During 2000-01, 100 teachers in the Stow-Munroe Falls schools received training by Lennie Hay of the Center for Leadership Reform in Louisville, KY (now called The Schlechty Center). Since then, 321 teachers and administrators have been trained.
Stow-Munroe Falls City Schools has partnered with The Schlechty Center through the Summit County Educational Service Center. This partnership provided several in-service programs on improving student instruction. The Schlechty Center has successfully created programs throughout the country, many of them in large urban districts that have been successful in improving student achievement and classroom instruction.
The Schlechty Center is a nonprofit corporation with headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. The Center's mission is to encourage and support the transformation of the existing system of rules, roles, and relationships that govern the way time, people, space, knowledge, and technology are used in schools. The Schlechty Center is grounded in the belief that such changes are necessary to ensure that schools are organized around students, the needs of students, and the work students are expected to do and that families and communities provide children the support necessary to ensure student success.
Dr. Phillip Schlecty, president and CEO of The Schlechty Center, has written the following to explain the reasons behind WOW.
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING SCHOOL REFORM
1) There is an urgent need for dramatic improvement in the performance of America's public schools.
2) The key to improving the schools is the quality of the work students are provided. To improve the quality of the work students are provided, schools must be organized around students and the work provided to students rather than around adults and the work of teachers.
3) Students are volunteers. Their attendance can be commanded, but their attention must be earned.
4) The changes required to organize schools around students and student work cannot occur unless school districts and communities have or develop the capacities needed to support change - capacities that are now too often lacking in even the best run school districts.
5) Leadership and leadership development are key components to the creation of district-level capacity to support building-level reform.
Designing Quality Work for
students is the compilation of 10 Design Qualities:
Content and Substance, Organization of Knowledge, Product Focus,
Clear and Compelling Product Standards, Protection From Adverse
Consequences and Initial Failures, Affirmation of Performance,
Affiliation, Novelty and Variety, Choice and Authenticity.
QUALITY # 1 - CONTENT & SUBSTANCE
Learning to read and to write complete sentences, for example, is not the same as learning to write persuasively and to read critically, thoughtfully and well.
QUALITY # 2 - ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE
Students are more likely to be engaged when information and knowledge are arranged in clear, accessible ways, and in ways that let students use the knowledge and information to address tasks that are important to them. Content should be organized so access to the material is clear and relatively easy, and the students' work has enough attractive qualities to keep them engaged.
QUALITY # 3 - PRODUCT FOCUS
Work that engages students almost always focuses on a product or performance of significance to students.
QUALITY # 4 - CLEAR & COMPELLING STANDARDS
Students prefer knowing exactly what is expected of them and how those expectations relate to something they care about.
QUALITY # 5 - PROTECTION FROM ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES FOR INITIAL FAILURES
Students are more engaged when they can try tasks without fear of embarrassment, punishment, or implications that they're inadequate.
QUALITY # 6 - AFFIRMATION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PERFORMANCE
Students are more highly motivated when their parents, teachers, fellow students and other "significant others" make it known that they think the student's work is important. Portfolio assessments, which collect student work for scrutiny by people other than the teacher, can play a significant role in making student work more "visible."
QUALITY # 7 - AFFILIATION
Students are more likely to be engaged by work that permits, encourages, and supports opportunities for them to work interdependently with others. Those who advocate cooperative learning understand this well; and also recognize the critical difference between students working together and student working interdependently on a common task, which may look like group work, but isn't.
QUALITY # 8 - NOVELTY & VARIETY
Students are more likely to engage in the work asked of them if they are continually exposed to new and different ways of doing things. New forms of work and new products are equally important.
QUALITY # 9 - CHOICE
When students have some degree of control over what they are doing, they are more likely to feel committed to doing it. This doesn't mean students should dictate school curriculum, however. Schools must distinguish between giving students choices in what they do and letting them choose what they will learn.
QUALITY # 10 - AUTHENTICITY
When students are given tasks that are meaningless, contrived and inconsequential, they are less likely to take them seriously and be engaged by them. But if the task carries real consequences, it's likely that engagement will increase.
For additional information about The Schlechty Center, visit http://www.schlechtycenter.org/