Leading a High Reliability School. Richard DuFour

the sincerity with which we give recognition for a team or individual as the criterion for assessing the appropriateness of the recognition. A commendation should represent genuine and heartfelt appreciation and admiration. If it does meet that criterion, don’t worry about expressing too much gratitude.

In This Book

      Leaders hoping to create a high reliability school must recognize that their challenge does not merely involve putting new structures and strategies in place. They must face their larger challenge of reshaping the school culture and the assumptions, beliefs, and expectations that drive the culture. A growing consensus states that leaders can best lead this cultural transformation and create sustainable school improvement by building educators’ capacity to function as members of a PLC. With a strong PLC process in place, principals and teachers put themselves in a great position to implement the other key elements of a high reliability school.

      Chapter 1 provides an overview of high reliability organizations and school leadership, including the early days of school leadership and the characteristics of effective school leaders. It also presents a four-step process for creating leading indicators to establish criteria for school success. These criteria are based on the leading indicators in each level of the HRS model. In all, there are twenty-five leading indicators which form the basis for their respective lagging indicators. Chapters 2–6 cover the five levels of the HRS model: a safe, supportive, and collaborative culture; effective teaching in every classroom; a guaranteed and viable curriculum; standards-referenced reporting; and competency-based education.

      More specifically, chapter 2 addresses level 1 of the HRS model—a safe, supportive, and collaborative environment. The leading indicators at this level represent critical actions and initiatives the PLC process should support to create a psychological and operational foundation for effective schooling. Chapter 3 addresses level 2—effective instruction in every classroom. The leading indicators at this level specify how the PLC process can implicitly and explicitly develop teachers to the highest levels of competence. Chapter 4 discusses level 3 of the HRS model—a guaranteed and viable curriculum. In this level, the PLC process focuses on ensuring a curriculum that is consistent from teacher to teacher and focused enough to allow for rigorous analysis of content by students. Chapter 5 covers level 4—standards-referenced reporting. Here, the PLC process ensures that the school sets appropriate goals and reports progress for individual students as well as the school as a whole. Chapter 6 addresses level 5 of the HRS model—competency-based education. Here the PLC process must help facilitate a paradigm shift that allows students to move at their pace through content. At this level, traditional approaches to scheduling and use of time are completely transformed.

      Chapters 2–6 also include information on lagging indicators, quick data and continuous improvement, and leader accountability for every leading indicator. Leader accountability sections offer a proficiency scale that leaders can use to judge their effectiveness relative to the corresponding indicator.

      Each chapter concludes with a section on transformations, which features significant quotes and thoughts from leaders whose schools have experienced improvement based on implementing these leading indicators. Finally, chapter 7 concludes with how district leadership can establish roles, collaborative teams, and commitments to ensure they build high reliability schools.

      Leaders who hope to build and sustain high reliability schools where high levels of learning for all is the reality must consider the PLC process as the cornerstone of the HRS model. The remainder of this book is designed to describe the five HRS levels and explain how the PLC process brings each level to life in the real world of schools.

      Chapter 1

       High Reliability Organizations and School Leadership

      Rick DuFour’s introduction provides the context for schools that seek high reliability status using the PLC process as a foundation. Without a doubt, the PLC process, particularly as articulated by Rick and his colleagues, brings the vision of a true high reliability school within our grasp.

      It is important to remember that the PLC process and the HRS model developed independently of one another. The PLC process has its roots in the literature on professional collaboration (Rosenholtz, 1991) as well as reflective practice (Schön, 1983; Stenhouse, 1975). The term professional learning community became popular in education in the 1990s (Cuban, 1992; Hord, 1997; Louis, Marks, & Kruse, 1996; McLaughlin, 1993). These early discussions noted it was the work of Rick DuFour and his colleagues that solidified the nature and importance of the PLC process in K–12 education (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008; DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010; DuFour & Eaker, 1998).

      The concept of a high reliability organization (HRO) has its roots in the study of highly volatile situations. G. Thomas Bellamy and his colleagues (Bellamy, Crawford, Marshall, & Coulter, 2005) explain:

      The study of HROs has evolved through empirical investigation of catastrophic accidents, near misses, and organizations that succeed despite very trying and dangerous circumstances. Launched by Perrow’s (1984) analysis of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, the literature evolved through discussions of whether such accidents are inevitable, as Perrow suggested, or might be avoided through strategies used by organizations that operate successfully in high-risk conditions (Bierly & Spender, 1995; Roberts, 1990). Although there are some similarities between this literature and research on organizational effectiveness and quality improvement, HROs “have been treated as exotic outliers in mainstream organizational theory because of their unique potentials for catastrophic consequences and interactively complex technology” (Weick et al., 1999, p. 81). (p. 385)

      Bellamy and his colleagues popularized the notion of applying the concept of HROs to K–12 education.

      It is the confluence of these two distinct lines of theory and development that forms the basis of this book. As the title indicates, this book discusses that intersection of the PLC process and the HRS framework from the perspective of leadership.

      A central tenet of this book is that effective leadership should occur within an HRO context. This would necessitate a specific process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting certain types of data regarding what occurs in schools on a day-to-day basis. When those data indicate that something has gone awry or will soon go awry, schools must take immediate corrective action. When those data indicate that all is well, schools offer appropriate acknowledgments and celebrations. This information loop’s defining feature is that it operates with extreme efficiency and attention to detail, so much so that a school might consider itself highly reliable as to its continuous improvement.

      This approach minimizes the importance of a school leader’s personal characteristics and maximizes critical, data-informed actions a leader takes. Effective leadership is not a function of having a specific personality type or a certain demeanor; it is a function of informed action aimed at continuous improvement.

      Before covering the specifics of this leadership approach in depth, we find it useful to briefly summarize some past research on school leadership.

Early Days of School Leadership and Effective Schools

      The importance of school leadership in a high-performing