Change as Collaborative Inquiry

A 'Constructivist' Methodology for Reinventing Schools

© Tony Wagner, 1998 (first published in the Phi Delta Kappan, March 1998)

For the last several years, the big push in education reform has been to develop new, more rigorous state and district standards for learning. While the debate continues to rage in many communities over the exact nature and extent of these standards, as well as over how they will be assessed, it seems that we may have reached some kind of national consensus that there will be standards. For now, at least, many educational leaders have come to believe that the need to monitor progress toward genuine equality of educational opportunity and achievement outweighs the danger that the standards movement will simply lead to more of the same: more "coverage" of the same stale Carnegie-unit curriculum and more use of the same standardized tests for accountability purposes.

So much for the easy part. The development of new learning standards was a fairly simple matter in comparison to what it will take to actually implement them. The adoption of new standards does not answer the question of how we make the necessary changes that will enable all students to achieve at higher levels and meet the new learning standards.

Most approaches to systemic education reform are rooted in obsolete, top-down or expert-driven management beliefs and practices that reflect neither what we know about how people learn nor what we have come to understand about how organizations change. To make the implementation of higher standards a reality for most children, we must develop a new practice of "whole-school" change that is consistent with our understanding of how learning takes place and how organizations change. We must connect our means and our ends. We need to create a methodology for a more collaborative, "constructivist" process of change in schools and districts, if we are to develop what Peter Senge calls a "learning organization."

Since 1988 I have been studying and helping with the change process in K-12 public and independent schools in the U.S. and Brazil. Initially, I worked as a researcher and an independent consultant, but since 1994 I have headed a team from the Institute for Responsive Education that is working on whole-school change with clusters of K-12 schools in seven low-income communities around the country. In our work with our partner schools, we are developing new, "constructivist" approaches to whole-school change.

Our methodology contrasts sharply with more conventional practices in each of the four stages of the change process, as I have outlined them in earlier work: 1) defining the problem, 2) developing the goals of change, 3) implementing change strategies, and 4) assessing results. We are also coming to understand the new kind of leadership required in a successful school change process.

Defining the Problem:'Failure' Versus Obsolescence

Since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, a growing and increasingly shrill chorus of business and political leaders (Democrats and Republicans alike) and of national and local media has reached virtual consensus on one thing: U.S. schools are failing. You read it or hear it nearly every day in the media. This analysis of the problem, while lending itself to dramatic pronouncements, is fundamentally wrong and is a serious impediment to change in schools.

By most objective criteria, American public schools are doing a better job than they were 25 years ago: a greater number of students—both white and minority—are graduating from high school, taking the SAT I, and attending college. Our schools are not failing. They continue to do exactly what they were designed to do nearly a hundred years ago: they sort out a small percentage of students to be prepared for further learning and for professional and managerial jobs, while giving the remaining students the minimal skills needed for manual labor or assembly-line work.

The problem is that our "assembly-line" forms of schooling no longer fit the needs of the new economy. The same thing occurred in the late 19th century when the one-room schools of the agrarian era no longer fit the needs of an increasingly industrial and urban society. Those schools were not "failing" any more than today's schools are failing. They were obsolete, as are today's schools—and that is a very different problem, requiring a different solution.

What's the difference between saying that schools are failing and saying that they are obsolete? In a word, blame. The problem with the notion of failure in school reform is exactly the same as in a "nonconstructivist" classroom except that, in this case, the adults, rather than the students, suffer most from the stigma of having "failed." The label of failure creates a paralyzing sense of shame and defensiveness, which translates for many adults into blame.

A majority of adults in schools feel blamed for having helped to create bad schools. Scapegoating and a victim's mentality are widespread in American public schools today—especially those in low-income communities. High schools blame middle schools; middle schools blame elementary schools; teachers blame parents; parents blame the teachers or the students.

