected to learn.

This commitment is the basis of the Working on the Work framework and proceeds from a number of assumptions. Among the more critical of these are the following: • The way school tasks and activities are designed introduces variances in the qualities that can be and are

introduced into the work. • Variances in these qualities produce variances in the level of effort that students are willing to invest in the

task or activity. • Student decisions regarding the personal consequences of doing the task assigned or participating in the

activity provided result in five different types of involvement in these tasks and activities, as listed below.

ENGAGEMENT • The student sees the activity as personally meaningful. • The student’s level of interest is sufficiently high that he

persists in the face of difficulty. • The student finds the task sufficiently challenging that she

believes she will accomplish something of worth by doing it. • The student’s emphasis is on optimum performance and on

“getting it right.”

STRATEGIC COMPLIANCE • The official reason for the work is not the reason the student

does the work—she substitutes her own goals for the goals of the work.

• The substituted goals are instrumental—grades, class rank, college acceptance, parental approval.

• The focus is on what it takes to get the desired personal outcome rather than on the nature of the task itself— satisfactions are extrinsic.

• If the task doesn’t promise to meet the extrinsic goal, the student will abandon it.

RITUAL COMPLIANCE • The work has no meaning to the student and is not connected

to what does have meaning. • There are no substitute goals for the student. • The student seeks to avoid either confrontation or approbation. • The emphasis is on minimums and exit requirements—what do

I have to do to get this over and get out?

OUR COMMITMENT TO ENGAGEMENT

Students who are engaged:

Learn at high levels and have a profound grasp of what they learn.

Retain what they learn.

Can transfer what they learn to new contexts.

Students who are strategically compliant:

Learn at high levels but have a superficial grasp of what they learn.

Do not retain what they learn.

Usually cannot transfer what they learn from one context to another.

Students who are ritually compliant:

Learn only at low levels and have a superficial grasp of what they learn.

Do not retain what they learn.

Seldom can transfer what they learn from one context to another.

OUR COMMITMENT TO ENGAGEMENT (CONTINUED)

RETREATISM • The student is disengaged from current classroom activities

and goals. • The student is thinking about other things or is emotionally

withdrawn from the action. • The student rejects both the official goals and the official means

of achieving the goals. • The student feels unable to do what is being asked or is uncertain about what is being asked. • The student sees little that is relevant to life in the academic work.

REBELLION • The student is disengaged from current classroom activities

and goals. • The student is actively engaged in another agenda. • The student creates her own means and her own goals. • The student’s rebellion is usually seen in acting out—and

often in encouraging others to rebel.

Teachers can enhance the prospect of students’ being engaged in the tasks and activities they want them to be engaged in by attending carefully to building into the work they provide those qualities that are most likely to appeal to the values, interests, and needs of the students involved. Phil Schlechty refers to these as Design Qualities.

Design Qualities • Content and Substance, which refers to what is to be learned and the level of student interest in the subject

or topic.

• Product Focus, which refers to the opportunity to structure tasks and activity so that what students are to learn is linked to some product, performance, or exhibition to which the student attaches personal value.

• Organization of Knowledge, which refers to the way the work is organized—for example, using a problem- solving approach, discovery approach, or didactic teaching—with consideration for the learning styles that are assumed or are to be addressed.

• Clear and Compelling Product Standards, which refers to the extent to which students are clear about what they are to do, what the products they produce should look like, what standards will be applied to evaluate these products and their performances, and how much value students attach to the standards that are to be used; that is, do the students believe in the standards and see them as personally compelling?

• Protection from Adverse Consequences for Initial Failures, which refers to the extent to which the task is designed so students feel free to try without fear that initial failures will bring them humiliation, implicit punishment, or negative sanctions.

• Affiliation, which refers to the possibility of designing tasks so that students are provided the opportunity to work with peers as well as with parents, outside experts, and other adults, including but not limited to the teacher.

Students who are in retreat:

Do not participate, and therefore learn little or nothing from the task or activity assigned.

Students who are in rebellion:

Learn little or nothing from the task or activity assigned.

Sometimes learn a great deal from what they elect to do, though rarely that which was expected.

Develop poor work habits and sometimes develop negative attitudes toward intellectual tasks and formal education.

OUR COMMITMENT TO ENGAGEMENT (CONTINUED)

• Affirmation, which refers to the possibility of designing tasks and activities so that the performance of students is made visible to persons who are significant in their lives, as well as designing the work in ways that make it clear that the quality of the performance of the student has meaning and value to peers and others whose opinions the student values and cares about.

• Choice, which refers to the possibility of designing tasks and activities so that students can exercise choice either in what they are to learn or how they go about learning that which it is required that they learn.

