Content uploaded by Lauri Johnson
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Lauri Johnson on Jul 06, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
Sustaining success in an
American school: a case for
governance change
Stephen L. Jacobson and Lauri Johnson
Graduate School of Education, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo,
New York, USA
Rose Ylimaki
University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA, and
Corrie Giles
Waterdown, Canada
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to revisit a successful school to see how the principal had
sustained success over time.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a case study research design similar to the 2005
report.
Findings – The old findings revealed a principal who had used direction setting, developingpeople and
redesigning the organization, as well as the enabling principles of accountability, caring and learning to
turn around a failing, high poverty urban school. The new findings revealed that, while the same core
practices and enabling principles were still in place, a significant change in governance structure had
been required to sustain the school’s success. Specifically, the school converted from a traditional public
school to a charter school in order to protect investments made in teacher professional development. The
resulting initiatives, introduced to stem teacher turnover, led to the emergence of greater teacher
leadership and professional self-renewal processes that sustained the school’s success.
Originality/value – The paper adds to the literature on sustaining school success and the utility of
governance change.
Keywords Education, Leadership, United States of America
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Sustaining school success over time is different than building the short-term capacity
necessary to sustain transient, often externally imposed, organizational goals.
Sustainability means developing the capacity to self-renew, and while there are
individual outliers of self-renewal among progressive and innovative schools, few
in-depth studies of sustainability over time can be found in the literature (Giles and
Hargreaves, 2006).
In the 2005 issue of JEA (Jacobson et al., 2005a) devoted to the International
Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), the research team from the University
at Buffalo (UB) reported the practices of seven principals in New York whose schools
had improved student academic achievement under their leadership (Jacobson et al.,
2005b). Since then, four of the principals retired, one moved to central office and, of the
two still at the same school, only one has managed to sustain school success. This
African American woman, with more than 30 years’ experience as an educator, became
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
Sustaining
success in an
American school
753
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 47 No. 6, 2009
pp. 753-764
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/09578230910993131
the school’s (Fraser Academy) principal in 1994. She was selected after a nationwide
search and became the most symbolic appointment of what was then a newly formed
partnership between a failing school and a regional bank. Under her leadership, the
school experienced a remarkable turnaround in student performance as revealed in our
2002-2003 data (Jacobson et al., 2007). This subsequent examination of Fraser, now
Fraser Community Charter School (FCCS), adds to the literature on educational
sustainability by reporting data collected in 2007-2008, thus creating a longitudinal
case study that ascertains how one school managed to sustain success over time.
Using a research protocol only slightly modified from the earlier study (Day, 2005),
the UB team returned to FCCS five years later. We once again used New York State
Education Department (NYSED) school report card data; interviews with school
leaders, teachers and parents; and, reports generated by FCCS’s governing board. We
also used the same conceptual framework derived from three core leadership practices:
setting directions, developing people and redesigning the organization (Leithwood and
Riehl, 2005), as well as the enabling principles of accountability, caring and learning
(Giles et al., 2005; Jacobson et al., 2005b).
We found that remaining faithful to the direction set by the principal (i.e. holding
everyone accountable for children learning at mastery levels within a caring and
nurturing environment) necessitated redesigning the organization (converting from a
traditional public school to a district charter school), in order maintain the continued
development and capacity of the staff around the principle of learning. Sustaining
success at FCCS has been an on-going effort to create a governance structure that
supports and rewards organizational learning through self-renewal and personal and
collective professional growth.
To provide the backdrop against which key decisions made by FCCS leaders can be
understood, we begin with a brief overview of educational governance and funding in
the USA. Next, we offer a definition of sustainability to frame our analysis of the
self-renewing practices that developed at FCCS. We review the research protocol and
present our initial findings using data from the NYSED report cards and excerpts from
our interviews to illustrate key points. The article concludes with some preliminary
interpretations about the decisions and practices we believe promoted self-renewal and
educational sustainability at FCCS.
Governance, funding and going charter
Public education in the USA is relatively decentralized, with primary authority vested
at the state level. On average, federal funding accounts for only 7 per cent of all
resources a school receives (the remainder being a combination of state and local
revenues). Nevertheless, federal policies can have a significant impact and since No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) was enacted, schools nationwide are operating under an
accountability regime based upon standardized achievement tests. Schools that do not
make adequate yearly progress are subject to consequences that can ultimately include
reconstitution and/or replacement of staff.