In such a climate, it is impossible to develop the sense of self-confidence and professionalism required to undertake any serious changes. It is equally difficult to foster responsible risk-taking, collaboration, and the formation of new partnerships with parents and community members. Yet we know that all three are needed in order to fundamentally improve our schools. In short, the way we have defined the problem in American education seriously limits the likelihood of motivating the "front-line workers" to search for a solution.

In addition to fostering the blame game and strengthening the culture of victimization, a diagnosis of failure encourages simplistic and even punitive rhetoric about the "solutions" to the problem. What's the stated goal of change? It is to send more people to "reform(ed)" schools! "Make teachers accountable" is another example of a popular punitive slogan that ignores the reality of how change—or learning—happens. Pressure in the form of increased emphasis on test scores may get the attention of some teachers, but it will not create the organizational learning required to obtain significantly better results. As in a good "constructivist" classroom, the challenge in the change process is to create significantly higher expectations without the crippling anxiety that thwarts risk-taking and learning.

By contrast, framing the problem as "obsolete" systems of schooling that must be "reinvented"—not merely reformed—makes the dimensions and complexity of the challenge clearer. Moreover, it suggests that the solution must be a shared responsibility. No one group is to blame or has all the answers. We must decide collectively what our high school graduates should know and be able to do and how we can best support them in achieving these educational goals.

Developing Goals:'Buy-In' Versus Ownership

In most school or district change efforts with which I am familiar, a single individual—the principal or the superintendent—or perhaps a small committee determines the goals of change. Whether it is districtwide standards and curriculum frameworks or a new form of block scheduling for a high school, there is rarely any discussion of the need for the change or what its goals should be among the groups most directly affected—teachers, parents, and students. Sadly, the change process looks much like a teacher-dominated classroom on a large scale. A few people do all the talking, while the passive majority is expected to sit still, be quiet, and then go do the assigned "homework."

Recently, some educational leaders have begun to realize that the lack of broad support for the goals of change can be a significant impediment to change. A growing number of superintendents now give at least some lip service to the goal of "public engagement." The language they use to describe the goal, however, reveals the shallowness of their thinking. Most often, what these leaders say they want is simply "buy-in" from parents and community members—as if they were selling a product and the only problem was to line up the requisite number of customers. By contrast, the language of "investment" and "ownership" suggests a far more generative endeavor and a long-term relationship involving equal partners.

Another problem with the "buy-in" mentality is that teachers are rarely considered a part of the "public" to be engaged. The thinking must be that, since teachers "make" the product, they are not the primary consumers. It is most telling that union co-sponsorship of new initiatives is almost never sought. Teacher resentment and union resistance are the almost inevitable results of treating educators as if they were assembly-line workers rather than partners in a collaborative endeavor.

On the other hand, when a change process begins with discussions of the need for and goals of change with teachers and then with parents and the community, it can be dramatically accelerated. Although inclusive discussions take time, once there is a real consensus among diverse groups on goals and priorities, we have observed that the nature and pace of the change process is faster and that the changes are deeper and longer lasting.

But the conversation has to be genuine. In one large urban school district where I consulted, a talented, committed superintendent quickly passed new learning standards and curriculum frameworks in his first year on the job with no discussion with teachers or parents, other than a few focus groups. He justified this action by saying that the documents were just drafts, "works in progress."

However, the senior personnel in the district who used this phrase would add that the new standards and frameworks were "nonnegotiable" and not subject to change. For all practical purposes, the documents were so long and apparently "complete" that there was nothing left to talk about anyway. Thus the invitation for further teacher and parent input seemed a sham.

The result in this particular school district was that many teachers became more passive than ever—in much the same way that students shut down when a class "discussion" is really only a game of "guess what's on the teacher's mind." For example, when I tried to engage a middle school faculty in a discussion of the important things they thought all graduating eighth-graders need to know and be able to do, the response was "Why should we bother talking about that? The superintendent's already decided what we should teach."

