Building a professional learning community: for system leaders, it means allowing autonomy within defined parameters.

To be a school superintendent in the United States today is to feel the pull of conflicting demands and competing ideologies. The demands of different interest groups are often readily apparent--for example, parents who want smaller class sizes versus taxpayers who want cuts in the budget.

Perhaps less obvious to those who never have served as a superintendent are the conflicting images of the very nature of the position. Should the superintendent be the forceful leader who implements his or her personal vision of how a school district and its individual schools should operate, or should the contemporary superintendent embrace site-based management and encourage the staff of each school to identify and pursue the issues most relevant to them? Should the desire for equity and equal opportunity lead superintendents to champion uniformity and consistency throughout the district, or should the realization that change occurs one school at a time lead superintendents to support the freedom and autonomy at each school that inevitably lead to differences between sites?

Superintendents err when they resolve this apparent dichotomy by choosing one approach or the other. In their landmark study of organizations that sustained excellence over an extended period of time, James Collins and Jerry Porras, co-authors of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, found those organizations embraced the paradox of living with two seemingly contradictory ideas or forces at the same time. They rejected the "Tyranny of the Or" and embraced the "Genius of the And." Instead of choosing between A or B, these companies figured out a way to have both A and B. For example, they developed powerful philosophical and conceptual images that drove the entire organization and that encouraged the individuals within the organization to seek and develop innovative strategies for achieving the core purpose of the organization.

Collins and Porras wrote: "We are not talking about balance here. Balance implies going to the midpoint, 50-50, half and half. ... [A] highly visionary company doesn't want to blend ying and yang into a gray, indistinguishable circle that is neither highly ying nor highly yang; it aims to be distinctly ying and distinctly yang, both at the same time, all the time."

Superintendents who reject the "Tyranny of the Or" and embrace the "Genius of the And" are skillful in demonstrating "loose-tight leadership" or "directed autonomy." They focus on identifying and articulating both the fundamental purpose of the organization and a few "big ideas" that will help the district improve in its capacity to achieve that purpose. They are tight on purpose and big ideas--insisting that those within the organization act in ways consistent with those concepts and demanding that the district align all of its practices and programs with them.

At the same time, however, they encourage individual and organizational autonomy in the day-to-day operations of the various schools and departments. This autonomy is not characterized by random acts of innovation, but rather is guided by carefully defined parameters that give focus and direction to schools and those within them.

I am convinced that the parameters--the focused purpose and big ideas--that should drive school districts today are found in the concept of the professional learning community.

I have worked with school districts throughout North America and witnessed the different approaches superintendents have taken to implement the concepts of the learning community model in their districts. Some have invited schools to consider the learning community model as a strategy for stimulating improvement. Others have proclaimed that all schools must become learning communities, then left the details as to how to bring about this transformation to each school to resolve. Still others have been more prescriptive about the precise policies, programs and procedures each school must adopt to develop as a learning organization.

The strategy proven most effective, however, is one that is loose and tight, a strategy that establishes a clear priority and discernible parameters and then provides each school and department with the autonomy to chart its own course for achieving the objectives.

Shared Knowledge

The efforts of a superintendent of a suburban school district offer an excellent example of leading the professional learning community initiative on a districtwide basis. She began by building shared knowledge about professional learning communities with her leadership team--central-office staff, principals and leaders of the teachers union. She distributed articles and made the content of those articles the focus of monthly team meetings.

In addition, she presented a book on learning communities to every member of the team, raised questions based on the book and solicited reactions to the concepts it presented. She required all members of the leadership team to attend a two-day workshop on professional learning communities to ensure her entire team heard a consistent message and developed a common vocabulary. She demonstrated the importance she placed on the workshop by attending every minute of it herself, Soon thereafter she held a follow-up meeting of the team where she asked if the professional learning community model offered a preferred alternative to the current reality of the district's operations.

Although this superintendent was a proponent of collaborative decision making, she recognized the importance of building shared knowledge as a prerequisite for the decision-making process. She understood that as a leader she was called on not merely to pool opinions, but rather to ensure that each member of the group had sufficient knowledge to make good decisions.

Thus she ensured that members of her team were able to draw upon consistent information, operate from the same conceptual framework and use a common vocabulary when called upon to assess the potential of the professional learning community model. She attended to a critical component of the process--building shared knowledge.

Constructing Consensus

While most superintendents acknowledge the benefits of building consensus, they often operate under the assumption that the group does not achieve consensus until each member has endorsed the proposal under consideration.

This superintendent understood the difference between "consensus" and "unanimity." If everyone must agree before the group can take action, it is unlikely that action will ever occur. Therefore, she had established an operational definition for consensus that was understood by every member of the team.