• Novelty and Variety, which refers to the possibility of providing students the opportunity to employ a wide range of media and approaches when they are engaged in the activities assigned and encouraged.

• Authenticity, which refers to the possibility of linking learning tasks to things that are of real interest to the student, especially when the student is not interested in learning what adults have determined he or she needs to learn.

The primary task of the teacher is to design engaging tasks and activities for students that call upon students to learn what the school has determined they should learn and then to lead students to success in the completion of these tasks. Teachers are, therefore, leaders, designers, and guides to instruction, and the role of teacher needs to be redefined to reflect this view. To redefine the role of teacher, it will also be necessary to redesign every other role in the school, including the roles of the superintendent, the board of education, and central office personnel, as well as principals and parents. All of this redesign must reflect a clear understanding and acceptance of the fact that schools should be organized to nurture engagement rather than to produce attendance and compliance.

OUR COMMITMENT TO DESIGN

In order to understand our position on design, one must first understand the terms design, invention, and innovation as they are used in Schlechty Center work.

Design, as defined by Phillip Schlechty, is the development of relationships among critical elements that satisfy the needs, motives, and values of the customer. Invention is the process of creating something new. Innovation is the process of installing something new. An innovation can be either a process or a product, but the innovation does not occur until the process or product is put to use. So, in a learning organization, the design work begins by understanding the customer, inventing new processes and products in response to the customer, and being innovative in the ways that new processes and products are installed.

We focus on the fact that school districts need to understand and utilize design if they are going to provide the kinds of learning experiences that will engage all students and increase the possibility that students will learn at high levels, and if those school districts are going to transform themselves into the kinds of organizations that will support a focus on the design of engaging work.

The basis of design is a cornerstone of all of the Schlechty Center’s work, along with Coaching for Design, a process that supports teachers in working on the work for students. It is also vital in the formation and work of School Design Teams and District Design Teams, as well as in the work of school leaders. All use design thinking as they work on learning experiences or social systems in order to support the district’s transformation from a bureaucracy to a learning organization.

We maintain that public education needs to utilize design in at least two arenas, the design of learning experiences and the design of social systems. An overview of our thinking on these matters is presented on the next page.

In order to engage students in important learning experiences—tasks, assignments, units of schoolwork—schools and teachers must attend to the design of experiences that are most likely to appeal to students’ values, interests, and needs. If teachers accept that students must be engaged in order to learn at high levels, teachers can no longer assume that materials created for a generalized, universal student will in fact engage all students or that materials created considering just the age or general academic ability of students will suffice. A focus on engagement requires that teachers as designers and leaders understand well the needs, interests, and dispositions of their customers, the students, so that teachers may take such information into account as they design work. When teachers as designers and leaders fully take into account their customers, the learning experiences they design hold great promise to result in the kinds of profound learning required by today’s world.

In learning organizations, the attention of teachers moves from planning to design, a shift that has dramatic implications for what teachers do and what they think about what they do. Rather than seeing themselves as instructors and viewing their primary tasks as planning and delivering instruction, teachers will need to see themselves as persons who design tasks for students that are so engaging that students seek instruction.

In a learning organization, the design of such experiences is the core business. As such, we believe that nurturing engagement, through design thinking and attentiveness to the 10 Design Qualities, results in the customers’ volunteering their attention and commitment to the work. This requires moving the emphasis from school as a platform for teaching to school as a platform for learning, where not only is information taught but opportunities to learn are also created.

See “Our Commitment to Engagement” for detailed information about the nature of engagement.

Design of Learning Experiences Design of Social Systems

Since public education is currently organized as a bureaucracy focused on ensuring student compliance, leaders must design/redesign their organizations, specifically the social systems that comprise the district and schoolhouse, thereby transforming them into learning organizations that will nurture and support commitment to engagement. Currently, as bureaucracies, school systems rely on rules, procedures, and hierarchical authority to conduct their business and to maintain order and certainty. In contrast, learning organizations rely on clarity of focus and direction and utilize design to provide continuous innovation—and increased satisfaction and achievement—for staff and students alike. If public educators today are going to respond well to the rapidly changing social forces that impact young people and their learning, they will need to design school districts that have the capacity to address uncertainty and change; in other words, public educators will need to design learning organizations.

Much that happens in schools can be understood only if one understands how the social systems that comprise schools operate. This is why systems thinking is so important to educational leaders.

System design requires leaders to understand that districts and schools function as they do because of the current nature of Six Critical Systems, social systems critical to the work of transformation. If leaders are to design learning organizations, they must work to change the Six Critical Systems. Specifically, learning organizations differentiate themselves from bureaucracies by using design thinking to emphasize the Directional System, Knowledge Development and Transmission System, and Recruitment and Induction System, and to make the Boundary System, Evaluation System, and Power and Authority System subservient to the primary systems.