More significantly, the lack of a genuine dialogue leaves unaddressed the deepest concerns of many students, parents, and community members. While education reformers talk about skills and standards, 71% of Americans believe it is more important to teach values than academics, according to a recent study by the Public Agenda Foundation. Business leaders worry understandably about having a skilled labor pool that will help maintain a competitive advantage in the global economy, but the vast majority of Americans are much more worried about the apparent disintegration of social norms. Public Agenda's newest study of student attitudes toward school found that, while many high school students feel academically unchallenged, they are equally concerned about the lack of respect and civility in their schools. Sixty-nine percent of the students surveyed said that they would learn "a lot more" from teachers who respected them.

The development of both workplace skills and civic values can and must be addressed in a genuine school improvement effort, but there must first be real understanding and agreement on the need for and goals of change. Such understanding does not happen when "public engagement" is no more than good "public relations." It must be "constructed" through a process of genuine dialogue and discovery—in exactly the same way as "deep understanding" happens for students in a classroom in which there is active learning.

Implementation Strategies: 'Answers' Versus Inquiry

Thus far I have described how the conventional approach to school improvement begins with a "deficit" model (failing schools/students) and then tries to address the problem with a "teacher-dominated" approach to instruction ("buy-in" for the reform program). Unfortunately, the assembly-line methodology for school change also extends to typical implementation strategies that attempt to "cover" everything and are "answer-driven."

Go into a typical "reforming" public school in a progressive urban district and ask to see the "school improvement plan." You will be handed a large, heavy, impressive-looking three-ring binder overflowing with the school's strategic plan for change. It will, of course, include the requisite school vision and mission statement, "target" population profiles, recent test scores, and dozens of goals, time lines, organizational charts, and team leader designations. Once a year, it is updated by the principal, with a few minor additions or deletions, and then submitted to the district as a "progress report." It is the school's "improvement curriculum." And like most other coverage-based curricula, it has little or no long-term impact on its intended audiences.

There are a number of reasons for the failure of these so-called school improvement plans, which are not unlike the reasons for the failure of most conventional textbook-driven approaches to teaching. First, the plan resides almost wholly in the hands of the principal. Few in the school have seen the plan before it is formally issued, and fewer still have contributed to its creation. The plan rarely reflects the concerns, interests, or expressed needs of teachers and parents.

Second, the plan, like a typical American history textbook, attempts to cover everything with no clear sense of what's important. Tell a teacher or a student that everything must be covered, and the result is that almost nothing of consequence will be accomplished or learned. Even more than in a classroom, the success of a genuine school improvement effort requires selecting and maintaining a clear, long-term focus on a few important priorities.

Anthony Alvarado became superintendent of New York City's District 2 in 1989. At the time, the district's reading scores placed it in about the 30th percentile of districts in the city. The vast majority of students were reading two to four years below grade level. After studying the problem and consulting with teachers and parents, Alvarado decided to make literacy—reading and writing—the single focus of all efforts to improve teaching and learning. All professional development was focused on developing teaching skills in these areas. School principals were no longer evaluated on impressiveness of their school improvement plans or plant management skills, but rather on the improvement of teaching and learning related to literacy in their buildings.

Alvarado has maintained this districtwide focus not for six months or a year but for nine years. He reasons that, if students cannot read and write, then they will fail at math and science. Only now that all students are close to reading at or above grade level is the district considering a different focus.

Another common trait of conventional school improvement plans is that, like most curricula, they are answer-driven, rather than inquiry-based. Consider the hot new trend in high school restructuring, flexible time or so-called block scheduling. At the moment, it is the innovation of greatest interest to American high school principals. Yet teacher resistance in most schools presents a serious obstacle. Many high school teachers see significantly longer classes as a threat to their tried-and-true methods of instruction and suspect that block scheduling is a fad—akin to the "open classrooms" and "new math" of days gone by. They resent being coerced or cajoled into adopting the latest thing.

The teachers' skepticism is understandable. The problem is that, like so many other promising innovations, block scheduling is presented as an answer to a problem that has never been discussed. Ask high school principals why they want block scheduling in their schools (as I have done), and many will tell you that they just want to shake things up. "Teachers are too stuck in their ways. They need to try new things," I've been told by a number of principals. A few may say that the goal is to "improve student learning," but rarely can a principal explain how block scheduling—or any other "innovation of the month"—will contribute to improved student outcomes or how or when the new initiative will be assessed.