In New York (NY), where FCCS is located, annual report cards that track school
performance are published by NYSED. Should a school or district continuously
under-perform, parents can opt to educate their children elsewhere, which can have a
negative impact on local property values. Since property tax represents the most
commonly used mechanism to finance schools at the local level, and since local
JEA
47,6
754
taxation typically makes up a considerable portion of a school’s fiscal support (usually
45-50 per cent), funding for education can be eroded. A loss of funding can have a
deleterious effect on human resource allocations, because teacher contracts in NY are
negotiated at the local level. This dynamic relationship between funding and teacher
resources is central to the present case. When we first visited Fraser in 2001-2002, it
was a traditional public school in one of NY’s largest urban districts. Funding and
human resource decisions, such as hiring, firing and transfers, were handled by the
district’s central office in accordance with the teacher contract. Markedly declining
enrolments, due in part to poor student performance and newly enacted State
legislation allowing for charter schools; coupled with a very weak local economy, led to
severe budgetary constraints that threatened district-wide teacher layoffs. Even
though Fraser had gone from being one of the worst to one of the best schools in the
district subsequent to the principal’s arrival, under the contract, teacher seniority and
not the school’s leadership would determine who got laid off and how transfers would
be determined. “Last hired – first fired” rules applied, and where opportunities arose,
veteran teachers from any school in the district could “bump” junior teachers from
Fraser, regardless of how productive those junior teachers might have been.
Having seniority, rather than performance, determine which teachers would go,
which would stay and which could transfer into the school was an option that Fraser’s
leadership found problematic in light of investments made in professional
development. Before examining the choices available to Fraser, we next provide a
working definition of sustainability to frame our analysis of the self-renewing practices
that emerged at FCCS.
Organizational sustainability
Organizations have varying degrees of capacity for change. Some organizations seem to have
become rigid, inflexible, and unable to change; others have a built-in capacity to shift, move,
and adapt quickly to changing conditions (Ulrich, 1997, p. 194).
Disenchantment with the results of “managed change” (Louis, 1994), led to renewed
interest in “the development of local capacity in successful school improvement efforts”
(Leithwood et al., 1998, p. 243). For our purposes, “capacity building” within a school is
defined as “creating the conditions, opportunities and experiences for collaboration and
mutual learning” (Harris, 2002, p. 3). Organizational learning is oriented towards the
building of social capital rather than simply accomplishing externally mandated tasks.
As such, the self-renewing orientation of organizational learning theory is dependent
upon both the conscious creation of supportive organizational conditions – structure,
shared commitment and collaborative activity, knowledge and skills, leadership,
feedback and accountability, and the building of networks of relationships grounded in
mutual support, care, trust and consensus (Giles et al., 2005). However, in rapidly
changing circumstances, supportive external as well as internal conditions are also
necessities (Marks and Printy, 2003; Stoll, 1999) if the self-renewing capacity of a
school is to be sustained over time (Bryk et al., 1999; Mitchell and Sackney, 2001). But
sustainability, as an overarching organizational goal, does not simply mean enduring
over time. Instead, we borrow our conceptualization from the United Nations
Brundtland Commission on the environment and development, “Meeting the needs of
the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
Sustaining
success in an
American school
755
their own needs” (UN, 1987, p. 43). This ecologically oriented report emphasizes the
capacity of organizations to self-renew and, if applied to schools, underlines the
importance of ordering institutions in ways that are sustainable in the long-term.
Becoming a charter school
The district’s looming budget crisis in the early 2000s led Fraser’s leadership into
discussions about how to sustain the gains made subsequent to partnership with the
bank in 1994. The greatest threat was seen as potential teacher lay-offs and transfers:
We would have lost a lot of staff and inherited an older, perhaps disgruntled staff that didn’t
want to be here. In order to avoid that after we had put in so much time, so much emphasis, so
much money and professional development, we did not want to lose the progress that we had
gained (Principal).
The bank partnership’s concerns about protecting their considerable investments in
training and staff development were made explicit:
Under the district’s policy you take the next person on their list and that person might not be
interested in learning a new program ... We felt it wasn’t a sustainable or viable position to
continue to invest in the school just to see our investment disappear. We went to the
Superintendent and said, “what can we do about this?” And within the system there really
wasn’t anything that could be done; seniority pretty much dictated where teachers would end
up in the situation of the lay-offs (CEO).
