Leading a High Reliability School. Richard DuFour

sought-after consultant, Dr. DuFour was recognized as one of the leading authorities on helping school practitioners implement the Professional Learning Communities at Work^™ process in their schools and districts.

      Dr. DuFour wrote a quarterly column for the Journal of Staff Development for nearly a decade. He was the lead consultant and author of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s video series on principalship and the author of several other videos. He was named as one of the Top 100 School Administrators in North America by Executive Educator magazine, was presented the Distinguished Scholar Practitioner Award from the University of Illinois, and was the 2004 recipient of the National Staff Development Council’s Distinguished Service Award.

      To learn more about Richard DuFour’s work, visit AllThingsPLC (www.allthingsplc.info).

      To book Robert J. Marzano, Philip B. Warrick, or Cameron L. Rains for professional development, contact [email protected].

      Foreword

       By Jeffrey C. Jones

      Student achievement—this is by far the main purpose of a school. Yet with the rising tide of standardized testing and the numerous demands placed on schools, educators often find themselves straying from this main objective. From daily paperwork to lesson plans and assessment, educators are bombarded with things to do besides focus on learning, and seemingly not enough time to do them. So, how can educators sort through the myriad tasks, both required and optional, to focus on the essential things they need to do to promote student achievement? In other words, how can they determine that the work they’re doing is the right work?

      In Leading a High Reliability School, my friends and authors Bob Marzano, Phil Warrick, and Cameron Rains provide a comprehensive model that leaders can follow to ensure the right work is being done. Grounded in years of research, the high reliability school (HRS) model encompasses twenty-five variables, or leading indicators, that leaders can implement. Ranging from a safe school environment to a guaranteed and viable curriculum for all, these leading indicators provide a road map for leaders to follow.

      In the clear and compelling introduction crafted just prior to losing his battle with cancer, our dear friend and colleague Dr. Rick DuFour writes about the powerful impact of professional learning community (PLC) work, specifically the PLC at Work™ process and its integral role in creating high reliability schools. A pioneer in PLCs and a Solution Tree author for more than twenty years, Rick brought his decades of experience and insight to this work.

      In the remaining chapters, Bob, Phil, and Cameron detail the work surrounding each of the twenty-five leading indicators of a high reliability school. With a wealth of examples, rubrics, learning progressions, and tables, they walk the reader through the process of implementing each indicator, obtaining data for continuous improvement, and ensuring leader accountability. Each chapter concludes with evidence from the field—anecdotes from school leaders about their experiences, challenges, and successes in implementing the HRS model.

      The work of schools isn’t easy. It involves asking hard questions, prioritizing the work, collaborating, analyzing data, and monitoring progress. The list goes on and on. In Leading a High Reliability School, leaders will find a comprehensive model that enables them to approach the work with clarity of purpose and clear direction. And at Solution Tree and Marzano Research, we consider it a great honor to bring this work to you.

      Introduction

      The Primacy of the PLC Process

       By Richard DuFour

      In the subtitle of his 1961 book, Excellence, John W. Gardner asks, “Can we be equal and excellent too?” Contemporary educators face the challenge of answering this question in the affirmative. Schools that strive for excellence must take steps to ensure that all students not only have equal access to but also acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will prepare them for their future. These institutions that were created to sort and select students based on their perceived abilities, socioeconomic status, and likely careers now are called on to ensure every student graduates from high school with the high levels of learning necessary for success in college or other avenues of postsecondary training. In short, a school cannot become excellent unless it commits to equity as well.

      The Effective Schools research of the 1970s and 1980s established that some schools more effectively than others help students achieve the intended levels of proficiency. Schools, however, often overlook that student achievement differs significantly more within schools than between schools largely because of the variability in teacher effectiveness within the same school (Hattie, 2015).

      This finding should come as no surprise given that the traditional schooling structure in a large portion of the world has involved individual teachers in isolated classrooms making decisions based on their experience, expertise, preferences, and interests. This structure has subjected students to an educational lottery in which what they learn, how much they learn, how they are assessed, and what happens when they struggle are almost entirely a function of their assigned teacher.

      Those who hope to lead a high reliability school (HRS) must confront the challenge of reducing this variability so all students have access to good teaching, a guaranteed and viable curriculum, careful monitoring of their learning, systematic interventions when they struggle, and extension when they demonstrate high levels of proficiency. Their best hope for meeting this challenge lies in making the Professional Learning Communities at Work (PLC at Work) process the cornerstone of HRS creation. In doing so, educators will serve the cause of both excellence and equity.

The PLC at Work Process as the Cornerstone of High Reliability Schools

      In order for the HRS model to drive a school toward excellence, educators in the school must know that the professional learning community process represents the foundation of their efforts. We recognize that although the term PLC has become ubiquitous, groups apply varying definitions. For our purposes, we want to distinguish among the terms professional learning community, collaborative team, and professional learning community process.

      In many schools, educators refer to their collaborative teams as a PLC. We discourage this use of the term. A PLC is a school or district that is attempting to implement the PLC process. Many elements of the process require schoolwide coordination that goes beyond the work of a grade-level or course-specific team. The collaborative team, although not a PLC, is the fundamental structure of a PLC and the engine that drives the PLC process.

      The PLC process calls for educators to work together collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. It operates under the assumption that purposeful, continuous, job-embedded learning for educators is the key to improved student learning. Before delving into the nuances of PLCs, let’s consider a fundamental prerequisite to any effective school—providing a safe and orderly environment for both student and adult learning.

The Importance of a Safe and Orderly Environment

      When Abraham Maslow (1943) created his hierarchy of needs, he cited safety and orderliness as fundamental needs second only to biological needs such as air, water, food, and so on. But he found that although addressing safety needs is vital for progressing to higher levels of self-actualization, it does not ensure that progression. The same is true of classrooms.

      Every classroom teacher knows the importance of effective classroom management. Individuals with outstanding content knowledge will flounder as teachers if they cannot maintain a safe and orderly classroom. But effective teachers go beyond classroom management to use strategies that engage learners and constantly monitor their learning. Classroom management is a necessary condition for effective teaching,