Dr. Larry K. Kelly is in his 30^th year as member of NCA serving as visiting team chair, conducting workshops and seminars in NCA procedures both stateside and for DoDEA, and is currently an NCA Ambassador. He served 26 years as a campus and central office administrator and 7 years as Director of Professional Development for the Arizona School Administrators. He can be reached at lkcvkelly@msn.com.

Introduction

The bureaucratic, top-down, outside-in, standards-based, results-driven call for school improvement is sweeping over the schools of this nation like a tidal wave. Metaphorically, it's as if the advocates of higher standards are at the school's front door unloading the higher standards curriculum, and the assessment and accountability police are standing at the back door checking to be certain that the school responds. Unfortunately, educational history is filled with evidence that this approach to school change stops at the front and back doors. (Tyack & Cuban, 1995)

In the final analysis, sustainable school improvement is a process that is inside-out, bottom-up, and school-by-school. Internal commitment by the school's stakeholders coupled with effective leadership is the fuel for the improvement process. Likewise, the internal school improvement process represents a rich opportunity to strengthen the leadership capacity of each school.

Like all organizational change, implementing a successful school improvement process is a challenging and demanding task. Those responsible for implementing school improvement must become skilled and effective leaders who can:

• Understand the importance of the school's vision, mission, and core values.
• Obtain a commitment from school stakeholders to perform the tasks necessary to achieve the mission.
• Anticipate, facilitate, and lead change.
• Utilize data in the decision-making process.
• Provide guidance in the development, implementation, and monitoring of the plan to improve the school.
• Document results.

Interestingly, there is a strong correlation between the school improvement process and leadership development in these areas. As individuals accept leadership roles such as chairing committees or task forces, writing position papers and reports, or performing other tasks specific to implementing the school improvement process, they are, in fact, developing the skills required to be an effective leader.

The Role of Leadership

Leadership is often defined as the ability to get all members of the organization to perform the tasks required to achieve the organization's goals and objectives. DePree (1989) suggested in his book, Leadership is an Art, that "The art of leadership is liberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective and humane way possible." While there is no one best style of leadership, it is equally true that leadership is essential if schools are to improve. Exemplary leadership in this environment of standards-based, results-driven school accountability will create a sense of excitement about teaching and learning within the school and community by focusing on the hopes, dreams, and expectations of the students, their parents, and the community. This leadership will be able to shift the focus from external mandates to internal competence of individuals and systems that enable all students to achieve the academic and personal goals deemed important by their communities.

Vision, Mission, and Core Values

A key aspect of leadership in the school improvement process is the ability to create a school culture in which "learning for all" is paramount. The importance of such a culture cannot be overemphasized. As Kotter and Heskett (1992) wrote, "Cultures can exert a powerful effect on individuals and on performance. . . . This influence may even be greater than all those factors that have been most often discussed in the organizational and business literature. "

Creating a "learning for all" culture requires two critical factors. First, the leader or leadership group must be "the world they want to see." The leaders must walk the walk of "learning for all" at every opportunity. They must set the focus, make the mission a part of every meeting, and use "learning for all" as the guiding principle for evaluating success or failure at every opportunity. Second, developing, implementing, and monitoring a school improvement plan requires the active involvement and engagement of all faculty and representatives from stakeholder groups. This is best accomplished in a culture that is collegial, collaborative, and supportive. Such cultures grow when modeled by the leaders.

Leadership has been described as the ability to take people to a place they have never been and are unsure they want to go. The vision a leader conveys about confidence--confidence that instills in others a belief that they are capable of performing the tasks implicit in achieving the mission of the organization--is important (Bennis & Nanus, 1985). However, it is not sufficient to merely have a clear vision; the leader must be able to communicate that vision with both clarity and passion. One of the best ways to communicate the vision is to develop a chart or table that lists, side-by-side, how the unit operates now, and how it will operate when the new vision has been successfully implemented.

If a leader has done a good job of communicating the vision, the faculty and staff will have a mental picture of their ideal department, grade, or school and will be able, in turn, to effectively communicate that vision to others.

The school improvement process enhances leadership development because of its strong focus on and commitment to achieving the school's mission. Leaders must have a deep understanding of the mission statement's importance. They must be committed to making decisions and taking actions commensurate with that mission. That is, they must take steps to eliminate those policies, programs, and procedures that are inconsistent with the mission and support those that advance the mission, even if they are not popular among some of the stakeholders.