This definition included two important criteria: 1) all points of view have been heard and 2) the will of the group is evident, even to those who most oppose it. Once those criteria were met, the superintendent declared the team had arrived at consensus and made it clear she expected the full cooperation of each member of the team in implementing the professional learning community model throughout the district.

She then arranged for a series of meetings with members of the team to articulate her expectations and to clarify priorities. She used a small-group format for these meetings to encourage dialogue and questions. At each meeting she explained that she intended to be tight on the following concepts.

* A focus on learning.

The superintendent reviewed the district mission statement and its pledge to ensure high levels of learning for all students. She contended that if the school district was to fulfill that pledge, administrators and teachers at all levels had to focus their energies on three critical questions: what is it we want all students to learn, how will we know when they have learned it, and how will we respond when a student is not learning?

She called on every school to monitor the learning of each student on a timely basis and to develop systematic procedures to give additional time and support--during the school day-to any student who was experiencing difficulty. The particulars of each school's plan could vary, but every school was called on to create a system of interventions that ensured students received additional time and support.

* Collaborative teams.

The superintendent called upon each school to organize the professional staff into collaborative teams. The structure of the teams was left to each school's discretion-course specific, grade level, interdisciplinary, vertical or departmental.

Although the superintendent insisted that teams be provided time to meet during the school day, each school was free to create its own strategy for providing this time.

The superintendent, however, was adamant about two points: every professional staff member would be a member of a team, and the focus of the team would be student learning. To ensure this focus on learning, she insisted that every team identify and pursue a specific, measurable goal that, if achieved, would result in demonstrably higher levels of student learning.

* Teacher teams focused on results.

The superintendent recognized most districts address the three critical questions at the central-office level. Directors of curriculum develop district curriculum guides. Directors of assessment monitor results on district and state assessments. The central office directs school improvement committees that must develop strategies for raising student performance.

However, she also recognized that all this activity at the central-office level often had little impact on the day-to-day workings of classroom teachers. She made it clear she wanted to engage, not just central-office staff, but each teacher team in every school in the investigation of the critical questions. She proposed a four-part process to promote that team engagement. (See related story, page 18.)

Periodic Reviews

The superintendent then explained she would meet individually with every member of the leadership team over the next several months to review the following areas:

* Planning: What is your plan for implementing the professional learning community process in your school or department? What specific steps do you plan to take and when will you take them? What are you doing to align the practices and processes of your school with these concepts?

* Monitoring: What are your strategies for monitoring each student's mastery of essential learning? How are you monitoring the productivity of your teams? How will you assess the results of this initiative in your school or department?

* Modeling: How are you modeling a focus on student learning and your commitment to collaboration? What have you done to create a guiding coalition to assist you in this important endeavor in your school or department?

* Driving questions: What questions have you posed to guide the work of the teams and the progress of the initiative?

* Allocating time: How have you ensured that every student who experiences initial difficulty is provided additional time and support for learning during the school day? What steps have you taken to give every collaborative team time to work together during the school day?

* Celebrating: What are you doing to celebrate the work of teams and the progress of your school in order to sustain this initiative?

* Confronting: What resistance and obstacles have you encountered and how have you responded?

The superintendent concluded by sharing the assumptions that she hoped would drive the work of the leadership team:

1. The fundamental purpose of the district was to ensure high levels of learning for every student.

2. This important purpose could not be achieved if people throughout the organization worked in isolation. Coordination and collaboration were essential.

3. By working together to build the capacity of the district to function as a professional learning community, all staff would experience both greater job satisfaction and the sense of accomplishment that comes with making a positive difference in the lives of the students.

4. The advancement of the professional learning community concept would be the top priority of the district, and each member of the leadership team would be called upon to present tangible evidence of his or her contribution to the effort.

A Collective Effort

The leadership of this superintendent has not eliminated obstacles and problems as the district moves forward with the professional learning community initiative. Obstacles and problems are an inevitable byproduct of the change process. But her efforts to build shared knowledge and to arrive at consensus have created a guiding coalition for the initiative.

In addition, she has delineated both the broad parameters to guide the work of schools and the specific areas in which the staff in those schools have the freedom to find the best strategies for achieving the district's goals. She has embraced the "Genius of the And" and given the people in her district rare gifts--a clear sense of organizational direction and a better understanding of how each person can contribute to the collective effort to make a difference in the lives of students.

RELATED ARTICLE: Defining a Learning Community he term "professional learning community" is in vogue these days, but what is a professional learning community? What could we expect to see in an organization that is functioning as one?

First, the people in the organization have a clear sense of the mission they are to accomplish and a shared vision of the conditions they must create to achieve their mission. They work together in collaborative teams that engage in collective inquiry into both best practices for accomplishing their aims and the current reality of the conditions in their organization. Any discrepancy between best practice and the reality of their school spurs them to take action to reduce the discrepancy.

