How to Advocate for Inclusive Education and the Learning for All Mission

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? 

 Researching the most significant feature common to world-class schools, Lezotte and Snyder (2011) found a continual effort toward becoming “learning organizations with a commitment to continuous problem-solving and a sense of shared responsibility for improvement” (p. 67). This was evidenced by a consistent exhibition of a clear vision leading toward the desired mission, commitment by all to learning for all, and sharing the responsibility for success of the mission.  These certainly appear to be the minimal culture exhibited by an effective school.

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