Fraser’s governing board began looking at alternative governance models and the only
feasible option seemed to be the charter school. There are two models in NYS Charter
School legislation:
(1) the independent charter school, which starts from scratch – no building, no
teachers, no students and no unions: and
(2) the conversion charter, an existing public school that remains in the same
building; keeps as many teachers, with the same union representation, as want
to stay; and, most importantly, keeps its same students. (Details about New
York Education Law Article 56: The Charter Schools Act can be found at: www.
nycsa.org/Legislation/CSLaws/CS%20law.pdf).
Because Fraser’s leaders “... were committed not just to that school, but to that
neighborhood” (CEO), the conversion charter model was seen as the best choice:
The plus side is that our students would be grandfathered in. We would not be a start-up. All
the teachers who wanted to remain would remain and they would still be in the teacher’s
union; that was absolutely wonderful (Principal).
To complete the transition from public school to charter, both the District and State
Board of Education authorizers require a majority of parents vote in support. The
election produced a parent turnout of over 80 per cent, with almost 100 per cent voting
for conversion. Subsequently, to the delight of the Principal, the demographics of FCCS
have remained much the same:
We’re still considered a neighborhood school because we do not bus and our socio-economic
status is the same. We’re still in the 90 þper cent poverty index and our student population is
still mainly African American – we’re 99 per cent African American (Principal).
JEA
47,6
756
Becoming a conversion charter also provided FCCS with greater fiscal autonomy and
human resource flexibility. Fiscal autonomy meant that funding would come from the
State through the district and then FCCS would control the whole of its allocation,
allowing for far greater discretion on spending for professional development. Human
resource flexibility meant that FCSS did not have to deal with seniority ‘bumping’
rights or hiring constraints, such as the district’s residency requirement – FCCS could
recruit anywhere. Becoming a charter also meant that teachers choosing to work at
FCCS are not eligible for tenure, operating instead under renewable multi-year
contracts. The departure of veteran teachers fearing loss of tenure and union protection
if they stayed at FCCS became the school’s greatest challenge. Since conversion to
charter in 2004, 27 of 41 teachers (66 per cent) who were then at Fraser have left.
Before examining this problem, FCCS’s response to it and the strategies the
Principal employed to sustain school improvements begun prior to conversion, we take
a quick look at the research methods and analytic framework utilized for this study.
Methods and analytic framework
For this study, we used NYSED report card data on standardized test scores, as well as
annual reports generated by FCCS’s governing board. We gathered field notes from
school visits and conducted 10 interviews that included: three school leaders (the
Principal, Assistant Principal and the CEO/Vice Chairman of FCCS’s Board of
Trustees); six teachers (three veterans who were on staff before the charter conversion,
two teachers new to the school, and a former teacher who is now an Assistant Principal
at another district school); and, a focus group of six parents, five of whom have sent
their children to FCCS subsequent to its going charter.
From the NYSED data, we found that FCCS has maintained its improved level of
academic performance in relation to other district schools. Table I reports comparisons
of the percent of students achieving mastery at FCCS with the district average in
1998-1999, 2002-2003, and 2007-2008, and FCCS exceeds the district average in 20 out
of 21 comparisons, over 95 per cent of the time. In 1993-1994, the year before the bank
partnership, Fraser exceeded the district in only 20 per cent (2 out of 10) of comparable
comparisons. Moreover, the average difference in the percent of mastery learning at
FCCS as compared to the district grew from 12.6 per cent in 1998-1999 to 29.4 per cent
in 2002-2003, and then dipped just slightly to 27.8 per cent in 2007-2008. In other words,
FCCS has sustained laudable student achievement scores, even in the face of the
district’s budget crisis and its conversion to a charter.
As in the original study, our analytic framework is based on three core leadership
practices Leithwood and Riehl (2005) contend are necessary, but insufficient,
conditions for success regardless of context:
(1) setting directions and developing a set of shared goals to create a common
purpose;
(2) developing people towards the achievement of those goals through provision of
individual and collective support; and
(3) redesigning the organization to match its objectives.