If these principals had started not with an answer but with a question to teachers—"What are some of the greatest obstacles to improving teaching and learning that you face?"—the results would be very different. Most high school teachers will tell you that their number-one problem is not with the organization of time but with the lack of time: time to meet with students, time to research and plan new lessons, and time to meet with colleagues.

Suppose that a principal who heard this complaint from his teachers created a committee and gave it access to the Internet, a little released time, and some travel money. Suppose then that the principal met with the committee and asked it to interview all the teachers in the building to get a clearer picture of the problem, to go off and study some different scheduling models that would give teachers more of the time they need, and to create a written report with recommendations for presentation to the full faculty for consideration. Suppose the final step was a broader discussion of the proposed changes with parents, students, and community members.

In fact, I have worked with high schools that have pursued such a "constructivist" strategy for change, and the results are very different from the usual resigned compliance with a change project. When presented with questions rather than answers, teachers are challenged to take their own work issues and schoolwide problems more seriously and to consider alternatives. Similarly, teachers can and should be asked to look at real data about poor student achievement and to compare their students' test scores with those from other schools—and with their own inflated grades. When such an effort is a genuine inquiry, most teachers become engaged and are challenged much more deeply than if they had been merely presented with an analysis of the problem and a set of prescriptive solutions designed by the central office.

The same answer-driven approach is often the fatal flaw in the various civics or character education efforts that are now so popular in elementary and middle schools. A principal—and sometimes even a majority of teachers, as well—decides that students are lacking in morals. The answer is to buy a curriculum—such as the Character Counts Program now used in many schools—and teach young people a new value every month through literature, songs, and so on. The result may be more pretty slogans and rosy pictures for the classroom walls, but behaviors rarely change.

An alternative, inquiry-based approach that I have used successfully in a number of schools and communities begins with a set of questions and does not leave out the adults. We begin by asking, "What behaviors are of concern to us here, adults as well as students?" Then we consider the questions "What behaviors do we want to see more of, what kinds of changes might be required to foster these behaviors, and what might we, as adults, need to do differently?"

In sum, a successful strategy for implementing school improvement is focused and prioritized. Rather than take on everything at once, the strategy attempts to identify the most significant problems. Second, it is inquiry-based. It begins with real questions or problems that all relevant groups have discussed and agree are important. Finally, understanding of the problem is augmented by a careful analysis of all relevant data—both quantitative and qualitative—and of research into best practice. In short, the process allows the participants to construct their understanding of important problems and potential solutions.

Assessing Results: Summative Versus Formative

If schools are seen as failing, then all too often standardized test scores are the "report card" that delivers the failing grade. Politicians, the media, school boards, and superintendents rely almost exclusively on standardized test scores to determine whether schools are good or bad—passing or failing. Like other traditional summative judgments in education—letter grades, for example—standardized tests may have their uses, but they have no real educational value.

The public does not understand and the media have not attempted to explain that there are good and bad tests and that most forms of standardized testing are as obsolete as the factory model of schooling for which they were developed. Bad tests of the common multiple-choice, norm-referenced variety do not require problem solving and do not assess real competencies. They were designed for one major purpose: to sort students into tracks or groups. And they have only one virtue: they are cheap to buy and to score.

Many stories have appeared in the media recently about some of the ill effects on teachers and schools of a heavy emphasis on improving standardized test scores. Some of the more bizarre stories tell of tests being stolen in advance of the test date and school test scores being falsified. Much more common and less widely known are the cases of teachers who spend weeks drilling students with sample tests and principals who discourage certain students (or whole groups of students) from coming to school on the day the tests are given. In a recent study conducted by William Zlatos, the percentage of students taking standardized tests in 14 urban districts ranged from 66% to 93%.

