Collective Practice: Strategies for Sustainable Improvement

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4. Focus on the long term.
Change in school climate and culture is the product of comprehensive strategies that do not grow fully formed overnight. They contemplate deep-seated changes in teacher practice and, in doing so, address long-standing issues of capacity. As such, these strategies require time and must be enabled by policies that are systemic and sustainable at scale. These include policies that seek to:

• 
Improve working conditions
• 
Balance individual and collective practice
• 
Provide comprehensive and 
differentiated supports to teachers
• 
Provide opportunities for new roles for teachers
• Invite and reward collaboration
• 
Provide effective incentives 
for outreach to families and 
communities
• 
Insist on comprehensive 
assessments related to improved instruction

We present the recommendations in this article as starting points for the next stretch of the school reform pathway. The trail behind us is littered with reform manifestos that promote piecemeal approaches to improving the skills and practices of individual teachers. They have done little to move us closer to a place where non-White, non–native English speaking, and low-income students are showing consistently improved performance. Our journey must take us to that place by leading to the development of a sustainable collaborative culture in schools, growing out of and supported by 
systematic support for collective practice. More and more, we see compelling evidence that these cultures will result in more effective teaching, which will be a significant milestone on the longer path to educational equity.

In our convenings and in this issue of VUE, we have highlighted the collaborative cultures that can nurture critical capacities to improve teaching. Reaching equity will also require all those with a stake in public education to expand our vision and extend our focus – and recognize that the journey itself is a collective one.

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Footnotes

1 See Susan Moore Johnson’s article in this issue of VUE for citations of some of this research.

2 For purposes of the ARRA stimulus funds, an effective teacher is one “whose students achieve acceptable rates (e.g. at least one grade level in 
an academic year) of student growth.” To be highly effective, a teacher’s students must exhibit one and a half levels of growth in a given academic year (U.S. Department of Education 2010, p. 19496).

3 See, also, Hargreaves and Shirley’s (2009) discussion of “principles of professionalism” and “catalysts of coherence.”

4 Encouraging teachers to adopt collective practice strategies for school improvement is a key element of the Ford Foundation’s recently announced seven-site, seven-year, $100 million initiative to transform secondary education 
in urban schools (for more information, see ).

5 See Jonathan Eckert’s article in this issue 
of VUE for one system that aims to do this.

6 See Carrie Leana’s article in this issue 
of VUE for an argument against “Teacher of 
the Year” awards.

7 See, for example, VUE no. 20, Summer 2008, Human Capital.

8 See Carrie Leana’s article in this issue of VUE for a discussion of social capital.

9 See Milbrey McLaughlin and Joan Talbert’s article in this issue of VUE for a discussion of 
professional learning communities.

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References

Fullan, M. 2010. All Systems Go: The Change Imperative for Whole System Reform. Thousand Oaks, CA, and Toronto, Ontario: Corwin Press and Ontario Principals Council.

Hargreaves, A., and D. L. Shirley. 2009. The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

McAlister, S., K. Mediratta, and S. Shah. 2009. Rethinking the Teacher Pipeline for an Urban Public School System: Chicago ACORN. Providence, 
RI: Brown University, Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
> Available for download

McKinsey Education. 2009. Shaping the Future: How Good Education Systems Can Become Great in the Decade Ahead. Report on the International Education Roundtable (July 7), Singapore.

U.S. Department of Education. 2010. “Overview Information; Race to the Top Fund; Notice Inviting Applications for New Awards for Fiscal Year (FY) 2010; Notice.” FR Doc 2010-8376, Federal Register: April 14, 2010 (vol. 75, no. 71). Notices, pp. 19495-19531. Washington, DC: Federal Register Online via GPO Access, wais.access.gpo.gov, DOCID:fr14ap10-131.
> Available online

Viadero. D. 2010. “Scholars Identify 5 Keys 
to Urban School Success,” Education Week (January 27).

Williams, Ocynthia. 2004. “A Community-Led Reform: Improving Schools in the South Bronx,” Voices in Urban Education no. 5 (Fall).
> Available for download