Before beginning this month's discussion, please reflect upon your commitment to welcoming and successfully
educating all students. All means regardless of the students’ current abilities,
gender,
or socio-economic status. In this endeavor, consider the extent to which you empower
your colleagues to develop high quality inclusive educational environments?
What do you consistently model to promote professional
learning communities in your school to develop inclusive opportunities,
resources, school-based guidance and access to local and national best
practices or experts?
As we begin considering the power of effective advocacy, let’s agree that effective leaders exhibit the ability to inspire change despite facing complex bureaucracies, competing interests, lack of funds, and a range of stakeholder priorities. The ability to effectively advocate for focused change is increased through additional training or utilization of research-based action models. While most action research approaches utilize a similar circular model, there are approaches designed to advocate for specific challenges. For instance, the Coherence Lab's theory of action addresses the needs of historically marginalized people by:
- Supporting educational leaders to coherently
focus and collaborate on key priorities, cultivating trust amongst diverse
stakeholders, and build intentional focus on equity within policy-making
and decision-making processes.
- Developing teams of education
systems leaders to develop solutions for complex problems and to scale or
sustain inspiring and empowering change that support educator
- Identifying school leaders and
teachers who share priorities and policies and are equipped to champion school-based
continuous improvement and optimal student experiences and learning outcomes,
especially for those who have been historically marginalized.
The Coherence Framework illustrated below exhibits the collective and interdependent elements supporting coherence-building. Note, that as with most action-research approaches, the framework intentionally circular. Coherence work is deeply interconnected and never ending.
As
a tool for effective advocacy and systems change, observe that the framework is divided into four elements. Element 1: Building Focus and Coordination. Element
2: Cultivate Trusting Relationships. Element 3: Change Behavior at Scale. Element
4: Equitable Ways of Thinking and Working.
In the endeavor to “Build Focus and Coordination”
effective advocates and systems change
leaders should seek to establish (a few)
priorities, model desired collaboration and remove obvious obstacles.
Effective
advocates and systems change leaders seek
to build a shared vision. They identify,
plan, model, the pursuit of clearly-defined priorities. They identify how
attainment would be measured. They identify distractors, inefficiencies, or
redundancies related to these priorities. They help others to know when to say
no to these obstacles or barriers to clear alignment with to the identified priorities.
Beginning with district leadership, a culture based on “defined
autonomy” (Marzano & Waters, 2010, p. 8) communicates NNG
to both the internal and external stakeholders. Otherwise, change can be either slow,
inconsistent, or nonexistent.
Effective advocates and systems change
leaders create a culture of
collaboration. While difficult, collaboration
must be more than aspirational. By promoting
a culture rooted in collaboration, effectiveness in this area is exhibited in
the ability to differentiate between instances when communication or
coordination are more powerful and necessary than collaboration.
The development of an effective collaborative culture results from understanding
and embracing the interdependency of
the improvement process rather than merely undertaking elemental processes
for change.
Effective advocates and systems change
leaders can identify and willingly address
the systemic barriers, inertia, outdated tools and unresponsive processes that
allow fragmentation to persist. Doing anything for the sake of
compliance is seen as part of the problem.
Rather, effectiveness is exhibited by management that focuses upon the implementation
and attainment of core priorities.
Educators
benefit in a number of ways from working together to identify a clear, shared
vision, developing a collaborative culture focusing on learning, engaging in
collective inquiry, remaining action oriented, committing to continuous
improvement, and being results oriented (Dufour et al., 2008). The six
elements of an effective PLC promote learning by doing. As with many action-based processes developed
for sustaining success, the six elements work most effectively if treated as an
interdependent, cyclical process.
So, as we
continue examining how to exhibit advocacy for inclusive education and
the Learning
for All Mission, reflect upon what you have already done in relation to
these needs. Consider your efforts to establish your school’s (or class’s) non-negotiable
goals (NNG) (Marzano &
Waters, 2009). How would you rate your efforts to model effective collaboration? What has been most difficult in seeking to remove
obstacles to desired change?
To cite:
Anderson, C.J. (September 30, 2022). How to advocate for inclusive education and the
learning for all mission. [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/
References
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (2008). Revisiting
professional learning communities at
work: New insights
for improving schools. Solution Tree Press.
Lezotte, L. W., & Snyder, K. M. (2011). What effective schools do: Re-envisioning the
correlates. Solution Tree Press.
Marzano,
R. & Waters, T. (2009). District leadership that works. Solution
Tree Press
