Write a paper that addresses each element of the four components from Fullan’s Coherence Framework, including the following:
·Provide an explanation of a clear and shared focus of direction for the identified program.
·Describe how you cultivate collaborative cultures that set the pathway to change.
·Explain how this process will deepen the learning of the staff, as well as positively impact student learning.
·Describe how ongoing data will be collected and analyzed to further secure accountability,
·In your final 2 paragraphs, summarize your thought regarding the process of this Project: collecting data, researching evaluation models, collaborating with others to analyze data, creating an action plan based on program needs, and planning for staff buy-in to the program changes.
Fullan, M. (2015a). Leadership from the middle: A system strategy Download Leadership from the middle: A system strategy
. Education Canada. 55(4), 22–26. Retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/lea…
THE CHALLENGE TO CHANGE
Leadership
from the Middle
A system strategy
Michael Fullan, Order
of Canada, is Professor
Emeritus at OISE/
University of Toronto
and has served as
special adviser to two
Premiers and Ministers
of Education in Ontario
since 2003. He advises
governments around
the world on whole
system change (for his
latest books see www.
michaelfullan.ca).
By Michael Fullan
MY COLLEAGUES AND I have been working on “whole
We have learned a great deal about whole system
change, which we have captured in a complete case study
22 EDUCATION CANADA • December 2015 | Canadian Education Association
of Ontario, 2003-2015.3 As we examined and worked with
systems around the world – some that were relatively centralized and some relatively decentralized – we began to
search for a more powerful way to seek whole system
success regardless of the starting point.
The answer, and the focus of this article, is “Leadership
from the Middle” (LftM), first identified by Hargreaves
and Braun4 in their evaluation of the implementation of a
special education initiative in Ontario. For this initiative,
the government allocated $25 million to the Council of
Ontario Directors of Education to lead implementation
across all 72 districts. The government, if you like, asked
“the middle” – the districts – to lead system change.
LftM and its rationale
In education system terms, the top is the state, the middle is districts or regions, and the bottom is schools and
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ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK
system change” (how all schools in a province/state/
country can improve) since we carried out the evaluation of England’s literacy and numeracy strategy from
1998-2002.1 We then applied the lessons from England to
Ontario’s reform strategy that began in 2003. In an earlier
article for CEA2 I identified the “big ideas” as:
1. All children can learn
2. A small number of key priorities
3. Resolute leadership
4. Collective capacity
5. Strategies with precision
6. Intelligent accountability
7. All means all.
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Canadian Education Association | December 2015 • EDUCATION CANADA
23
EN BREF
Le changement issu d’une approche descendante « top-down »
des gouvernements n’engendre pas un changement systémique
(amélioration de toutes les écoles), pas plus que le changement
issu d’une approche ascendante « bottom-up », venant de la base
où chaque école jouit d’autonomie, n’amènent de grands progrès.
Pour rehausser la cohérence et l’impact à l’échelle du système, une
nouvelle stratégie beaucoup plus prometteuse voit le jour : le leadership provenant du milieu (« LpM »). Le LpM renforce les conseils
scolaires et les réseaux d’écoles, qui collaborent pour régler des
problèmes précis en vue d’accroître des capacités pédagogiques
et des compétences collectives ayant des effets mesurables sur
l’engagement des élèves. Dans cet article, l’auteur cite la NouvelleZélande et l’Ontario comme exemples de la mise en pratique de
cette stratégie mobilisatrice. Le LpM est mieux adapté à l’innovation,
à la diffusion, à l’engagement des élèves et des enseignants, ainsi
qu’à des apprentissages en profondeur tels le développement de
la personnalité, l’éducation à la citoyenneté, la collaboration, la
créativité et la pensée critique. Bref, le LpM consiste à mobiliser
tout le système en vue des nouveaux modes d’apprentissage plus
profonds requis pour le 21e siècle.
communities. Top-down leadership doesn’t last even if you get a lot
of the pieces right, because it is too difficult to get, and especially
to sustain, widespread buy-in from the bottom. In many ways the
Ontario strategy was led from the top (the government), and although
it did contain many strong partnership ideas, it ultimately will not be
embedded enough to establish sustainable system change (see the
discussion of New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL) and Ontario
below). Similarly, bottom-up change (e.g. school autonomy) does not
result in overall system improvement; some schools improve, others
don’t and the gap between high and low performers grows wider.
The key question, then, is how can we achieve the strongest
system coherence, capacity and commitment resulting in sustained
improvement?
Leadership from the Middle can be briefly defined as: a deliberate
strategy that increases the capacity and internal coherence of the middle
as it becomes a more effective partner upward to the state and downward
to its schools and communities, in pursuit of greater system performance. The goal of LftM is to develop greater overall system coherence
by strengthening the focus of the middle in relation to system goals
and local needs. Thus, it is not a standalone, but rather a connected
strategy. This approach is powerful because it mobilizes the middle
(districts and/or networks of schools), thus developing widespread
capacity, while at the same time the middle works with its schools
more effectively and becomes a better and more influential partner
upward to the center.
