A school should be able to describe failure before it asks us to celebrate success.
That sounds harsh. I think it's fair to the people doing the work.
Before a district introduces a program, purchases a service or adds another required practice, it should explain what it expects to improve. Then it should explain what would make it reconsider the decision.
Those answers are easier to give while the proposal is still a proposal.
Once people have spent money, attended training and publicly defended the decision, an honest review can become uncomfortable. The people asked to evaluate the work may also be the people who recommended it.
I want schools to make that review easier by agreeing on the questions at the beginning.
Imagine a district considering a new professional-development program. This is a hypothetical example, not a claim about a particular district or vendor.
The proposal says the program will improve classroom instruction.
Fine. What would teachers be able to do afterward that they are struggling to do now? What would students experience differently? What support would teachers need to put the training into practice?
And when would it be reasonable to look for those changes?
Attendance at the training would tell us that people attended. A completed survey could tell us what participants thought. Those are useful pieces of information. They would leave the original question about classroom improvement open.
The district could identify a few things it intends to examine: examples of student work, teachers' descriptions of what they changed, observations focused on the stated goal and the time needed to carry out the new practice.
Each source would have limits. A teacher might find the approach useful with one class and less useful with another. A change in student work might have several explanations. An observation might capture a good lesson without showing what happens across a month.
That is a reason to interpret the evidence carefully. It should also be part of the original plan.
What would count as a promising result? What would remain uncertain? What would suggest that the approach needs adjustment? And what would be a reasonable reason to stop?
Write those questions down before the training begins.
Give the people doing the work a chance to help answer them. A teacher may recognize an obstacle in the proposed plan that somebody farther from the classroom has missed. A principal may know that the promised implementation time competes with another district requirement.
A review designed without those conversations could end up measuring whether people complied with an expectation they had little opportunity to make workable.
The purpose of setting criteria early is to make the eventual judgment fairer.
It protects teachers from being told afterward that the real expectation was something nobody explained. It gives a principal a clearer basis for supporting the work. It gives a superintendent and board a way to distinguish an idea worth continuing from an investment that needs to change.
It can protect a worthwhile program, too.
Some improvements take time. A new approach can deserve a fair trial even when the first attempt is uneven. Before starting, leaders can explain what support and time that trial requires, along with the point at which they will review it.
That gives patience a purpose and a review date.
The criteria can change if people learn something important. If that happens, explain what was learned and why the original standard no longer fits. Keep the original expectation available so the public can understand the change.
That is more credible than quietly replacing the question after the answer becomes inconvenient.
And keep the evaluation proportionate. Reviewing an ordinary classroom adjustment shouldn't require a research project. A major purchase or districtwide requirement deserves more scrutiny because it commits more people's time and resources.
The review itself has a cost. If teachers must spend substantial time proving that a program saves time, that burden belongs in the evaluation.
This week, I've been writing about permission to change, the requirements schools continue and the people who have authority to make decisions. The next step is to make the terms of the decision visible before everyone is invested in defending it.
Parents and board members can ask a simple question when the next proposal arrives:
When you come back to report on this, what evidence will help us decide whether it worked?
Then ask what would lead to a different decision.
Schools need room to try things. The people doing the work deserve to know what a fair trial means.
— Mike Pope The Pope Report | Pope Studios