Our first study revealed the Principal as masterful at adapting these core practices to
changing contextual conditions and the constraints her school faced. Her initial
recalibrations were early stages in the school’s capacity for improvement and they
Sustaining
success in an
American school
757
were not always immediately productive. Nevertheless, three principles enabled the
school to move forward:
(1) accountability, by leveraging external pressure from state testing and internal
teacher peer pressure to raise expectations about improved student achievement;
(2) caring, by creating a safe, nurturing environment conducive for learning by
students, teachers and parents; and
(3) learning, by making student, faculty, parent and organizational learning the
focus of the school’s work.
Once learning was collectively accepted as the school’s central purpose, it became
easier to identify obstacles and redesign the organization to remove them. In our first
examination, these obstacles included scheduling that didn’t allow for common
planning; poor instruction by teachers who needed additional professional
development; and, resistance to change on the part of some teachers unwilling
accept the idea that children from high poverty communities are capable of high levels
of academic performance. Each of these obstacles were identified and successfully
addressed (Giles et al., 2005). But now the issues to be confronted were those arising
from FCCS’s conversion to charter.
Responding to charter conversion
Subsequent to conversion, quite a few teachers left for a variety of reasons; most
concerned with losing tenure, others because of a district retirement incentive intended
Grade 4 ELA 98-99 02-03 07-08
FCCS 26 56 59
District 29 34 42
Grade 4 Math 98-99 02-03 07-08
FCCS 60 95 72
District 54 58 53
Grade 4 Science 99-00 02-03 07-08
FCCS 76 84 79
District 47 51 63
Grade 5 Social Studies 02-03 07-08
FCCS 92 79
District 50 53
Grade 8 ELA 98-99 02-03 07-08
FCCS 41 30 66
District 31 22 28
Grade 8 Math 98-99 02-03 07-08
FCCS 43 70 77
District 22 32 34
Grade 8 Science (Regents) 02-03 07-08
FCCS 96 80
District 65 50
Grade 8 Social Studies 02-03 07-08
FCCS 66 64
District 40 31
Ave. (%) diff. 12.6 29.4 27.8
Table I.
FCCS v. District on state
tests (% mastery)
JEA
47,6
758
to reduce the number of lay-offs, and a few by “mutual agreement” with the Principal,
in other words, for less than satisfactory performance. A former teacher, now an
Assistant Principal at another school, described how the Principal tried to dispel
teachers’ fears:
(the Principal) had a meeting with all of us and gave us her word that (the union) would still
be in place. We had it laid it out for us. There was a lot of fear and I think that maybe (the
union) kind of injected that fear in the teachers, so they left.
Nevertheless, several teachers left, taking with them years of professional development
and experience. As one veteran teacher explained:
I understood why some teachers left. They wanted the security of the district’s union
protection, but I have to say it was devastating to think that half of our collective knowledge
about language arts and other academics, as well as how to work with our children, just
walked out the door.
This transition also created ambivalence among the new teachers hired: Even though we
came in knowing we can do the job, we still felt the emptiness from what the veteran teachers
left. We knew we were filling shoes.
A year after conversion, there was a renewed concern among some new teachers about
their “rights” under the contract (a concern perhaps instigated by the union). The
principal once again confronted the issue head on at a meeting where she laid it on the
table – “What’s going on? I see it, I feel it, I hear it.” She asked them to report back to
her how she could help and then left the room so that teachers could speak honestly
with one another. One veteran teacher noted how the meeting and the principal’s
acknowledgement of their concerns cleared the air and contributed to a renewed sense
of purpose focused on the school’s mission.
Hiring new teachers
While the loss of veteran teachers was a negative consequence of conversion to charter,
greater flexibility in hiring was a positive result. Instead of having to accept whomever
was sent by the district’s central office, candidate recruitment and selection was now
the school’s responsibility:
It meant that we had to strengthen our interview strategies so that we could attract and hire
the teachers that had what it would take to continue what we were doing. We were looking for
energetic teachers; we were looking for teachers who didn’t necessarily know our programs or
our curriculum, but who were willing to learn it, to put in the time to learn it, who believed in
the children (Principal).
Now when we hire, we say, “This is what we do, are you interested?” Or, “do you even have
experience that would let you start at a faster pace?” The two sort of go hand in hand in terms
of synergy of hiring and then seeking out the qualities that we are looking for in any teacher
vacancy (CEO).
In the process of hiring new faculty, the Principal has been successful in attracting a
more diverse faculty, including a handful of African American male teachers, and
teachers who are “about the business of the children”. As one veteran teacher noted,
“She’s been able to tap into people who really have a love for what we do.”
