A Summing Up. Robert Eaker

School. Additionally, he was becoming heavily involved with educational organizations such as the National Staff Development Council (what is now Learning Forward) and ASCD. I continued my work with districts on implementing findings from the effective schools research. Both Rick and I were asked to be fellows with the National Center for Effective Schools Research and Development, an organization founded by Larry Lezotte. This increased exposure culminated in our decision to write Professional Learning Communities at Work, published in 1998—a turning point in our careers.

      Another turning point was soon to follow. In 2002, Rick married Becky Burnette. Obviously, marrying Becky changed Rick’s personal life significantly, but it also had an important, and positive, impact on our work with the PLC at Work process. Both Rick and I had experience at the high school level, and I was working in higher education. What was missing in our experience base was a strong elementary school perspective. Enter Becky. Becky had served in roles ranging from elementary teacher to central office staff, but when she married Rick, her most recent experience was as principal of Boones Mill Elementary School in Franklin County, Virginia, where she had successfully implemented PLC at Work concepts and practices.

      Becky completed the team. In addition to being a highly successful practitioner, she proved to be a solid thinker, presenter, and writer. Following the marriage of Rick and Becky, further refining and promoting the PLC at Work concept became the work of the three of us.

       Who Is That Guy?

      It’s safe to say that without Jeff Jones, there would just be a warehouse full of PLC at Work books somewhere in Bloomington, Indiana. Jeff Jones and his partner, D. G. Elmore, purchased National Educational Service (NES) in 1998. The company name was changed to Solution Tree in 2005. While Rick and I developed the basic conceptual framework for embedding PLC at Work concepts and practices in school districts, schools, and teams, Jeff Jones provided the business acumen, marketing skills, and vision that moved the PLC at Work ideas off the page and into schools and districts all over the United States and, eventually, around the globe. Jeff and his wonderful wife, Margaret, took the financial risks involved in purchasing and growing a company to support that work. The PLC at Work movement was a collaborative team effort involving Rick, myself, Becky, and Jeff. Importantly, in addition to our professional teamwork, we developed a very close personal friendship with Jeff and Margaret.

      Just as the beginning of my friendship with Rick was serendipitous, so was our association with Jeff. The second book Rick and I wrote was Creating the New American School (DuFour & Eaker, 1992). It had been published by NES in Bloomington, Indiana. With the success of the book, coupled with the increasing work that Rick and I were doing with school districts, ASCD, and the Tennessee Department of Education, NES began to plan for a few small events, we labeled institutes, during which educators could spend two or three days gaining our insights on how schools could improve student achievement.

      The impetus for these institutes was twofold. First, Rick and I had conducted a couple of small, relatively successful workshops for educators in the western suburbs of Chicago. Second, Rick’s reputation as a principal was gaining momentum, and my reputation gained increased national exposure as a result of an interview that had appeared in the Phi Delta Kappan (Duckett, 1986).

      In 1998, NES planned an institute to be held at Mont-Tremblant, a resort area near Montreal. Rick and I planned the agenda, while the associated activities and logistics were handled by NES. When Rick and I arrived at Mont-Tremblant the evening before the institute was to begin, we were casually informed that the company had been sold to a person named Jeff Jones and his business partner but that the people and the day-to-day operations would be unaffected. In a very brief visit, we were introduced to Jeff. And just like that, the handoff was complete.

      Rick and I were somewhat taken aback by the change in ownership. In the movie classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Foreman & Hill, 1969), as the Pinkerton agents relentlessly chase Butch and Sundance, Butch keeps observing the pursuit and rhetorically asking, “Who are those guys?” Watching Jeff at the Mont-Tremblant institute, Rick and I joked that we were just like Butch. We kept asking each other, “Who is that guy?” Little did we know, that guy would change our lives—and our families’ lives—in ways that would be both positive and dramatic.

      Shortly after Jeff purchased NES, our book Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement (1998) was published. When writing the book, Rick and I wanted to accomplish a number of things that we thought were unique. First, as we represented two different professional worlds—Rick offered a practitioner’s perspective, while I brought higher education’s insights and research focus—we believed we could create a research-based, effective approach to improving student learning that preK–12 practitioners would find both doable and appealing.

      Second, we both felt strongly that our study of best practices should not be limited to those from the field of education. We wanted to highlight best practices from business, medicine, and other professions.

      Third, we wanted to present a framework for embedding these practices in schools by capturing the power of the basic principles of the learning community “at work” concept. Rick and I never claimed that we were the first to use the term professional learning communities or the first to propose that professional learning communities held promise for improving schools. What we were proud of was that we developed a framework of processes, practices, and procedures that educators could use to reculture schools into highly functional professional learning communities and, as a result, positively impact student achievement. We saw Professional Learning Communities at Work as a how-to book for school practitioners.

      To say that Professional Learning Communities at Work was a success would be an understatement. Due to Jeff’s business and marketing innovations, coupled with Professional Learning Communities at Work Institutes, the book quickly gained momentum and proved very successful, not only for us, but also for those who used the book to help guide their school improvement efforts. Jeff was very innovative in his vision for growing Solution Tree, initially through marketing the PLC at Work process. His brilliance was connecting book sales to PLC at Work Institutes and ultimately connecting both to high-quality professional development services. This vision of publishing books and offering institutes and professional development—much like a three-legged stool—proved to be highly successful, and as a result, our books and attendance at our institutes and professional development activities grew quickly, with each leg of the stool enhancing the others.

      The concepts and practices of the PLC at Work process have been endorsed by virtually every major educational organization in the United States and have been supported by researchers and practitioners alike. Districts and schools that have successfully embedded the PLC at Work concepts and practices can be found in every state and province in North America—and increasingly, around the world.

      I often meet people who believe my thinking and ideas about systemic initiatives to improve student learning began with the publication of Professional Learning Communities at Work (DuFour & Eaker, 1998). In actuality, the PLC at Work process was the culmination of many years of collaboration with a number of people who had a significant impact, not only on my thinking, but also, in fact, on my life. And although I have continued to refine my thinking since 1998 (and hopefully, I will continue to do so), my serious thinking around enhancing student achievement began in the early 1970s, when I was a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and was influenced enormously by Jerry Bellon.

      So, with an appreciative nod to W. Somerset Maugham, what follows is my attempt, after almost half a century as a professional educator, to sort out my thoughts on how to create the kinds of schools and classrooms for all kids that we would want for our own children.

      CHAPTER l

       Clinical Supervision

       Improving Classroom Instruction

      

      Like many things in my life, my first opportunity to study best practices for improving student learning—my work with