The entire organization is designed to engage teams in a cycle of continuous improvement--gathering and analyzing data and information, identifying weaknesses and areas of concern, working together to develop strategies to address specific weaknesses and concerns, supporting each other as they implement those strategies, gathering new data and information to assess the impact of the strategies and then starting the process all over again.

This cycle is not an annual event, but is rather the ongoing process that drives the daily work of people throughout the organization. Finally, the effectiveness of the organization is assessed on the basis of results, rather than intentions or activities.

To create these conditions in her district, the superintendent in the accompanying article delineated both discretionary and non-discretionary aspects of the district's initiative.

Central-Office Support for Learning Communities.

BY REBECCA BURNETTE DuFOUR

It's 7:30 on Monday morning. As the principal of This-Too-Shall-Pass Elementary School reviews the pages of his daily planner, he is struck by the limited amount of time he will actually be in school this week because of scheduled meetings at the district office.

As the sole building administrator, he is expected to attend a testing coordinators' meeting to receive information about the state assessment program; a special education eligibility meeting; technology training for administrators; the monthly districtwide administrative meeting; the elementary principals meeting; an afterschool training session on sexual harassment in the workplace; and a meeting with the transportation director and two other principals to discuss bus routes.

Maybe next week he'll have time to focus on improving student learning in his school.

Resolving Tension

Although principals may start each day hoping to focus on student learning, the nature of the job inevitably diverts their attention and energy to other aspects of schooling--student discipline, parent conferences, personnel matters, building maintenance and so forth.

As a former principal and central-office coordinator who works with educators on implementing the professional learning community model in their schools, I understand the constant tension between the learning-centered principal's desire to concentrate on school improvement and the urgent demands that are a natural part of any principal's daily to-do list.

However, I have seen principals resolve that tension in ways that improve student achievement. As a result, I have come to a deeper understanding about what works and what does not work regarding continuous school improvement. I am convinced the practices of the central office play a major role in the eventual success or failure of the improvement efforts of individual schools.

Two recommendations (or more accurately, pleas) to central-office administrators can facilitate continuous improvement throughout their districts: limit the number of new initiatives and coordinate the array of central-office services.

Limit Initiatives

Nothing is more discouraging to the learning-centered principal than being deluged by disconnected, fragmented, competing initiatives generated from numerous central-office departments. Allowing each department the autonomy to launch separate initiatives that simultaneously descend upon schools is a recipe for disaster. Consider the following scenario.

The director of staff development has mandated that all professional development days will be devoted to training teachers in differentiated instruction, problem-based learning and multiple intelligences. The technology department has developed a new checklist requiring classroom teachers to assess each child's proficiency on numerous computer skills. The math coordinator has insisted that all K-12 teachers fully use the newly adopted project-based math curriculum-even though most are unfamiliar with the concept. The assessment director has required that all K-8 teachers conduct time-intensive independent reading inventories on every student three times each year although schools are not clear on how the results will be used. The director of elementary education has decreed all schools must implement cognitive coaching by the end of the school year.

When principals and teachers confront these all-too-common scenarios, their emphasis shifts from results to activity. It is impossible to focus on the learning needs of each student when a district presents so many competing demands. Central-office administrators who support continuous school improvement heed the adage to have more than one goal is to have no goals at all. They recognize that in the arena of school improvement, less is more. They limit district initiatives and demand the coordination of all central-office services to support those limited initiatives.

Poway Unified School District in suburban San Diego serves as an example of a district that has discovered the benefits of limiting initiatives. Poway has reduced the number of district goals from more than 60 per year to just two. Every central-office staff member is called on to contribute to the achievement of those goals. Janet Malone, Poway's director of staff development, reports the effort to limit initiatives has been extremely beneficial because there is no confusion about district priorities.

Coordinated Services

While an effective central office will speak with one voice when communicating priorities, the central office in many districts is viewed as a cacophony of competing interests. When all central-office administrators are separately chanting, "Pay attention to my directives! My initiatives are the priority!" they sow seeds of confusion, frustration and cynicism in schools.

Districts increase the likelihood of sending a consistent message throughout the district when they insist all central-office administrators function as a learning community, working interdependently as a unified team to achieve a focused, districtwide achievement goal.

Imagine a district in which the superintendent leads the administrative team through a process that establishes improved student achievement in reading as the district's priority for all elementary schools. The superintendent then calls on each member of the team to develop a plan to contribute to that effort.