Alignment of People

A current best-selling book on effective leadership in organizations states that one of the critical functions of the leader is to get the "right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats on the bus" (Collins, 2001). This function describes another major test of effective leadership: the alignment of people within the school. Aligning people means getting people lined up behind the vision and moving in the same direction. This implies that individuals in different disciplines focus their attention and activities on improving the same knowledge or skill base within the student through different strategies and interventions. For example, in schools with a focus on literacy, every department, grade level, and teacher must do whatever necessary to contribute to the literacy goal. They may use different approaches, but everyone is working on the same goal. Aligning people with the vision (mission) and a set of strategies (school improvement plan) helps produce the changes needed to cope with the changing environment (Kotter, 1990).

Building and Leading High Performance Teams

The school improvement process requires that individuals from all stakeholder groups work together--collegially and collaboratively--in teams. Leadership development occurs when individuals become more skilled in getting individuals to work together as a team and when they have the opportunity to develop high-performing work teams. Katzenbach and Smith (1993) wrote, "We believe that teams should be the basic unit of performance for most organizations, regardless of size. In any situation requiring the real-time combination of multiple skills, experiences, and judgments, a team inevitably gets better results than a collection of individuals operating within confined job roles and responsibilities."

Throughout the implementation of the school improvement process, individuals are expected to work collaboratively. Developing the perception that they are working together as a team with all the positive connotations that are associated with "team"--as opposed to their working on a "committee" which, in many instances, may have negative connotations--will produce more positive results. Individuals typically volunteer for a team; are proud to be a member of a team; have a common focus; assume various roles and responsibilities as a member of the team; support each other as team players; and share in the team successes, victories, or wins. Working together as a team to improve student achievement will bring the same satisfaction, gratification, and rewards--not only to the team members, but to the students as well.

Creating a Climate for Change/Getting Commitment

As has often been said, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got." Change is inevitable and imperative if schools are going to improve. However, the path of least resistance for individuals and organizations is to maintain the status quo of the system-in-place. The leadership challenge, then, comes when the system-in-place is required to change.

To overcome the inherent inertia of bureaucracies, school leaders must create energy for and commitment to school improvement. Empowerment means that people are free to choose to be engaged in the change process. Therefore, the leader must create a climate where individuals will freely choose to dedicate themselves to changes required to realize the new vision for the school. The most effective way for leaders to accomplish this task is to clearly communicate the reasons why the changes are needed. Most good people will respond affirmatively to a leader's call for change if they understand the reasons why the changes are needed. For example, in the current reform environment, teachers tend to resist change when leaders declare that the current school is somehow "broken" and in need of fixing. On the other hand, when the leaders explain how the call to reform is being driven by the rapidly changing society, educators can understand and are more willing to commit time and energy to the change process.

In addition to a clear explanation of the "why" of school improvement, educators need to have a chance to be heard. One of the most important leader behaviors is to listen to colleagues as they come to terms with the issues associated with the change. The school improvement process provides many opportunities for stakeholders to engage in productive dialogue. Such dialogue generally leads to an increased commitment to change. Democracy is not about always having your way; it is often about having your say.

Creating a climate where individuals will freely dedicate themselves to the changes required to realize the new vision for the school is consistent with Phase 1 of the NCA protocol for school improvement. In this phase, everyone involved in the school improvement process makes or renews their commitment to improve their school.

Leaders should keep in mind that not all changes will be earthshaking, but none will be insignificant. World-class Olympic athletes incorporate minute changes in their "take off," stride, diet, form, and habits to shave one-hundredth of a second off their time or add a hundredth of an inch to a distance. Through this series of small increments, they advance from not placing in the event to winning the gold medal. Likewise, schools will do well to embrace all changes--whether major or minor--that enable students to advance in their achievements.

Gathering and Analyzing Data

Unlike most organizations, schools have been able to operate pretty effectively in the past without data. However, the accountability and standards movement has forced schools to become much more data-driven and results-oriented. The key to continuous improvement rests on the ability of an organization to "monitor and adjust" its actions. The school leaders must lead the challenge of "giving voice to the data" when it comes to conversation regarding school improvement.

One of the common characteristics of effective organizational leaders generally, and school leaders specifically, is the ability to give voice to the data. Leaders learn to use relevant information to answer questions like how well the school is doing. Unfortunately, most schools in the United States today do not have the metrics that are needed to initiate and sustain continuous school improvement. For example, schools tend to have data relative to the achievement of the students but tend not to collect or analyze data on the leading indicators of student learning. Effective school improvement requires such data and effective leaders are well prepared and passionate about the data that are needed to guide and direct school improvement. The NCA process for school improvement itself evolves around the collection, analysis, and presentation of data from the development of the school mission statement to the documentation of student progress.

