Leading a High Reliability School. Richard DuFour
• Increase alertness to detail so all people can detect subtle differences in context by examining data and looking for predictions.
• Focus on what the organization needs to do to reach the performance target on a continuous basis.
• Act as a ‘mindful’ organization; thinking and learning constantly by empowering individuals to interact continuously with others in the organization as they develop in their roles. (p. 3)
Although several examples of high reliability organizations appear in various industries, schools have not typically operated as such. However, some educators have called for schools to begin taking a high reliability perspective. Sam Stringfield (1995) first made the case, indicating that schools should use high reliability implementation methods for school reform. Sam Stringfield and Amanda Datnow (2002) maintain that any school-based reform should increase reliability through the use of high reliability strategies. Since 1995, the pressure for schools to begin taking a high reliability perspective has continued to mount. As G. Thomas Bellamy, Lindy Crawford, Laura Huber Marshall, and Gail A. Coulter (2005) state:
The stakes for failure have been raised so high—both for schools and for students—that high reliability has become an important aspect of school success. Schools are now challenged to prevent practically all failures and to close achievement gaps among student groups—in short, to ensure highly reliable learning for all students. (p. 384)
This pressure has grown with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which, according to the U.S. Department of Education (2017), “requires—for the first time—that all students in America be taught to high academic standards that will prepare them to succeed in college and careers.” Ensuring that all students learn at high levels requires schools and their staff to take a high reliability perspective.
In their analyses of high reliability organizations, Bellamy et al. (2005) identify three functions related to high reliability:
1. Improving normal operations
2. Detecting potential problems
3. Recovering from those problems (p. 390)
These three functions serve as the foundation of their fail-safe schools framework. The HRS model builds on this work with its leading and lagging indicators.
Leading and Lagging Indicators
At its core, a high reliability perspective involves monitoring the relationship between actions an organization takes to enhance its effectiveness and the extent to which these actions do, in fact, produce the desired effects. The literature on high reliability organizations refers to what an organization does to ensure it succeeds as leading indicators, and it refers to the concrete results produced from monitoring the effects of the leading indicators as lagging indicators. Leading and lagging indicators are the operational cornerstones of the high reliability organization process.
From this perspective, most research literature on school leadership tends to state research findings in terms of leading indicators. To illustrate, consider the five variables Edmonds originally identified. Stating that effective leaders should foster a “pervasive and broadly understood instructional focus” certainly provides direction and even implies specific actions, but it does not provide much clarity as to the desired effects of such actions (Edmonds, 1982, p. 8). The Wallace Foundation also mostly phrases the variables it offers as leading indicators (see page 25). “Building a shared vision,” for example, implies specific actions leaders can take (Louis et al., 2010). But leaders cannot monitor how people follow this mandate to build a vision without clearly articulated outcomes. Likewise, “offering intellectual stimulation” implies specific actions; but without a description of intended outcomes, such actions are difficult to monitor (Louis et al., 2010).
We do not intend to demean the previous efforts to describe effective leadership. Indeed, leading indicators provide specific guidance on possible actions and interventions that can occur in a school. Lagging indicators complement such actions by articulating desired effects in concrete terms.
To a great extent, then, schools wishing to become HRSs must translate the research literature’s recommended actions into those actions’ desired effects. This is the essence of lagging indicators. To illustrate, consider the following leading indicator from the Wallace Foundation study: “building a shared vision” (Louis et al., 2010). Although this certainly seems like an intuitively obvious action a school should engage in, translating this into a corresponding lagging indicator involves articulating that shared vision’s desired effect or effects. For example, the lagging indicator could say this: “Staff members perceive that they are part of a concerted effort to improve the lives of the school’s students.”
Lagging indicators prove most useful when they describe concrete or quantitative evidence that the school’s actions have produced specific desired effects. For example, this lagging indicator for the leading indicator of building a shared vision contains a more concrete description: “A survey indicates that at least 85 percent of the staff perceive they are part of a concerted effort to improve the lives of the school’s students.” Consequently, we define lagging indicators as concrete and, in some cases, quantifiable outcomes for which schools can establish minimum acceptable criteria.
So, where does one start in implementing the leading indicators that build a high reliability school? It begins with doing the right work.
The Right Work
To start building an HRS, a school must identify leading indicators critical to the school’s success. This is foundational to what Elmore (2003) refers to as “doing the right work.” He contends that doing the right work is the primary factor in school improvement. He further notes that in the United States, a perception persists that “schools fail because the people in them—administrators, teachers, and students—don’t work hard enough; and that they are lazy, unmotivated, and self-serving” (Elmore, 2003, p. 9). However, the truth of the matter is that hard-working, highly motivated administrators, teachers, and students frequently populate failing schools. They do not have a problem with working hard; their problem lies in selecting the right work.
In this book, we offer twenty-five leading indicators that we believe represent the right work in schools. Chapters 2–6 cover these leading indicators in depth. We draw this list of leading indicators directly from previously cited research that we have vetted over a number of years (Carbaugh, Marzano, & Toth, 2015; Marzano, 2001, 2003; Marzano & Waters, 2009; Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005).
Specifically, we can trace our HRS model back to school effectiveness work done at the turn of the 21st century (for a full, detailed discussion of the research supporting this model, see Marzano, in press). We have also vetted this model in the context of principal evaluation (Carbaugh, Marzano, & Toth, 2015; Herman et al., 2016; Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005). Finally, this model contains many of the highest-ranking variables from Hattie’s 195 variables related to achievement (see Hattie, 2009, 2012, 2015).
Table 1.1 presents the twenty-five leading indicators in the HRS model, organized into five levels. This hierarchical structure has some intuitive appeal.
Table 1.1: HRS Model
| Level | Leading Indicators |
| Level 1: Safe, Supportive, and Collaborative Culture |
1.1—The faculty and staff perceive the school environment as safe, supportive, and orderly.
1.2—Students, parents, |