The directors of staff development, language arts, special education and Title I create ongoing training programs to provide principals and teachers with best practices for the teaching of reading. They also develop a more intensive training-of-trainers program for representative teachers from each school who have volunteered to serve as peer coaches as their colleagues implement the new strategies.

The technology director presents a variety of software programs that serve as reading tutorials for students and user-friendly programs that track each student's mastery of essential skills. The director of assessment develops strategies to provide each school with specific, easily understandable data from the state and national assessments that will identify strengths and weaknesses in reading for students collectively and individually. He also creates a database of released test items for specific reading skills that teams of teachers can access as they develop local common assessments. He offers to train grade-level team leaders in the construction of various assessments.

The director of curriculum examines the scope and sequence of the district reading curriculum and aligns it with the state standards. She identifies several gaps, works with teachers to develop supplementary curriculum materials and makes the analysis and materials available to each school.

Role Model

In this scenario, the team rallies around a specific priority and each member is called upon to define how his or her department can customize services to support schools in their efforts to address that priority. As individual schools analyze their student achievement data and identify the training and resources necessary to move forward with the initiative, the central-office team serves as a clearinghouse of best practices and as a resource center that provides the knowledge, training, programs and support to address the unique needs of each school.

Fairfax County, Va., divides its large school district into clusters. The central-office leadership team of Cluster II has made developing professional learning communities a priority for its schools.

Ellen Schoetzau, director of Cluster II schools, built shared knowledge of the learning community concept among key staff by providing training for all central-office administrators, principals and lead teachers of every school in the cluster. She devotes the bulk of her monthly meetings with all principals to discussion of learning community concepts. Principals share and celebrate successes and support each other in overcoming obstacles.

Schoetzau also has visited each of the 29 school sites to engage in dialogue with the staff on their progress and to identify what the central office can do to assist them in their effort. She and the central-office staff then use the information garnered from these monthly meetings and school-site visits to design the appropriate support and services for each school.

When the central-office team models the clear purpose, collaborative effort and focus on results that characterize a professional learning community, it increases the likelihood that those conditions will flourish in the schools it serves. Help your principals become learning-centered leaders by giving them the gifts of limited initiatives and coordinated services from a unified central-office team.

Rebecca Burnette DuFour, a former central-office coordinator and elementary school principal in Virginia, is on educational consultant. She can be reached at 465 Island Pointe Lane, Moneta, VA 24121. E-mail: [e-mail]. She is co-author of Getting Started: Reculturing Schools to Become Learning Communities.

Four Steps Toward Team Engagement

Simply providing teachers with time to collaborate on a regular basis will not lead to improvements in student achievement. Collaborative reams are most effective when members have a clear sense of purpose, specific goals and structured activities that give direction to their work.

These conditions do not emerge by accident. They are the direct result of effective leadership. Leaders can build the collective capacity of a staff to get better results if they make certain that reams use collaborative time to engage in dialogue and processes that have a positive impact on student learning.

The steps listed below serve as an example.

* Clarify essential outcomes.

All teams would be asked to specify the essential outcomes each student was to achieve as a result of their course, grade level or program. The district would provide each ream with relevant national, state and district learning standards and evidence of traditional levels of student performance from a variety of assessments.

After studying the various documents and information, each team would be asked to identify eight to 10 critical outcomes per semester that were aligned with state and district standards. The outcomes could vary from school to school, provided the designated outcomes were aligned with state and district standards. Once a team identified the essential outcomes, the members of the team would be expected to focus their daily work on helping all students acquire the intended knowledge and skills.

* Develop common assessments.

Each team would be asked to develop at least four assessments per year that would be given to all of the students they were reaching. The district would provide released sets of items from national, state and district assessments to assist teams who were free to use those items or create their own. Teams would also be free to determine the type and nature of the assessments--multiple-choice rests, essays, performance, projects, etc.

* Define proficiency.

Each team would be called upon to identify the standard a student must meet on each assessment to be deemed proficient. They also would be required to define the criteria by which they would judge the quality of student work in more subjective assessments.

* Analyze results and develop improvement strategies.

Each team would be required to review student performance on the common assessments to identify the strengths and weaknesses of all students tested. The team then would be asked to develop and implement strategies to improve upon that level of achievement. Each member of the team also would be called upon to assess the performance of his or her students in comparison to the group, to seek help from teammates in areas of concern and to offer teammates suggestions and ideas in areas in which his or her students excelled.

The district would provide each building with the technical capabilities to generate this information for each team and each teacher. It also would provide support and training for each step in this process for teams that required assistance.

Richard DuFour, a former superintendent, is an educational consultant. He can be reached at 465 Island Pointe Lane, Moneta, VA 24121. E-mail: [e-mail]. He is the co-author of Getting Started: Reculturing Schools to Become Professional Learning Communities.