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I magine a school system that cares as much for the adults who work in the system as it does for the students. See these professionals creating student, teacher, and system knowledge and then using that knowledge to move their district toward higher and higher levels of performance.
O bserve a school district not engaged in yearly rapid-fire change. Instead, imagine that district having the capacity to sustain change over time. See that school district harnessing the collective power of its human, technical, financial and time resources and focusing them on creating and sustaining a high performing school system.
N ote that this is the vision for The Institute for Change Leadership in Education —a vision that will create teams of highly trained and motivated change leaders who can facilitate the challenging and complex task of creating and sustaining systemic transformational change in their school districts.
Now, imagine this Institute in a school of education within a Department of Change Leadership in Education. Envision faculty training teams of district-based change leaders about how to create and sustain systemic transformational change in their districts. Imagine that this training not only teaches these educators how to create and sustain transformational change, but actually expects them to go back to their districts to apply what they learn. Imagine faculty in the department providing coaching and technical assistance to those change leaders as they plan and implement a transformational change methodology.
Imagine the benefit to the school districts, the children they serve, and the educators working in those districts as the participating teams of change leaders begin applying cutting-edge principles for transforming their districts to enhance the quality of student, teacher, and system learning. Imagine these districts becoming communities of learners engaged in a never-ending journey of district-wide improvement.
A proposed design for this special institute is displayed in Table 5. The key characteristics of this institute design are:
| Table 5: An Innovative Design for a 30 Credit Education Specialist Degree Program inChange Leadership in Education | ||
| The [fill in the name of a college or university] Institute on Leading Transformational Change in School Systems | ||
| Curriculum | ||
| Summer 1:(10 credits) | A two week residential workshop/seminar with following topics:
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| Fall and Spring Interim:(10 Credits) | Each team returns to its respective school system to apply learning from the first summer. This application requires them to conduct the SST Protocol “Phase 1: Prepare” activities that prepare their school system to begin systemic transformation. During the interim, teams from all universities offering this institute will be connected through an Internet web-site that includes a virtual forum for everyone to talk to each other and with the instructors about what they are doing. An example of this kind of web site is (External Link) | |
| Summer 2:(10 credits) | A two week residential workshop/seminar on the following topics:
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| Capstone Experience/ProductThe capstone product for the participants is an action plan to transform their school systems to align with the requirements of the Information Age. The capstone experience is the implementation of that action plan; but this experience will not commence until after teams complete the institute. During the implementation period, teams of change leaders from throughout the United States who completed this institute will remain connected through an on-line, virtual change leadership community. | ||
| Other Services and Added Values | ||
The Institute will not just be a training program. It will also:
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| General Admissions Criteria | ||
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| Specific Admissions Criteria | ||
| Criteria | Rationale for Each Criterion | |
| Only district-based teams of 5 or more practitioners may participate in the Institute.The teams must be staffed by teachers and administrators who meet the general admissions criteria and the team membership must represent the entire instructional program in their district; e.g., in a preK-12 th grade district members of the team must represent the early childhood, elementary, middle, and high school levels of schooling in that district. One member of the team must be the superintendent of schools. If a district sends multiple teams, then the superintendent only has to be part of the first team. | →→→ | Training teams of practitioners is critical for successful change.Leading systemic transformational change requires representation of the whole-system, thus the need for this kind of membership on the team.School superintendents are key players for their districts’ transformation journeys. They must be unequivocally committed to their districts’ transformation if they want that journey to succeed. Their participation in the Institute sends a clear and powerful message about their commitment to lead this kind of change effort. |
| Institute Management | ||
| Institute Director : The institute should be based in a newly created Department of Change Leadership in Education. The Department Chairman will be coordinator of the Institute. | ||
| Financing the Institute: Participation in the Institute will be on a for-fee basis. Given the need for this kind of training it is likely that federal or philanthropic grant to support it could be secured. A research component could also be designed into the Institute so that research grant money could be awarded. | ||
| Adjunct Instructors and Tenure-Track Faculty | ||
Adjunct Instructors and Tenure-Track Faculty will be selected and hired for their expertise in and experience with systemic transformational change. Possible adjunct instructors/guest speakers include:
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Specialty areas needed tenured faculty include, but are not limited to:
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I believe there is a striking need for effective change leadership in America’s school systems. This need is not being responded to by state departments of education or graduate-level education leadership programs. Further, I believe that an effective and proactive response to this need is for state departments of education to adopt research-based standards to develop a professional license for change leaders in education and for schools and colleges of education to design a graduate-level program specializing in preparing change leaders about the why, what, and how of creating and sustaining systemic transformational change in school districts.
If America’s school systems are to be transformed to meet the demands of the Information Age, then they will need effective change leadership. Responding to this need will require courage, passion, and vision from state department of education leaders and university faculty if they are to do what’s required to adopt a framework for preparing change leaders.
Some readers of this article will say, “Impossible, can’t be done!” Call me a dreamer, a believer in the impossible becoming possible, but I think that once the proposed standards are validated they can be applied to create a cadre of knowledgeable and highly skilled change leaders in education. I believe that university faculty who also have personal courage, passion, and vision can design and operate an institute like the one described in this article. Finally, in the words of Kris Kruger (a singer and songwriter), “…when we seek the unseekable, when we speak the unspeakable, when we think the unthinkable, when we achieve the unachievable, the impossible is possible.”
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