See “Our Commitment to Change” for detailed information about transformation.

OUR COMMITMENT TO DESIGN (CONTINUED)

Design Thinking In design thinking, leaders must • understand the customer at a profound level and begin with the customers’ needs and wants; • think strategically in a divergent and metaphorical manner, set long-term goals, and focus on what is

important to accomplish, not simply what can be done; • plan strategically using convergent and concrete actions; • recognize that planning exists inside the context of design, not vice versa; • see the connection between and among design, invention, and innovation; and • visualize the action parts of the design process: collaborating, prototyping, identifying weaknesses, and

making in-flight corrections through redesign.

Reform or Transform? When confronted with the need for change in districts and schools, leaders often assume a “reform” approach— simply put, trying to get better at doing what has always been done. This is continuous improvement, and it focuses on using established processes and products in modified ways.

In transformation, or continuous innovation, designers stay close to the beliefs of the organization and the vision of what might be. This requires most organizations to reinvent themselves. They get better and better by doing different things, not by doing the same things differently.

Today’s schools must learn and practice continuous innovation. The utilization of design thinking, the routine invention of new processes and products, and the installation of those processes and products in response to today’s changing customers are all needed to facilitate the formation of learning organizations and engagement- centered schools.

SCHLECHTY CENTER OFFERINGS

We offer a broad range of experiences designed for those who are working to transform their classrooms, schools, and school districts into engagement-focused organizations. Every session we create, every relationship we build, and every network we support has the ultimate goal of increasing student engagement and increasing profound learning for students.

Custom Consultation and Facilitation Each school is as unique as the community it serves. Most of our work with school districts includes custom consultation, coaching, and facilitation to address issues particular to the district. Often this work is co-designed with school or district leadership around topics or situations not covered in one of our national conferences or premium offerings. A few examples are school board training, retreats for school or district staff, and on-site leadership academies. Facilitation can be discussed by contacting [email protected] or one of our senior associates.

National Conferences The Schlechty Center offers national conferences because we believe there is great power in learning with and from educators across the country. A list of conferences with full descriptions including dates, fees, and registration information is available at http://www.schlechtycenter.org/events.

• Working on the Work—Participants at this conference have control of their learning by making choices in concurrent sessions, processes, and products. This year the theme is “Exploring the Learning Platform.” Participants at this year’s conference will explore the characteristics of the role of student in a learning organization and will learn how to create learning platforms in their own schools. During the conference opening activity, participants will build a learning platform by exploring specific tools/processes that detail what students would be doing and what teachers would be doing were classrooms designed this way. Throughout the conference, participants will continuously explore the kinds of work students would be asked to do were they viewed as volunteers and knowledge workers.

• Summer Leadership Academies—We have grown to understand that transforming schools requires innovative leaders within all role groups. The three summer academies—the Academy of Innovative Leaders, the Teacher Leader Academy, and the Marilyn Hohmann Principals Academy—take advantage of the opportunity to have leaders from different role groups in one location. Participants will work and learn through interactive experiences within each academy as well as through opportunities to interact with participants from other academies. Overall, the three academies will highlight our newest learnings and connect them to the work of today’s leaders in school transformation.

• School Board Conference—The School Board Conference will provide compelling ideas about how school boards might pursue the important work of building community on behalf of public education. Teams of school board members, led by their superintendents, will examine their role as boards, with particular emphasis on how a school board plays a crucial role in restoring civic capacity and building social capital.

• Design Team Conference—The Design Team Conference is an opportunity to learn how Design Teams use systems thinking, supported by the discipline of design, to lead their schools and districts.

• Engaging the Net Generation—The digital age is upon us! This conference embraces the role of teacher as guide to instruction and shows educators how to engage students by focusing on design and using the tools available in the digital environment. Offered in small-group settings, this session allows educators to explore a wealth of software possibilities and to practice creating the kinds of learning experiences students deserve.

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http://www.schlechtycenter.org/events

SCHLECHTY CENTER OFFERINGS (CONTINUED)

• Creating a Strategy for Engaging Staff—This workshop provides leadership teams consultation and access to an accompanying tool, Employee Engagement, to support districts and schools in learning what it takes to understand employee motives, in digging deeper into what employees need in their work, in determining levels of commitment to the direction and purpose of the organization, and in internalizing what makes employees feel enthusiastic about the future.

• Coaching for Design Level II—This session is a four-day intensive learning experience to develop in coaches the knowledge and tools necessary to coach their colleagues through the design of engaging work.