There have been very few reports about the impact on students of the increased emphasis on standardized tests. But many teachers can tell you. More time spent going over multiple-choice questions and test-taking strategies means less time for real learning and fewer interesting things being done in school. Sadly, such a "tougher" approach to increasing teacher and school accountability for improving test scores is likely to increase student passivity, diminish motivation for learning, lessen the amount of class time spent on challenging and interesting material, and undermine the development of real academic competencies.

Traditional standardized tests of reading comprehension have some value as diagnostic tools for schools. They give at a glance a picture of the severity of the problem—the percentage of students reading below grade level. But they don't say anything about what the students really can do; they don't say anything about their intellectual competencies. As one fourth-grade teacher recently explained, "My kids do okay on the citywide reading tests, but if I give them a book to read at their level and then ask them to talk or write about it, they're totally lost." It is interesting to note that European countries, whose education systems are often touted as superior to ours, have not historically relied on standardized tests at all. Their exams have always been essay-based.

Some districts and states are moving to develop "criterion-referenced" tests that are better able to assess students' real competencies, but progress has been slow. Many districts are holding back because the reliability of these tests has not yet been demonstrated. Moreover, they are expensive. Given the increased emphasis on test-based accountability and the damage that teaching to a bad test can do, it is hard to understand why developing better tests isn't our highest priority. I wonder if many educational leaders are resisting the widespread use of competency-based tests because they fear that student performance on such tests will be even worse than on existing tests and thus put their jobs at risk.

Not waiting for the development of better tests, a growing number of schools are creating their own forms of "authentic assessment" of student work. Inspired by Theodore Sizer and other educators who discuss the value of "exhibitions of mastery," some members of the Coalition of Essential Schools have pioneered the development of portfolios and exhibitions as high school graduation requirements. Such an emphasis on public performances and written documentation of student work provides a very different and more "formative" kind of accountability. Attending a math and science night or an assembly at which students discuss their research or present projects, parents and community members can see for themselves how much students really know and can do. An emphasis on examining students' actual work, as opposed to letter grades or some numbers on a piece of paper, also makes teachers more accountable to one another, and the data from such assessments can be a powerful tool in the process of school improvement.

It is interesting to note that at Central Park East Secondary School, which has moved to graduation by exhibitions of mastery—what I like to call the "merit badge" approach to examinations—students are much more motivated to learn. Ninety percent of the students graduate, and almost all go on to four-year colleges. Meanwhile, the graduation rate for other high schools serving the same kinds of students in New York City is under 50%. It is less widely known that this school's standardized test scores are at best mediocre. Clearly, the more authentic assessments are both a positive incentive for learning and tell us more about students' real abilities.

Formative schoolwide assessments also include two other practices generally not discussed in more conventional approaches to schoolwide accountability: peer review and upward coaching. As a writing teacher in a constructivist classroom more than 20 years ago, I learned that my high school students cared far more about what their peers thought of their work than about what I thought. I have had much greater success with a "writers' workshop" approach than with any amount of time and red ink I have ever expended on reviewing their work. Surprisingly, this constructivist lesson has rarely been applied to the task of school improvement.

Much like the products of a writers' workshop, all school improvement plans should be public documents and should be widely read and discussed both within and beyond the schools. Such discussion will inevitably raise important questions about what a good plan is and how a school will know if it is succeeding. Teams of principals, teachers, and parents should also be involved in reviewing one another's improvement plans. Peer reviews, in the form of periodic school visits to assess progress toward the written goals, can be informative both for the visitors and for the school being visited.

A few schools in Boston took some first steps toward peer review during the 1996-97 school year when all schools were required to write a comprehensive school improvement plan. With some coaching from a talented district specialist, a group of principals agreed to have their peers read and critique their draft improvement plans. The final drafts of these plans were consistently of higher quality than those that had been reviewed only by central office personnel. One principal told me that the exercise had been the most helpful professional development experience of his administrative career.