The LftM strategy is being used in several systems around the
world, and my colleagues and I are currently involved in initiatives
in California (districts working with each other on system goals), Connecticut (districts working in cohorts), and Quebec (again districts
working together on local and province-wide priorities). For this
article I will draw on two examples: one from the relatively decentralized system of New Zealand; the other from the relatively centralized
province of Ontario.
System change in New Zealand
In 1989, New Zealand passed a radical (at the time) piece of legislation entitled Tomorrow’s Schools that abolished regional authority
and created individual school autonomy, with each school having
its own school council. Assessing its impact is beyond the scope of
24 EDUCATION CANADA • December 2015 | Canadian Education Association
this article, but we can say that by and large, improved performance
of the overall system did not ensue (for example, the gap between
high- and low-performance schools increased). In 2014, the current
government passed another initiative, called Investing in Education
Success, that provided a substantial new budget of 369 million NZ dollars in order to set up networks of schools that would work together to
leverage improvement. There are some 2,500 schools in New Zealand;
it was expected that all schools would participate in networks of 5-20
schools. Initially the proposal was imposed on the system and was
greeted with widespread opposition.
Over the past year and a half, the system has worked on a resolution that I would essentially call an LftM solution. For example, the
government and the primary school teachers’/principals’ federations
worked out guidelines in something called the “Joint Initiative.” Here
are its five fundamental principles:5
1. Children are at the centre of a smooth and seamless whole of
educational pathway, from earliest learning to tertiary options.
2. Parents who are informed and engaged are involved in their
children’s education and part of a community with high expectations for and of those children.
3. Teachers and education leaders, supported by their own professional learning and growth, and those of their colleagues, will
systematically collaborate to improve educational achievement
outcomes for their students.
4. Teachers and education leaders will be able to report measurable gain in the specific learning and achievement challenges of
their students.
5. Teachers and leaders will grow the capability and status of the
profession within clearly defined career pathways for development and advancement.
Within these overarching principles, New Zealand is working out
additional requirements to guide the work of emerging networks.
These guidelines are consistent with eight criteria that Santiago
Rincon-Gallardo and I formulated in relation to LftM networks of
schools or districts. We have identified eight essential ingredients of
effective networks:6
1. Developing high-trust relationships
2. Focusing on ambitious student learning goals linked to measurable outcomes
3. Continuously improving instructional practice
4. Using deliberate leadership and skilled facilitation
5. Frequently interacting and learning inwards
6. Connecting outward to learn from others
7. Forming new partnerships among students, teachers and
families
8. Securing adequate resources to sustain the work.
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Top-down leadership doesn’t
last even if you get a lot of the
pieces right, because it is too
difficult to get, and especially
to sustain, widespread buy-in
from the bottom.
It is too early to assess the impact of New Zealand’s LftM strategy,
but it does provide a clear example of deliberately trying to mobilize
the middle for system success.
New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL) in Ontario
Ontario makes for a particularly interesting case because it has had
strong success using an assertive strategy from the government
combined with partnerships with its districts. This has served the
province well on basic measures of literacy, numeracy (though less
impressively), and high school graduation. What becomes evident is
that such a model may not be suitable for innovation and its related
21st century skills.
My colleagues and I are pursuing, in seven countries including
Canada, a strategy that we call New Pedagogies for Deep Learning
(www.npdl.global). New pedagogies refer to developing learning partnerships between and among students, teachers, and families. We are
currently defining and developing the details of these partnerships,
which essentially are based on proactive learning roles for students
and for teachers using the latest pedagogical practice.
Deep learning is the 6Cs: Character education, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Again
we are defining and developing instruments to assess and support
these outcomes.
There are currently some 15 districts in Ontario and Manitoba
working to implement and disseminate these ideas in practice. Let
me be explicit how this represents Learning from the Middle:
• The center of gravity of NPDL is districts and schools, not the
province. The ideas are compatible with government policy but
not led by the province. This is especially interesting in Ontario
because after some eight years of central leadership (2003-2011),
districts are having more opportunity to lead change. I cannot
say that this is a result of deliberate policy but can observe that
many districts are showing new initiative in their own right and
in teaming up with other districts, with NPDL being a prime
example.
• The essence of this LftM work consists of innovation and dissemination. Having established a basic instructional capacity in
implementing literacy, many schools and districts are now going
deeper into new pedagogies that engage students and teachers
in real-life problems.
• This model of change is one that Maria Langworthy and I formulated in A Rich Seam. We described the process as: “Directional
vision, letting go, and reining in.”7 Clearly this represents a
dynamic model, but it also requires a degree of “discipline.”
