School Change When Jessie Sullivan

School Change

When Jessie Sullivan became principal of the Catholic Freeman Elementary School in the Lawson School District in Southern California (names are pseudonyms), she was confronted with the challenge of having students whose parents were illegal and legal immigrants working in the service industry. Ninety-percent of the students were Latino, and school was struggling with the problem of language barriers. Sullivan, who was the third principal in three years, had high expectations for changing the situation. However, she was soon feeling "frustrated and disappointed in her efforts to turn the school around academically. Her initiatives met with resistance or apathy, and those that seemed at least modestly successful were themselves extremely modest and of marginal consequence" (Tinsley, 2006).

Sullivan asked for the guidance of Stanford University professor Claude Goldenberg, who is a noted authority on school change and the two recognized that teachers were adverse to earlier changes, because they were not their own. "We speculated that successful change would be more likely to result from the faculty's articulating a concrete, specific, and shared set of goals for student learning, then working assiduously toward them," notes Freeman. The school created the Academic Expectations Committee of teachers to analyze student needs, establish goals and expectations, and start school reform.

Keys to the success of the school reform followed by Sullivan and Goldenberg were enhancing school-wide achievement, setting goals with indicators, and offering assistance and leadership. These had to happen as a whole, since no one of these elements alone would help the school change. In addition, teacher workgroups were created for discussions on student achievement, collaboration, and review of present strategies. This resulted in a better understanding of how students were progressing and what still was required educationally. In addition, the parents were called to gain their input and understanding of the changes being made (Tinsley, 2006).

The changes implemented between 1992 and 1995 based on the school reform resulted in student achievement improvements in language arts. Students raised their language arts scores on the California Learning Assessment System, with over 45% of the students averaging a 3 or higher on a scale of 6, up from only 30% and teacher addressing of specific student needs was also successful. Freeman School did not end reform when the study was over. The teachers continued to focus on student needs. However, as time passed some teachers reassigned, new district directives were put in place, and the focus shifted and scores backslid. The large remaining question, therefore, was how one sustains change when key individuals leave (Tinsley, 2006).

This article is of interest from several standpoints. The first is that the school principal recognized her lack of ability in this area and sought help from a professional from a nearby university. Granted, she was fortunate that Goldenberg is a noted school change advocate and author. However, if he had not been at the school, she may have been able to find someone else well versed in reform. The important element is collaboration with others who have a knowledge base.

The other important aspect of this article was the example of how the teachers were involved and the results that came from this change. Based on the increased scores of the students, it is easily recognized that there was a fundamental change in the teachers' instruction. Lastly, this article showed that not all changes end in "happy ever after" results. Unfortunately, the changes were not continued from one generation of teachers to the next.

There are a few elements that are missing in this article. The first is what happened to Sullivan and her involvement with this school change. Did she leave, and that is why things changed? or, she did not continue things on her own long enough after the project was completed. It would also have been helpful to have some quotes from teachers on how they felt about this change in direction. Although the article states that the teachers were supportive and the test scores show that teaching was improved, there are no personal quotes from the teachers expressing their pros and cons about the implementation of this program. Finally, besides the fact that the program did not have retention built in (a major problem), this article did not address any other problems or barriers confronted when implementing the program.