In a serious systemic school improvement effort, formative reviews should be done not just by peers or top-down by supervisors. They should also be done "bottom up." Superintendents expect principals to use data to assess their schools' strengths and weaknesses, to be accountable, and to be rigorously evaluated on the basis of results. But very rarely do they ask principals to evaluate district-level personnel and services. District-level change should also be data-driven. Principals and members of school site councils need regular opportunities to assess the quality of the help they are receiving from the district, and data from these assessments should drive improvement efforts at the district level. My colleagues and I at the Institute for Responsive Education in Boston and the staff of New Visions for Public Schools in New York are beginning to gather such data, but it is too soon to know whether senior district personnel in these cities will use the information for districtwide restructuring.

Leadership for Change: Dictating Versus Coaching

To be successful, reinventing schools with a truly constructivist methodology requires a kind of leadership that is very different from what one finds in most education systems today. Ronald Heifitz has described the importance of new styles of leadership in corporate change efforts, but thus far there has been very little discussion in our schools and districts of the new roles and skills educational leaders must learn.

Most educators suffer from what I call "answeritis." They like having all the answers, and they are usually very quick to share them with others. Indeed, winning the conventional school "game" requires one to have lots of right answers. As students, many educators excelled at the game. Principals and superintendents are no different. Indeed, many feel their jobs depend on their having all the "right" answers for their schools or districts. Too many school boards hire new superintendents because they have a master plan for the district.

But leading a real change or reinvention process requires very different skills. Like a good teacher in a constructivist classroom, a leader of a change effort must pose engaging challenges, help people understand the importance of the challenges, ask tough questions, monitor progress, and give constant feedback—both praise and criticism. In the classroom Theodore Sizer calls this role "teacher as coach." And the lesson applies at all levels. Rather than provide the right answers, principals, superintendents, and other educational leaders must also become coaches—helping educators, parents, and others to develop their own understanding of the issues in reform and helping them work together to find solutions.

Such leadership requires a different kind of "emotional intelligence"10 and a different set of intellectual skills. Too many school boards and superintendents I have observed create adversarial relationships with both colleagues and constituents. One of the deepest concerns of many teachers, parents, and students is how poorly people treat one another in their schools. I find it is often impossible to begin real work on issues related to academic standards without having first addressed the problems of lack of trust and respect among the adults in schools. Without trust and respect, there is no safe ground for dialogue, and without dialogue and rigorous inquiry, there will be no change.

To be both credible and effective, leaders in a change process must model what they preach and develop genuine collaborative relationships with teachers, parents, union leaders, and others based on openness to constructive criticism, mutual trust, and respect. High standards aren't just for the intellect or just for students; standards must also be high for the heart and must apply to everyone in the organization.

Compliance Versus Collaboration

The obsolete strategy for achieving high standards, whether in a classroom or an organization, is that someone at the top sets the goal and everyone else does the minimum required to comply. From what I have observed, this is still too often the model for implementing new learning standards in school districts around the country.

A constructivist approach to change, by contrast, is based on collaboration rather than compliance. It is a process of action research and development in which everyone works to understand the problem, engages in discussion to reach agreement on the goal, and shares in the responsibility for implementing change, assessing progress, and achieving results. Ultimately, a constructivist change process helps to create and becomes embedded in a new school and district culture that values continuous learning and improvement both for adults and for students.

Over time, the constant interaction in such a collaborative change process creates a different set of work incentives—just as it does in a constructivist classroom. As people begin to share ideas and develop common aspirations, the goal is no longer simply to do only what is necessary to comply with the demands of the boss. Rather, people begin to work to earn the respect of their colleagues and to create something truly worthwhile together.

I have never met a teacher or a parent who wanted students to fail, and only a few seek to do just the minimum. Most of us who work with young people want to be part of an effort that makes a real difference for students—that helps to prepare them for future work, citizenship, lifelong learning, and responsible family life. We need to reinvent school systems together if they are to have a realistic chance of accomplishing this goal for all students, and we need a methodology for change that involves all adults in a collaborative process of learning and reinvention.