The
purpose of this report is to inform you
about a systemic change effort that the Indiana University School
of Education is facilitating in the MSD Decatur Township of Indianapolis.
As a systemic, district-wide effort, it addresses all aspects of
education, and it can benefit from the expertise of faculty in all
programs in the School of Education.
What
is this project all about?
The purpose of this project is to help the Decatur Township engage
in a process for deciding what an ideal school system would be for
their community, and to work on getting as close to that ideal as
possible. We are not there to tell them what their schools should
be like; we are there to help them see new possibilities and to
decide for themselves what they want.
Some
of the values that underlie the process we are facilitating are:
- As
many stakeholders as possible should be involved.
- The
stakeholders collectively should have ownership over both the
change process and the changes that are decided upon.
- The
change process should focus on student learning and development;
all changes should be designed with that in mind.
- The
change process is first and foremost a process of helping people
to evolve and deepen their thinking about education- to help them
evolve their mental models about education (Senge) and to thereby
evolve the culture of their schools (Fullan).
- The
process should encourage all participants to think in the ideal,
then develop a strategic plan for evolving as close as possible
to that ideal.
The
logic of the change process, which has evolved through several change
efforts, centers around the creation of a vision of Decatur's future
educational system. If that vision is developed by, and owned by,
a large number of stakeholders, the change process will be successful.
The challenge is how to develop a shared vision. People's visions
about education are based on their beliefs (or values, or philosophies,
or ideals) about education. Thus, to arrive at a shared vision,
they must first arrive at a set of common beliefs about education.
As Senge and Fullan have indicated, mental models and culture are
the foundation for any fundamental changes in education. Hence,
much of the change process is concerned with engaging stakeholders
in dialogue with each other to understand why others believe what
they do, and through that understanding to evolve their own beliefs,
mental models, and school culture.
What
has happened in the project so far?
Charles Reigeluth and Roberto Joseph have been working as facilitators
with the Decatur Township for almost a year and half, meeting weekly
with a "Core Team" of stakeholders to build a foundation
for this kind of change process. The members of the Core Team include
a school board member, a principal, a PTO leader, the president
of the Decatur Education Association, and the superintendent. The
Core Team will soon expand to include a much broader cross-section
of all members of the community, and that expanded team will work
with all stakeholders to design better learning experiences for
all children.
As the first step to getting all stakeholders involved in this systemic
change process, the Core Team held six widely publicized meetings
to which all community members were invited. The purpose of those
meetings, which took place between January 22 and February 7, was
to start to identify the educational needs of the students and community
and how they have changed over the past generation or two. In April
and May the Core Team will hold 7 more community meetings to help
stakeholders work on developing shared beliefs about education that
will guide decisions on what changes (if any) should be made in
their schools.
Where
is the project going from here?
Early this fall the Core Team will expand into a 25-member "Decisioning
Team," which will include key opinion leaders from all stakeholder
groups. This will be the political force behind the change effort.
Then the Decisioning Team will likely form several building-based
design teams to develop different visions for their respective buildings
(or for smaller schools-within-a-school in their buildings). These
design teams will want much information about the latest thinking
on how to better foster learning and human development. We expect
them to want to try out different ideas, which offers an excellent
opportunity for action research. Later, a district-wide design team
will work on designing administrative and governance systems that
will best support the school designs. Information about policy,
leadership, and finance issues will be important. Finally, once
the new designs have been created and approved, work will need to
be done to develop and implement strategic plans for evolving as
close as possible to those designs. Professional development, technology
support, and much more will be needed at that time.
Charlie Reigeluth (reigelut@indiana.edu)
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