Effective leaders are able to use data to help frame the problems facing the school. In addition, effective school leaders know how to use data to help find the root causes of the achievement problems in the school. This is a critical step in the school improvement process. If the underlying, or root causes, of the problem are not found and addressed, any solutions are likely to be only temporary. School leaders have found that disaggregating student performance indicators is a very useful way to frame the "learning for all" problems facing the school. The process of disaggregating data allows all stakeholders to see who is profiting how much from the current school operations.

Data-Driven and Research-Based Goal Setting

In addition to using data to identify the root causes of the achievement problems in the school, the school improvement process creates the opportunity for leaders to use research and effective practices to help set improvement goals and to frame the improvement strategies for the school. One of the defining characteristics of a profession is the declared willingness to use the best available research to inform practice. Virtually every school improvement process at the state level requires school leaders to use research and best available practices as the knowledge base for school improvement goals. NCA developed school improvement plans are expected to include strategies and interventions that are research-based or derived from proven practices.

Unfortunately, the training that most school leaders have received has not equipped them to use data and research to inform and drive decision-making. Often, the leaders of the various school improvement processes need extra help in learning these skills. Educational leaders generally find this training to be helpful, not only for school improvement, but also in a variety of problem-solving situations.

Developing, Implementing, and Monitoring School Improvement Plans

Many leaders believe that, once the school improvement plan is complete, their work is done. This could not be further from the truth. According to the authors of the book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, most improvement efforts fail not because of the plan itself, but because leaders fail to execute the plan successfully (Bossidy & Charan, 2002).

A useful tool to transform the plan into reality is a "Gant Chart." A Gant Chart describes who is supposed to do what and the timeline for implementation. This chart gives staff a clear picture of the intended "roll out" of the improvement plan and the leadership group a way to clearly monitor the implementation process on an ongoing basis. Effective leaders, through their monitoring processes, can make necessary adjustments in the work assignment and associated timeline as circumstances dictate.

Most school improvement goals and action plans are going to require some level of staff training and technical assistance. NCA school improvement plans are expected to have a staff development component that will move the faculty from awareness to actual transfer into the classroom.

Documenting Results/Refining The Plan

A fair criticism of most schools and their school improvement efforts notes that schools are very weak in their desire or willingness to evaluate the impact that policies and programs are having on the school's intended mission. The new school improvement accountability movement has clearly raised the bar of expectations when it comes to claiming that a program or service is effective. A common cry now heard is "show me the data."

The central principle of continuous school improvement is the ability to monitor and adjust throughout the implementation process. In addition, leaders of school improvement must develop a school improvement evaluation plan. Program evaluation plans must be developed and implemented parallel with the action plans and improvement goals. Leaders can't wait until the end of the year or the program and then scramble to document the impact or "value added" as a result of goal implementation. The plan should be developed with the assumption that the improvement goals, when implemented, will likely have both positive and negative consequences, some intended and some unintended.

Summary and Conclusions

There are only two kinds of schools--improving or declining; therefore, school improvement is no longer an option. Indeed, the school improvement process represents a "required opportunity" for all schools. This manuscript has focused on the leadership development opportunities inherent in the school improvement process.

Because of the changing nature of the larger society, schools must continue to improve for the indefinite future. Similarly, schools must not only continue to get better, they must get better at getting better. This fact, and the other realities that 21^st century schools are confronting, demands broad leadership from administrators, teachers, and other school stakeholders. As a result, today's leaders must recognize the need to cultivate leaders for the long term. The school improvement process provides a natural laboratory for growing leaders in all our schools. It's up to us to take advantage of the opportunities for leadership development inherent in the school improvement process and use them to increase leadership capacity in every school. The long-term survival of public education as we know it depends, in no small measure, on leadership development.

References

Bennis, W., & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper & Row.

Bossidy, L., & Charan, R. (2002). Execution: The discipline of getting things done. New York: Crown Business.

Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap...and others don't. New York: HarperCollins.

DePree, M. (1989). Leadership is an art. New York: Dell Publishing.

Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K., (1993). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. New York: HarperCollins.

Kotter, J. P. (1990). A force for change: How leadership differs from management. New York: Free Press.

Kotter, J. P. & Heskett, J. L. (1992). Corporate culture and performance. New York: Free Press.

Tyack, D. & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.