By Bryan Goodwin
Consider for a moment your school or district’s improvement plans and ask yourself this question, are you doing too little—or too much?
I’ve posed this question to countless school leadership teams. Time and again, I hear (sometimes sheepishly) that they’re doing too much.
If you answered the same, you’re not alone. In fact, studies show that schools typically take an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to improvement. Sometimes the reasons for this reflect the bureaucratic nature of school improvement plans—to show how programs and positions are being utilized or to use some “shock and awe” to show central office staff how busy, busy, busy we are. Sometimes bloated school improvement plans come from an earnest sense of wanting to do everything possible to help kids.
The problem is that trying to do too much typically results in doing a bunch of things poorly and not a whole lot really well.
Fortunately there’s a better way, as we shared recently in a client spotlight story about our partnership approach to school improvement, which typically starts with us providing a “critical friend” perspective on schools’ current improvement efforts.
Through our efforts to conduct comprehensive needs assessments (CNAs) for schools, we’ve learned that each school or district has a unique story to tell. Every school has its own contexts, but we have seen one major commonality: Schools are getting buried in initiatives—or put another way, being killed with kindness. While well intentioned, dumping a variety of disconnected resources, consultants, and programs into struggling schools often results in staff feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and disengaged. It simply becomes too much for everyone.
We hear and see this repeatedly when conducting CNAs for schools. So, we help them review everything they’re doing through the lens of our What Matters Most® framework, which empowers school teams to let go of what’s extraneous and hold fast to what’s essential—and to identify what absolutely, positively must be done now and what can wait. Ultimately, finding this focus helps schools to get better at getting better and elevates their sense of hope, pride, and collective efficacy.
As a nonprofit committed to improving outcomes for each and every learner, our partnerships with schools and districts also inspire us and give us hope that with the right focus, every school can improve and experience the joy of knowing that they’re getting a bit better every day at supporting student success.
You can learn more about how your school and district can focus on what matters most with these resources:
- Services: School & System Improvement
- Books: Curiosity Works, Balanced Leadership for Powerful Learning, and Building a Curious School
- Client/Partner Spotlight: McREL’s Comprehensive Needs Assessments for Schools
This post originally appeared in our November 2024 McREL Monthly newsletter. Click here to sign up to receive McREL’s free monthly newsletter.
Bryan Goodwin, president and CEO of McREL, thrives on translating insights from education research into practical strategies and professional learning for effective teaching and school leadership. He is the author or co-author of several McREL books, including The New Classroom Instruction That Works, Learning That Sticks, Building a Curious School, and Instructional Models. Before joining McREL in 1998, Bryan was a college instructor, a high school teacher, and a business journalist.