Sustaining
success in an
American school
759
Sustaining teaching and learning: teacher perspectives
Early in her tenure, the Principal set the school’s direction for curriculum based on a
philosophy that provides teachers with an understanding of how children acquire
literacy through a balance of shared, guided, and independent instructional strategies.
When the UB team returned to FCCS in 2008, the hallways revealed evidence of the
balanced literacy program, including student writing, written descriptions of artwork
and student responses to literature. Classrooms filled with books and displays of
student writing further attested to the centrality of balanced literacy education, which
differs markedly from the district’s scripted textbooks, pacing guides and related
workbook materials – an approach FCCS would have had to use had it not become a
charter school. While some teachers admitted to an initial resistance to this new model,
most credited the Principal with implementing an instructional environment that
allowed children to learn, regardless of past failures.
Developing new teachers
The Principal continued to work hard at sustaining high expectations for teaching and
learning. As the Assistant Principal put it, “Her expectations are high, but she will help
people get there. She does not just throw you into the water.” In particular, the
Principal and veteran teachers recognized the need to help new teachers use the
balanced program because:
Each year we have to hire staff. That forced us to set up a system in which we immediately
immerse them in our programs, our reading and writing programs so that they can learn it,
and we pair them with a master teacher and a mentor and just do whatever is necessary to get
them up to speed right away (Principal).
There was no time for new teachers to hang back and watch. We needed the new staff
members to get on board quickly, which meant we needed to work together and do peer
coaching in classrooms (Veteran teacher).
The reading specialist described professional development efforts as “scaffolding and
supporting teachers in their classrooms, helping them get the program in place and
figuring out where to target their efforts”. Grade level teams began meeting regularly,
at which, “Someone models a literacy lesson and then the grade level team talks about
what we saw, what worked, and what needed to improve.”
New teachers talked about the professional support they received, e.g. this teacher’s
description of her first year:
I remember being overwhelmed and [the Principal] put me in touch with the [literacy]
consultants ...The great thing about FCCS is that any teacher who feels unequipped is given
support immediately. If you keep quiet, then they won’t be able to help you, but your results
will show and then they will recommend that you attend workshops and with a mentor
teacher. I never felt like [the Principal] and the other teachers were unapproachable.
Another added:
From the time I started at FCCS, I was swept up in support for teaching. I went to [the
consultants] right away the first summer. I had a peer mentor in my classroom several times a
week, and we talked at grade level meetings about our lessons. I got pretty good results the first
year, but always wondered if I was really doing okay or as good as the teacher next door. The
veteran teachers are so natural because they’ve been going to training for years. I woke up a lot
of mornings afraid I would let everyone down, but there was no time to really dwell in it.
JEA
47,6
760
While veteran teachers acknowledged the pressure of sustaining the success of the
program, they also felt empowered by their leadership roles, “By allowing me to share
strategies that worked, I felt empowered that I could be a leader...it gave me a glimpse
of what I could become.” Another noted, “It was hard in some ways, but I have to say I
felt really good about taking a leadership role in keeping the program moving forward
in spite of all the staff changes.”
In fact, teacher leadership has become institutionalized over the past 5 years with the
formation of school-wide leadership team represented by one teacher from each grade
level that meets at least twice a month to coordinate FCCS’s staff development activities.
Sustaining the instructional success
The Principal also managed staff changes by creating explicit curriculum maps at each
grade level. These maps provided new teachers with a guideline for the skills and
strategies necessary to help children meet state standards in time for the assessments.
As the reading specialist explained:
We decided we would need to treat all teachers like reading staff. The new teachers would need
to attend all of the [consultant] trainings like the reading teachers did. Because we had to think
about the tests, we also met with each grade level and actually mapped out what was going to
be taught to get the kids ready for the assessments. That was generated from [the Principal].
Veteran and new teachers alike commented about how much they learned from the
development and implementation of these curriculum maps. One veteran teacher’s
comments are illustrative:
The maps really helped all of us keep on target. So as part of modelling and peer coaching
discussions in our grade level meetings, we would look at our maps together to see where we
could all improve to help kids meet their targets.
A new teacher added, “They’re not just telling us we need to teach this way, they are
attending the workshops with us. They are leading and learning with us.”