First, directional vision shapes the direction (our NPDL definition for example); second, letting go encourages people to do
new things within the broad new direction. We are currently
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Canadian Education Association | December 2015 • EDUCATION CANADA
25
Leading from the Middle
unleashes badly needed
innovation on a large scale
while at the same time helping
to assess and sort out what
should be retained and
spread.
documenting examples of this work in action as students and
teachers, for example, are tackling local problems and working
together to come up with innovative solutions; third, reining
in is built into the process of co-learning. Again we are documenting what this looks like but it consists of the use of targeted
questions and protocols to arrive at new meaning and new
assessment.8 Because the model is laden with transparency,
precision of action, assessment of what is being learned including outcomes, and continuous exchanges and deliberation, good
ideas get sorted out and retained. This is not a linear model but
more or less simultaneous. It generates and assesses a great deal
of innovation. These ideas can be further sorted in relation to
provincial frameworks and assessments.
In NPDL we are assessing, capturing and spreading what is being
learned. It sounds messy and to a certain extent it is, but it promises
to produce better ideas, more quickly, with greater local capacity
and ownership. At the same time, this is played out within an overall
mindset that we have called “systemness”: a commitment to contributing to, and benefitting from, the larger system. LftM cultivates
activities and co-learning that constantly place people in the context
of interaction at their own level, and also beyond it as ideas are sorted
out in regional, provincial, and in the case of NPDL, international
exchanges.
In short, NPDL is a strong, specific example of LftM oriented to
innovation and the future of learning.
The promise of LftM
It is crucial to say that every time the middle gets together, it is not
automatically a good thing. We referred earlier to our eight criteria for
collaboration.9 Thus having a strong moral purpose focus, working
on deep new pedagogies and learning outcomes, affecting the whole
system, and so on, are all essential components.
LftM is a new concept, and has not been fully tested and assessed.
But there are at least three big reasons why it holds great promise:
1. It appeals instantly to a critical mass of people who want a role
and have hitherto not been able to see where they fit. When
people become aware of LftM ideas they quickly identify with
its potential because it is a strategy that finally gives people in
the middle a prominent role to play.
2. It can be used in a variety of ways and is especially suited to
breakthrough innovations that are so sorely lacking in public
school systems. Traditional school systems have become stodgy
and boring for students and for educators. LftM enables and
unleashes badly needed innovation on a large scale while at
26 EDUCATION CANADA • December 2015 | Canadian Education Association
the same time helping to assess and sort out what should be
retained and spread.
3. By definition, it implicates the whole system starting from the
middle out, up and down. In addition to our system-use of the
concept, LftM can and should be used at other levels. Schools,
for example are the middle if you use a within-district focus.
Teachers, students and families are the middle when you think
of intra-school and community work.
Conclusion
Governments have become less and less effective at leading system
change.
The old model – prioritize and implement – is no longer suitable. It
cannot generate innovation and learning fast enough for the demands
of the 21st century. For the latter you need continuous innovation
in real time generated and assessed through co-learning (laterally
within and across classrooms, schools and districts; and hierarchically school to district to province). For this kind of innovation, the
middle is essential.
Learning from the Middle represents a new and powerful way of
thinking that frees us from outdated and limited models that depend
on top-down versus bottom-up thinking. It liberates a greater mass of
people to become engaged in purposeful system change, and ultimately to own the changes that they create together. EC
NOTES
1 L. Earl, M. Fullan, K. Leithwood, and N. Watson, Watching & Learning: OISE/UT
evaluation of the national literacy and numeracy strategies (London, England:
Department for Education and Skills, 2003).
2 M. Fullan, “Big Ideas Behind Whole System Reform,” Education Canada 50, No. 3
(2010): 24-27.
3 M. Fullan and S. Rincon-Gallardo, “Developing High Quality Education in Canada:
The case of Ontario,” in Adamson, Astrand, and Darling-Hammond, Eds., (London:
Routledge, in press).
4 A. Hargreaves and H. Braun, Leading for All (Ontario: Council of Ontario Directors
of Education, 2010).
www.ontariodirectors.ca/downloads/Essential_FullReport_Final.pdf
5 New Zealand Education Institute, Ministry of Education, Joint Initiative Agreement
(Wellington NZ: 2015).
6 S. Rincon-Gallardo and M. Fullan, “Essential Features of Effective Networks and
Professional Collaboration,” Journal of Professional Capital and Community (in
press).
7 M. Fullan and M. Langworthy, A Rich Seam: How new pedagogies find deep
learning (London: Pearson, 2014), 48.
8 M. Fullan, “Leadership in a Digital Age,” Presentation at the Deep Learning Hub
(October, 2015). www.npdl.global
9 See also our “coherence framework”: M. Fullan and J. Quinn, Coherence: Putting
the right drivers in action (Thousand Oakes, CA: Corwin Press, 2015).
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