Will to Lead, the Skill to Teach, The. Anthony Muhammad
up to meet their diverse needs. In a report released by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Basis Policy Research, of 2,025 chronically low-performing elementary and middle schools identified in ten states in 2003-2004, only about 1 percent had improved enough to exceed their state's average academic performance five years later, and fewer than 10 percent had even broken out of the lowest 25 percent of schools in their state (Sparks, 2010).
If we were to measure the current performance of the public school system against its stated objective, most would agree that the system has not met its goal. Additionally, we can agree that most struggling students within the system come from very predictable social groups identified by race, socioeconomic status, disability, and gender (Shaw, 2008). This lower-than-desired performance by schools and students has spurred an international debate about what it takes to turn a failing school around.
We believe failing schools can be turned around, and we believe developing the will to lead and the skill to teach—a focus on culture and structure—within every school is the key to this transformation. We infuse the concept of cultural responsiveness throughout this text because we believe that understanding the whole student is critical to properly serving the student. Teachers can use this understanding as a bridge when helping students achieve mastery of the academic curriculum. Effective schools meet the needs of the student. We argue that to truly close achievement gaps, schools must do this for all students, not just for some.
One
The Two Parts of a Positive School Environment
As we established in the introduction, successful school improvement requires that educators have a combination of both will and skill to ensure that students receive a quality education and have the best opportunities for success in school and life. Educators can have the will to lead, but if they lack the skill to effectively engage students, then student learning will suffer. Conversely, individual educators might possess the skills to teach effectively but lack the will to lead students and colleagues, causing inconsistent quality in education and adverse outcomes for student learning. A balance of the two, in what we call a high-will/high-skill school, creates a positive school environment, tailored to the needs of students rather than educators, that makes success for all students a reality—especially for students who have traditionally been underserved and struggle to learn.
Will
What is will? It is the power of making a reasoned choice or having control of one's own actions. It is characterized by determination, a certain attitude, or a particular desire or choice. Do all schools have the will to improve? Do all educators have the will to lead? Do all administrators and teachers have the desire to align their goals and intentions to the stated intentions of the organization? Unfortunately, the answer is no. All educators do not share a positive attitude about organizational reform. Desire, commitment, focus, positive attitude, and leadership are qualities that have to be cultivated, not left to chance, because they have a tremendous impact on student outcomes. Researchers Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy (2000) created a twenty-one-item efficacy scale to measure the level of individual teachers' belief in student achievement and a staff's collective belief in its ability to effectively teach students. They discovered that increases in teachers' belief in student achievement and a staff's belief in itself positively correlated with improvement in student learning. As Goddard and Hoy point out in their study, will is best when it is developed collectively as opposed to individually. Students are a part of a school system—not a one-room schoolhouse.
Collective will is also referred to as school culture. Kent Peterson defines school culture as the norms, values, rituals, beliefs, symbols, and stories that make up the persona of a school (Cromwell, 2002). School cultures fit into one of two types: healthy and toxic. A healthy school culture is a place in which:
Educators have an unwavering belief in the ability of all of their students to achieve success, and they pass that belief on to others in overt or covert ways and they create policies, practices, and procedures that support their belief in the ability of every student. (Cromwell, 2002, p. 3)
Conversely, a toxic school culture is one in which educators believe that student success is based on students' level of concern, attentiveness, prior knowledge, and willingness to comply with the demands of the school, and they articulate that belief in overt and covert ways. In a toxic school culture, educators create policies and procedures and adopt practices that support their belief in the impossibility of universal achievement (Cromwell, 2002).
There is a direct link between the belief system of a staff and its behaviors and actions. A staff that aligns its intentions around student achievement develops a commitment to the essential behaviors that have been proven to boost student performance. A healthy school culture does the following:
• Fosters a commitment to staff and student learning
• Emphasizes accomplishment and collaboration
• Celebrates successes
These qualities are essential in highly impactful schools. They are the catalyst for meaningful problem solving, professional development, pedagogical experimentation, and collective goal setting (Cromwell, 2002).
Skill
Creating highly effective schools requires more than will—it requires specific action to bring vision into reality. This leads us to the next question: what is skill? Skill is a great ability or proficiency, an art or a craft. Education is an art and a science that requires the development of organizational skill—the ability of a staff to tailor its professional skills to the specific needs of the students it serves. Robert Marzano (2010) identifies the instructional skills of teachers as “the cornerstone of school effectiveness” (p. 2). He identifies effective teaching in every classroom as a critical commitment to creating meaningful school reform (Marzano, 2009b). Researcher Carol Cummings (1996) describes the challenge of effective teaching as using a web of specific skills: “Teaching is so complex! It involves classroom management, long-term planning, use of materials, human relations, and knowledge of content as well as instructional skills” (p. 12). Cultivating these diverse skill sets requires consistent and focused professional development. They are not developed by happenstance. Part III of this book addresses developing this skill set—responsive instructional practice structured around the norms, values, and culture of the student—and highlights specific strategies and activities that fit within this paradigm.
This combination of a healthy organizational will and a well-defined and refined set of professional skills will help us address the inequity of student achievement that has adversely affected millions of students. With this comprehensive strategy, we can best help those students who struggle to learn.
The Four Zones of a Positive Learning Environment
A positive learning environment is marked by the proper blend of will and skill and leads to the development of supportive structures and instruction for students. Schools can fall into one of four categories in their balance of will and skill: high will/low skill, high skill/low will, low will/low skill, and high will/high skill.
High Will/Low Skill
A school with high will and low skill is a school in which the staff5 s beliefs and attitudes have been aligned with the stated objective of the school—learning for all—but the skills to manifest this belief have not been developed. This staff has an optimistic attitude about student potential without the ability to cultivate that potential. An overemphasis on student feelings and relationships has overshadowed the importance of developing instructional skill and academic rigor. A typical high-will/low-skill school has the following characteristics:
• Many student celebrations and acknowledgements for nonacademic achievements
• An optimistic attitude toward students and their emotional needs, but no focus on rigorous academic tasks or higher-order thinking activities during instruction
• A staff that values relationships with