Educational Change

Education is generally thought to promote social, economic, and cultural

transformation during times of fundamental national and global changes.
Indeed, educational change has become a common theme in many
education systems and in plans for the development of schools. According
to Seymour Sarason, the history of educational reform is replete with
failure and disappointment in respect to achieving intended goals and
implementing new ideas. Since the 1960s, however, thinking about
educational change has undergone several phases of development. In the
early twenty-first century much more is known about change strategies that
typically lead to successful educational reforms.

Education is generally thought to promote social, economic, and cultural

transformation during times of fundamental national and global changes.
Indeed, educational change has become a common theme in many
education systems and in plans for the development of schools. According
to Seymour Sarason, the history of educational reform is replete with
failure and disappointment in respect to achieving intended goals and
implementing new ideas. Since the 1960s, however, thinking about
educational change has undergone several phases of development. In the
early twenty-first century much more is known about change strategies that
typically lead to successful educational reforms.

Phases of Educational Change.

The first phase of educational changes was in the 1960s when educational
reforms in most Western countries were based on externally mandated
largescale changes that focused on renewing curricula and instruction. The
second phase, in the 1970s, was a period of increasing dissatisfaction of
the public and government officials with public education and the
performance of schools, decreasing financing of change initiatives, and
shrinking attention to fundamental reforms. Consequently, in the 1980s the
third phase shifted toward granting decision-making power to, and
emphasizing the accountability of, local school systems and schools.
Educational change gradually became an issue to be managed equally by
school authorities and by the local community, including school principals
and teachers. The fourth phase started in the 1990s when it became
evident that accountability and self-management, in and of themselves,
were insufficient to make successful changes in education.
Furthermore, educational change began to place more emphasis on
organizational learning, systemic reforms, and large-scale change
initiatives rather than restructuring isolated fields of education. In brief,
educators' understanding of educational change has developed from linear
approaches to nonlinear systems approaches that emphasize the
complexity of reform processes, according to Shlomo Sharan and his
colleagues. Similarly, the focus of change has shifted from restructuring
single components of educational systems towards transforming the
organizational cultures that prevail in given schools or school systems, as
well as towards transforming large sections of a given school or system
rather than distinct components of schooling. Emerging Theories of
Educational Change. In the early twenty-first century it is generally
acknowledged that significant educational change cannot be achieved by a
linear "recipe-like" process. The consensus among theorists and
practitioners is growing that traditional models of thinking about
educational change no longer provide sufficient conceptual tools for
responding to multidimensional needs and politically contested
environments. The major challenge of educational change is how to
understand and cope with rapid change in an unpredictably turbulent
world. Emerging new theories of educational change are beginning to
employ concepts and ideas derived from the sciences of chaos and
complexity. The main characteristics of these new theories are nonlinearity
of processes, thinking about education as an open system, the
interdependency of the various components of the system, and the
influence of context on the change process itself.
Although educational change occurs everywhere, it is still not discussed
systematically or analyzed by researchers and educators worldwide.
Particularly in countries undergoing political and economic transition,
educational change remains a political agenda rather than a well-designed
engine of social reform. The heart of successful educational change is
learning, both at the individual and at the community levels.
Implementing Reading Recovery involves an educational system in the
process of educational change. Educational change of any significance
involves changes in organizational structures, communications, resource
allocation, and beliefs and attitudes. Change is difficult and often
unsuccessful. If the process is to be successful, administrators and
teachers will need to understand the process of change described on this
page and be committed to the success of the implementation within their
system. Successful change appears to pass through at least three phases:
adoption, implementation, and institutionalization.
Adoption
What happens during the adoption phase of change can have marked
effects on the quality of implementation and the chances of a change
becoming institutionalized.

• Impetus for change. Imposed change is often unsuccessful

because it does not address underlying structures or attitudes and
 beliefs. Grassroots change may last only as long as the tenure of the
individual developers unless there is strong administrative buy-in.
Changes planned and agreed upon both by administrators and by
teachers have the best chance for success.
• Perceived need. The more broadly that a need for the proposed
change is perceived within an organization, the greater its chances
not only for adoption, but also for quality implementation and
institutionalization.
• Reasons for change. Change as a response to external or political
pressure is least likely to succeed. Change as an outgrowth of
internal problem solving has the best chance of success.
• Clarity. The change and the purposes of the change need to be
clear and communicated widely.
• Decision making. Formation of an advisory team to guide the
adoption process is recommended. The advisory team should be
representative of all stakeholders within and affected by the
organization. Members of the team need to remain in close
communication with people throughout the organization, both to
receive information about needs, problems, and concerns, and to
share information about the proposed change and how it will affect
others.

Once a management team has established a change and improvement

plan, there are many ways to help everyone in the organization understand
what's going on and why. These include one-on-one discussions, group
presentations, workshops or seminars, videos, printed materials, and the
like.
The best approaches, are personal and interactive. Rather than just
presenting the changes or improvement plan, effective education and
communication engages everyone in discussions that deepen
understanding and provide feedback, options, and further ideas to the
team guiding the improvement effort. That's why workshops or seminars
featuring presentations and discussions by senior managers are such an
effective educational tool in the improvement process.

Following, are the key components in roughly the order they might be used
in an educational workshop or seminar. Obviously those points that will be
the most important to the audience, the organization's culture, and the
direction management is trying to move toward, need to be stressed or
highlighted.