Curricular innovations
The ability to sustain success was also evidenced by several curriculum innovations
including the establishment of a Saturday morning program to provide additional
support for students performing below grade level (although any student may attend),
and, a summer program for incoming kindergarten students. In 7
th
and 8
th
grade,
Advanced Placement (AP) courses in math, language and science were added to make
students are more competitive for the district’s most selective high schools. Students in
7th and 8th grades were also reorganized into single-sex subject classes, a practice that
has improved classroom behaviour, especially among boys, although the Principal
notes, “the girls hate it”.
By 2008, FCCS earned the designation of model literacy site by the developers of the
balanced literacy program, which recognizes the excellent quality of instruction at this
once-failing school. In fact, commitment to the literacy program was a main reason
some veteran teachers supported the conversion to charter and stayed at the school:
We know that the language arts program is phenomenal. If we had stayed in the system, we
would have gone back to a basal program...by having the charter system in place, not only
did we get to keep that program we got to improve it and live with it (Assistant Principal).
Sustaining
success in an
American school
761
Further proof of success can be seen in the three year performance audit required by
NYSED for charter renewal:
Consultants review every program, from leadership to parent participation to extracurricular
activities to all your curriculum, English, math social studies, how you’re teaching all of these,
how you’re meeting the Standards and then you’re graded on roughly 15 categories. It sort of
a 1, 2, 3, 4 scale, with 1 the highest. Our school scored a number 1 in all but one category
(CEO).
Changes in school-community relationships
One last facet of the school’s strengths that needs to be revisited is its ongoing
relationship with the community. Since becoming a charter, FCCS uses a lottery system
to fill enrolment and it has a lengthy waiting list of prospective students. Most students
still come from the immediate neighbourhood, which is predominately poor, working
class African American. But, as a charter school, students from throughout the city are
eligible to attend. As a result, the school’s community is now broader than during our
first visit, and its parents savvier, as noted by a very experienced teacher:
Parents have become a lot more sophisticated and I’d like to think we really made a big
difference in that ... those that understand that value of education are knocking the doors
down to get here ...the transient rate is a lot more stable. The attendance rate is much more
stable and higher. So that takes smart parents, an educated parent to understand that.
There have also been improvements to the school and its grounds, including the
annexation and renovation of an abandoned branch of the county library, the addition
of an early childcare facility/community health centre and a renovated schoolyard for
students during school hours and neighbourhood youth afterwards. FCCS is now the
centre of the neighbourhood.
Strategies originally introduced by the Principal to attract parents, such as
“Father’s Day” dinners are now traditions. FCCS has moved from being a school in
transition to a “settled” organization with the capacity to quickly involve new parents
into the life of the school through well-attended open houses, multicultural assemblies
and service as volunteers. But ironically, these more institutionalized parental
activities, as well as the increased safety and stability in the surrounding community –
both primarily the result of the school’s sustained success (Jacobson et al., 2007) – have
led to a reduced need for the type of grass roots activism that characterized Fraser’s
earlier school-community relationships. The Parent Patrols we witnessed monitoring
safety on school grounds in 2002 no longer exist because they are not needed. While the
school’s success has changed certain aspects of its relationship to its expanded
community, maintaining positive community relations has been a critical component
used by the Principal to keep everyone’s energy focused on sustaining school success.
Conclusions
FCCS’s Principal has maintained the same clear sense of purpose and direction she
brought to the school 14 years ago, and the school remains the safe, nurturing learning
environment we witnessed in 2002. She continues to hold everyone to high
expectations, which continue to yield solid and improving student performance, even
in the face of eroding economic conditions in the district. Fraser’s leaders redesigned
the organization in order to protect its most valuable asset, a faculty in whom it had
JEA
47,6
762
made considerable professional development investments. They recognized that
sustaining school improvements long-term depended on the self-renewal of its teaching
force through a combination of careful selection, supportive socialization and on-going
professional development offered by veteran colleagues and professional consultants,
immediately upon joining the faculty and regularly thereafter. Becoming a conversion
charter was the organizational redesign that freed the school from district constraints
and made professional development a safer investment. And, it is this on-going
investment in the capacity of the faculty that has sustained FCCS’s direction and
success.