• Customization in an Era of Standardization—In most dimensions of American society, customization of goods and services is based on the needs and interests of individuals or groups; however, in the public education sector, imposed regulations have increasingly standardized policies, practices, and procedures. Education leaders who recognize the importance of customized student and staff experiences will find this conference a valuable source of ideas for their teams of key leaders.

• Linking Key Leaders—School and central office leaders who have an interest in the topic of accountability will come together in this session to identify current district or school change initiatives, become clear on the results they desire, and determine how they will assess their progress toward the desired change. Rather than the focus on conventional accountability (accountable to), participants will identify what they will hold themselves accountable for and determine the evidence that vaildates their progress. In order to strengthen the connections between key leaders and customize the learning experience, we will engage in Open Space Technology for a portion of this conference.

Premium Experiences We recognize that it is often difficult for educators to attend national conferences. To address this problem, we have designed premium experiences that can be facilitated in a school district or offered regionally, allowing the networking of several school districts in the same area around a particular theme. The offerings vary in length and cost. Facilitation can be discussed by contacting [email protected] or one of our senior associates.

• Engaging the Net Generation—The digital age is upon us! This session embraces the role of teacher as guide to instruction and shows educators how to engage students by focusing on design and using the tools available in the digital environment. Offered in small-group settings, this session allows educators to explore a wealth of software possibilities and to practice creating the kinds of learning experiences students deserve.

• Creating a Strategy for Engaging Staff: A Learning Experience for District and School Leadership Teams—This experience is focused on what leaders do to increase employee “buy-in,” improve staff morale, garner meaningful feedback from teachers, and reignite the joy of teaching.

• Reframing Accountability as a Strategy to Save Public Education—The current national accountability system, while well-intended, is grounded in reformation rather than transformation and based on dismantling rather than saving public education. We are opposed to accountability strategies that serve to discredit and undermine public education and those who teach our children and run our schools. But it is not enough to simply be against something without offering an alternative. We need solutions we can champion. Using Open Space Technology, participants will identify and explore accountability strategies that are based on trust as opposed to sanctions and punishment, and based on “profound” as opposed to “superficial” learning.

• Supporting and Sustaining Innovation—Disruptive innovations threaten the current system and are often expelled or domesticated. This session is focused on understanding innovation and the leader’s role in designing systems that support and sustain it.

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mailto:info%40schlechtycenter.org?subject=from%20Schlechty%20Center%20Offerings%20PDF

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SCHLECHTY CENTER OFFERINGS (CONTINUED)

• Whose Standards Are They?—While, for the most part, there has been a focus on identifying, understanding, and assessing standards, little attention has been paid to what is required to build ownership among those who will use them. This session will address the essential role content plays in the design of student experiences, the role teachers must play in “unpacking” or making sense of state and national standards, and the role of central office leaders—curriculum, staff development, and other leaders—in providing support for teachers. School and district beliefs about learning and local curriculum efforts will be the context for looking at content.

• What the Numbers Don’t Tell Us: Schools and Districts Tell Their Stories—Schools and districts are alive with stories that exemplify their uniqueness. Those stories, however, often go untold, allowing bureaucratic language to stand as their substitute. This session provides a process to capture and create stories that can be used to build commitment for the changes needed to create a focus on engagement rather than compliance.

• Taking Stock—Why do transformation efforts often fail? Efforts fail because of the lack of attention given to developing organizational capacity to support and sustain change. Initiatives are often started on the flawed assumption that there is a common understanding of why the initiative is needed and that there is strong leadership commitment from those whose support is essential to its success. Taking Stock utilizes key leaders in a school or district to assess the organization’s capacity by taking an honest look at where the district stands in relation to 10 System Capacity Standards. As a result of this work, participants will share a sense of what strategic actions are needed in order to move in a new direction.

• Beliefs Institute—There is a difference between setting direction and following directives. If leaders in your school or district are committed to ensuring a common direction—one defined by engagement rather than compliance, one defined by profound learning rather than superficial learning—a compelling vision of the future based on a set of clear, specific beliefs is needed. This session takes participants through a multi-step process to both understand their own personal beliefs about schools and help them facilitate the development of beliefs and vision in their school or department.

• The Capacity-Building Role of the Central Office—The effectiveness of the central office is defined by its capacity to function as a collective entity, one more focused on the direction of the district than on the management of discrete programs. This experience is designed to help central office leaders see their role as capacity builders who work well together while strategically identifying and removing barriers that inhibit collaboration in schools and classrooms. It is also designed to help each staff member in the central office see how his or her respective role contributes to student success and the success of the district.

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