Module 5, PP. 11, 14, & 15: Creating Cultures Grounded in Data

P. 11-- The Roles of the District Leadership Teams and the Building Leadership Teams

In "Creating Coherence in District Administration" four Harvard scholars - Childress, Elmore, Grossman, and Johnson (2007) - assert that districts will only see notable improvement in student performance if district-wide improvement efforts are focused on the instructional core:

• Teachers' knowledge and skill;
• Students' engagement in their own learning;
• Academically challenging content.

In support of Ohio's Leadership Development Framework, The Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) is designed to focus districts, and all schools within those districts, on this instructional core. Ohio's Leadership Development Framework, states that the primary function of the district leadership team (DLT) is to promote ". . . a culture of common expectations [and] commitment to district and school improvement by maintaining a district-wide focus on high achievement for all students. . . " (OLAC, 2008, p.18).

In "Aligning Mental Models of District and School Leadership Teams for Reform Coherence," Chrispeels, Burke, Johnson, and Daly (2008) note that "School and district effectiveness studies show that high levels of student achievement are possible when schools and the district act as coordinated units of change" (p.730). Through the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council's (OLAC) design, DLT and building leadership teams (BLT) align their work in support of a limited number of district-wide goals that are established by the DLT and are grounded in data analysis through the application of the Ohio Decision Framework (DF). The work of DLTs and BLTs also supports the development of a limited number of district-wide strategies determined by the DLT and anchored in research on effective practice. This approach to continuous improvement emphasizes alignment and system-wide reform. In "Turning Systems Thinking on its Head," Michael Fullan (1996) advises that "The lesson of systemic reform is to look for those strategies that are most likely to mobilize large numbers of people in new directions" (p.423). The district-wide alignment stressed in the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) supports this mobilization.

In addition to an emphasis on alignment through the shared focus of DLTs and BLTs, Ohio's Leadership Development Framework also promotes distributed or shared leadership. Distributed leadership is receiving increased support in educational literature (Harris, 2004; Spillane, 2006). Based on a five-year research study in Chicago elementary schools, James Spillane (2004) offers the following perceptions about distributed leadership in a paper titled "Distributed Leadership: What's All the Hoopla?"

Two issues need to be underscored here. To begin with, distributed leadership is first and foremost about leadership practice rather than leaders, leadership roles, or leadership functions. Leadership practice is the core unit of analysis in trying to understand school leadership from a distributed perspective. A second critical point is that practice is defined or takes form in the interactive web of leaders, followers, and their situation. (pp. 2-3)

By structuring district-wide improvement through DLTs and BLTs, Ohio's Leadership Development Framework distributes ". . . key leadership functions - all centered on improving practices in curriculum, instruction, and assessment . . . [and] shifts the focus of leadership from a single individual to a team of individuals that can function as purposeful communities . . ." (OLAC, 2008, p.18). These purposeful communities are charged with, ". . . enhancing the skills and knowledge of the people in the organization, creating a common culture of expectations around the use of those skills and knowledge, holding the various pieces of the organization together in a productive relationship with each other, and holding individuals accountable for their contributions to the collective result" (Elmore, 2006, p. 59).

P. 14-- The Building Leadership Teams Responsibility

• Establish data teams (including course, grade level, grade band, or vertical team, department) and implement procedures for the effective use of data to assess the impact on student learning, and to make decisions about teaching and learning.
• Create a school culture that supports the effective use of data to improve student performance by organizing and presenting data in ways that identify gaps and trends in student performance and requiring intentional decisions regarding curriculum and instruction, interventions, and professional development.
• Support the use of current aggregated and disaggregated student achievement data to establish measurable strategies aligned with district goals for instruction and achievement.
• Ensure data teams use building, course, and classroom data to constantly monitor progress in meeting performance targets for the building and at each grade level, planning for the success of all children and designed to close achievement and expectation gaps.
• Ensure the skillful and accurate use of data by providing ongoing training and support throughout the building.
• Monitor staff use of data to inform instructional decisions and organization for learning (e.g., schedules, grading, grade-level configurations, interventions, etc.).
• Provide support to all building-level data teams and regularly review and analyze building-level data to provide guidance for classroom-level actions.

P. 15-- Summary

The ultimate goal in education is to improve student achievement. In order to reach this goal, it is imperative that the adults in a school district, at both the district and school levels, work collaboratively toward improvement and continuously monitor the impact of their actions. Ohio has provided educators with clear guidelines for stellar leadership performance through the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council's (OLAC) Ohio's Leadership Development Framework. This document specifically outlines essential practices for superintendents, district leadership teams (DLT), and building leadership teams (BLT) as they concentrate on data-based decision making, goal setting, instruction and learning, community engagement, resource management, and board relations and the governance process. Supporting the work of OLAC, the Ohio Department of Education has created the Ohio Improvement Process, which guides the enactment of OLAC's Ohio's Leadership Development Framework. This process clearly leads superintendents, DLTs, and BLTs through the process of looking at relevant data to make sound decisions about focused strategies designed to ensure deeper learning for students.