Although they have evolved, the enabling principles we first observed in 2002 are
still operative and fundamental to daily operations. Initially, accountability was driven
by external forces and then leveraged by the Principal to focus faculty objectives. Now
it has become internalized by faculty, parents and students, so that they hold
themselves personally and collective accountable for high performance. Caring
remains the most visible principle at FCCS, not just because the school is a safe haven
in a high poverty community, but because it is now the engine of community
self-renewal with the recent additions of an early childhood and health care centre.
Finally, the enabling principle of learning has become the core around which all other
school activities revolve. Faculty conversations now focus on the “craft” of teaching
and improvements in student learning, all in service to FCCS’s efforts to better the life
opportunities of its students.
When we first studied Fraser in 2001-2002, we reported the remarkable turnaround
of a once-failing, high poverty, urban school that coincided with the formation of a
bank partnership and the arrival of an exemplary principal. But questions remained as
to whether Fraser could sustain its success, especially after the Principal had gone.
Based upon our current analysis, FCCS has sustained its success and the Principal is
still the central figure in maintaining its direction. But a significant organizational
redesign helped allay concerns about continued long-term success, even beyond the
Principal’s eventual retirement. Structures for teacher self-renewal are now in place,
which create on-site collegial professional development through the leadership of the
teachers themselves. Sustained success makes FCCS increasingly attractive to parents
across the district; parents who will never allow it to return to the sorry state of its past.
The next step in this longitudinal study will be to return to FCCS after the Principal is
no longer at the helm, to see the next steps in this remarkable evolution.
References
Bryk, A., Camburn, E. and Louis, K. (1999), “Professional community in Chicago elementary
schools: facilitating factors and organizational consequences”, Educational Administration
Quarterly, Vol. 35 (Supplement), pp. 751-81.
Day, C. (2005), “Introduction”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 43 No. 6, pp. 533-8.
Giles, C. and Hargreaves, A. (2006), “The sustainability of innovative schools as learning
organizations and professional learning communities during standardized reform”,
Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 124-56.
Giles, C., Johnson, L., Brooks, S. and Jacobson, S. (2005), “Building bridges, building community:
transformational leadership in a challenging urban context”, Journal of School Leadership,
Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 519-45.
Sustaining
success in an
American school
763
Harris, A. (2002), “Building the capacity for school improvement”, paper presented at the Annual
Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.
Jacobson, S., Day, C. and Leithwood, K. (2005a), “The international successful school
principalship project”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 43 No. 6, special issue.
Jacobson, S., Johnson, L., Giles, C. and Ylimaki, R. (2005b), “Successful leadership in US schools:
enabling principals, enabling schools”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 43
No. 6, pp. 607-18.
Jacobson, S., Brooks, S., Giles, C., Johnson, L. and Ylimaki, R. (2007), “Successful leadership in
three high poverty urban elementary schools”, Leadership and Policy in Schools, Vol. 6
No. 4, pp. 1-27.
Leithwood, K. and Riehl, C. (2005), “What we know about successful school leadership”,
in Firestone, W. and Riehl, C. (Eds), A New Agenda: Directions for Research on Educational
Leadership, Teachers College Press, New York, NY, pp. 22-47.
Leithwood, K., Leonard, L. and Sharratt, L. (1998), “Conditions fostering organizational learning
in schools”, Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 243-76.
Louis, K. (1994), “Beyond ‘managed change’: rethinking how schools improve”, School
Effectiveness and School Improvement, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 2-24.
Marks, H. and Printy, S. (2003), “Principal leadership and school performance: an integration of
transformational and instructional leadership”, Educational Administration Quarterly,
Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 370-97.
Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. (2001), Profound Improvement: Building Capacity for a Learning
Community, Swets and Zeitlinger, Downington, PA.
Stoll, L. (1999), “Realizing our potential: understanding and developing capacity for lasting
improvement”, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 503-32.
Ulrich, D. (1997), “Organizing around capabilities”, in Hesselbein, F., Goldsmith, M. and
Beckhard, R. (Eds), The Organization of the Future, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA,
pp. 189-96.
United Nations (UN) (1987), Our Common Future: The World Commission on Environment and
Development (Report of the Brundtland Commission), Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Further reading
Leithwood, K., Louis, K., Anderson, S. and Wahlstrom, K. (2004), How Leadership Influences
Student Learning, Learning from Leading Project, Wallace Foundation, New York, NY.
Corresponding author
Stephen L. Jacobson can be contacted at: coakimp:@buffalo.edu
JEA
47,6
764
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