Why Should We Change or Improve? — This is the first and most critical
step. Changes and improvements that don't seem to have solid reasons
behind them look whimsical. They will (and should) be resisted. Those
reasons should talk in terms of the audience’s interests.

Balancing Leadership, Management, and Technology — Everyone

needs to understand this critical balance. Managers might pinpoint where
the organization or team is now, and what needs to change in order to
move to a better balance.

Self-Leadership — Leadership is an action, not a position. The

organization needs to be "leaderful." In today’s fast-changing world, we
need everyone to be proactive and take the initiative to continuously
improve themselves, their teams, and the organization.

Focus and Context — The team or organization vision, values, and

purpose need to be clear and compelling. We can also help everyone
develop their personal Focus and Context and look for ways to align their
own with those of their team and the organization.

Customers/Partners — Understanding and drawing a customer-partner

chain (with performance gap data, if available) that puts the audience we're
working with into the middle of the big picture.

Organizational Learning and Innovation — Outline and discuss how the

organization is searching for deeper latent/unmet needs, exploring new
markets, experimenting, and learning from clumsy tries. Then clarify the
role and involvement of the audience.

Team and Organization Goals and Priorities — Present and discuss

team and/or organization's strategic imperatives, improvement targets, and
key measures. Outline and discuss the cascading goals and objectives
along with the ongoing review process the audience will be involved in.

The Improvement Model, Plan, and Process — Introduce, update, or

clarify the improvement model being used and why. Walk through all the
sub-components and the plans that have been developed (or are
developing) for this planning period. These should include improvement
structure and process, process management, teams, skill development,
measurement and feedback, organization structure and systems,
continuing education and communication strategies, reward and
recognition, and plans for regularly reviewing, assessing, celebrating, and
refocusing the improvement process.

Improvement Tools, Techniques, Principles and Practices — Introduce

or review the methods that the team and/or organization will be using.
Discuss how this group will be trained and expected to use the
improvement tools and approaches.
Next Steps — Explain what's going to happen next and how the audience
can expect — and will be expected — to become further involved in the
improvement effort.

Implementation
The quality of the implementation will have a dramatic effect on the
success or failure of the change as well as the chances that the change
will become institutionalized.

• Standards. Any standards listed by the authors of the change

should be followed carefully. Standards and Guidelines of Reading
Recovery in the United States, published by Reading Recovery
Council of North America, provides the standards for
implementation.
• Processes. Administrators should plan carefully to establish
processes for each important area of decision making. This allows
for defensible justification of decisions and for equal opportunity. For
example, the process of selecting teachers for a new educational
program needs to be planned with input from teachers, the
personnel department, administrators, and authors of the change.
• Timing. Slow and thorough is faster in the long run. Plan only as
much change within a single year as can be completed thoroughly.
Clear timelines for change should be developed, with regular review
and revision based upon the results of process evaluation. In the
case of Reading Recovery it is better to fully implement a few
schools the first year, even though some schools may need to wait
 to train teachers. The results that the fully implemented schools
experience will demonstrate the wisdom of this decision.
• Flexibility. In addition to careful planning, those guiding the change
need to remain flexible and ready to make alterations if serious need
for alteration becomes apparent. Although educators are
encouraged to remain flexible in making alterations in the change
process, they must adhere to the Standards and Guidelines of
Reading Recovery in the United States. The teacher leader can
provide guidance in understanding which parts of the
implementation cannot be altered.
• Communication. Decision makers need to maintain open
communication lines with those responsible at every level for
implementing the change as well as with the clients of the change.
Teachers, principals, school staff members, students, and parents
will have differing perceptions of the change that may signal the
need for alterations or increased effort or resources. Always engage
the teacher leader in these communications. The teacher leader has
been specially trained to understand and communicate the rationale
for principles and procedures of Reading Recovery. The teacher
leader may also choose to consult with a trainer at the affiliated
university training center.
• Evaluation. Evaluation needs to be done for every aspect of the
change process. The quality of planning and communication needs
to be evaluated just as much as results and outcomes. Individuals
responsible for evaluation need to be involved at every step of the
process of change, and written records need to be prepared,
organized, and available for review. The teacher leader has
expertise in analyzing and interpreting the data gathered on the
 students and teachers involved in Reading Recovery and can
provide insight into the effectiveness of plans and communications.
• Focus. Change is difficult and takes time. If the change is known to
be needed and valuable, early disappointing results should provoke
questions about the process of change and what else needs to
change within the system before abandoning the change as
unworkable. Systems that have successfully implemented Reading
Recovery find that results of implementation improve over the first
few years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FULLAN, MICHAEL. 1998. "The Meaning of Educational Change." In The

International Handbook of Educational Change, ed. Andy Hargreaves,
Michael Fullan, Ann Lieberman, and David Hopkins. Dordrecht, The
Netherlands: Kluwer.

FULLAN, MICHAEL. 2000. "The Return of Large-Scale Reform." Journal

of Educational Change 1:5–28.

HARGREAVES, ANDY, ed. 1997. Rethinking Educational Change with

Heart and Mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.

HARGREAVES, ANDY. 2000. "Representing Educational Change."

Journal of Educational Change 1:1–3.
SARASON, SEYMOUR B. 1990. The Predictable Failure of Educational
Reform: Can We Change Course Before It's Too Late? San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.

SHARAN, SHLOMO, et al. 1999. The Innovative School: Organization and

Instruction. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.

PASI J. SAHLBERG