Pages: 219 Price: $26.95 ISBN 13: 978-1-4166-0332-0
Doug Reeves, in The Learning Leader: How to Focus School Improvement for Better Results, proposes a framework for ensuring school leadership practices are connected to student achievement. Reeves' examination of current leadership practices, as well as aspects of modern school culture, is direct and passionate. He is unequivocal in his belief that current leadership practices are perpetuating the structural inequalities of schools. The book serves three purposes: (a) exposes educational myths that serve as barriers to change, (b) suggests school-wide practices to enhance student achievement, (c) outlines a framework for effective school leadership.
In my role as an Assistant Principal in a comprehensive public high school, I found this book to be of great benefit. Like many high school administrators confronting the realities of change, I am cautious when it comes to books making grand promises that in the end go unfulfilled. However, the reward of this read was not found in Reeves' proposal for a new leadership framework, nor in his suggestion of curricular changes that impact student achievement. In fact I found those sections to be incomplete and lacking sufficient explanation. Reeves’ other works in these areas, such as The Daily Disciplines of Leadership: How to Improve Student Achievement, Staff Motivation, and Personal Organization (2002) and Holistic Accountability: Serving Students, Schools, and Community (2002) provide a more complete picture of his recommendations.
The real richness of this book is in Reeves’ impassioned plea for a dramatic attitude adjustment in our schools. For me and other administrators who intend to initiate change and are preparing to step before their respective communities to make their initial pleas, Reeves’ work helps us anticipate the statements from naysayers in the back row. Reeves succinctly breaks down the educational mythology of schools that serve as impediments to change. “No one chooses failure, and the presumption that failure is a choice is deeply rooted in the need to elevate blame over responsibility” (p. xxiii). He provides numerous examples of the blame culture in schools and confronts those assumptions that too often go undiscussed in schools. His refreshing analysis, at times sarcastic but always well documented, makes those who are comfortable with the status quo uncomfortable, if not downright embarrassed. The following excerpt is a good example of this tone and approach:
The curricular anarchy that is the culture of this system allows poor performance to be clouded by economic advantage and parental involvement, at least for the first 11 years of a student’s life. After that, these leaders can blame hormones, television, and Nintendo-anything except taking personal responsibility for leaders in the system that lack the will to confront a culture in which the care, comfort, and convenience of the adults are elevated over the interests of children. (p. 4)He describes this culture of blame as shear impotence and a self-selected victimhood at the root of schools’ struggles to break free from past practices.
Educational leaders could subscribe to what I have called the “Potted Plant Theory of Leadership,” perhaps best described as determined impotence. This is represented by the deliberate choice to surrender leadership initiative and eviscerate the hopes and aspirations of students and committed teachers. After all, the reasoning goes, since demography is destiny, there is nothing educators and leaders can do except witness the inexorable destruction of the lives of another generation of students as demographic influences take their toll. (p. 16)
For those leaders who are willing to meet the challenge and strive for real change, Reeves provides brief examples of schools that have met the challenge so that ethnicity, class, and demographics are no longer predicators of student success. “If we receive a bell and deliver a bell, then we have done nothing more than deliver human cargo from one year to the next” (p. 177). Past practices of hoping for the silver bullet or leaving the lives of our students to random acts of chance are insufficient for the task ahead. At times, he is reminiscent of a high school coach who is disappointed with his/her players’ performance and openly frustrated with those who lack the courage to get out on the field and execute the game plan.
An excellent example of Reeves’ efforts to confront educational mythology occurs in the last chapter and addresses the shortcomings of letter grades. He refers to current practices as sucker punches for students and typical of a system that lacks a commitment to early interventions to support the growth of all students. “Letter grades do not reflect student achievement in an astonishing number of cases” (p. 113). For Reeves, this chapter serves as an opportunity to provide a detailed analysis of the failings of the bell curve. He argues for a creation of mountain scores to replace the traditional acceptance of the curve. He suggests that while there are inevitable distinctions among students, “those differences in performance need not be as wide as traditional interpretation suggests” (p.178). Reeves utilizes this commitment in assessing students as an opportunity to let go of unproductive and ineffective punitive systems of grading. More importantly, this shift in grading philosophy represents the culminating transformation of Reeves’ vision of effective schooling.
In order for the leader to be a catalyst for needed change, Reeves proposes a framework based upon the following three presumptions:
In the chapter on the Dimensions of Leadership, Reeves explores components of effective leadership linked to improved student achievement. The dimensions include, vision building, the development of relationships, knowing your organization as a system, maintaining a commitment to reflection and collaboration, utilizing analytic skills to address uncomfortable truths (“students do not exhibit low academic achievement because they are poor but because of the way we treat poor children” (p. 57)) and recognizing the importance of personal communication in all its forms. Throughout the chapter, he illustrates these characteristics with brief illustrations to ensure understanding of the specific dimension. In the chapter on What Matters Most, Reeves explores the religion of documentarianism in our schools. This chapter serves as a dramatic example of current school improvement practices that miss the mark. He sites a study that indicates rigid adherence to school improvement plans may actually serve as an obstacle to improved student achievement.
The Learning for Leading framework also illustrates a number of classroom practices that enhance student growth. First and foremost, Reeves addresses the reality that “teacher quality matters: it is a decisive variable associated with improved student achievement” (p.18). This is where school leaders must make the choice to exert control over allocation of resources. “No matter how much we improve the quality of teachers, we allocate this precious resource in perverse manner, giving the most effective teachers to economically advantaged students and denying those teachers to impoverished students” (p. 18). Reeves is able to back his assertions with a number of success stories over a decade of research. “Now we are seeing ‘100 100 100’ schools in which 100 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, 100 percent are members of ethnic minorities, and 100 percent score proficient or higher not only in state reading tests but also in assessments of math, science, and social studies” (p. 80). These schools, according to Reeves, utilize the following practices to enhance their effectiveness: a) holistic accountability b) a commitment to non fiction writing across the curriculum c) assessments in contrast to tests d) immediate and decisive intervention e) constructive use of data to replicate and celebrate successes.
While Reeves' examples about unpacking the educational myths are on target, the how is missing. More detail regarding the implementation of his suggested practices would be beneficial (i.e. case studies). There are a number of appendices that help serve an interested reader in assessing and mapping progress towards the implementation of this model. In the end, Reeves’ argument is the most powerful and empowering aspect of this book; what we do as leaders does matter and given deliberate action and adjustments in our thinking, all schools can break cycles of inequality.
References
Reeves, D. B. (2002) The daily disciplines of leadership: How to improve student achievement, staff motivation, and personal organization. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Reeves, D. B. (2002) Holistic accountability: Serving students, schools, and community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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