Sands, Bricks, and Seeds: School Change Strategies and Readiness for Reform

1. S A N D S , B R I C K S , A N D S E E D S : S C H O O L C H A N G E
S T R AT E G I E S A N D R E F O R M
A N D R E A VA L L E J O
INTEGRATIVE PROJECT 2
ACADEMIC FORUM 2

2. SCHOOL REFORM
• Fundamental change in Practices of elementary
and secondary schools is needed
• Time to become more sophisticated and
selective about how reforms are applied to
schools
• We must learn how to identify the needs of
schools and provide for these needs to result in
the greatest good for children

3. THE PROBLEM OF SCALE
• Teachers must use better methods and
materials every day
• Change is difficult and expensive and uncertain
• Changes in personnel, funding, district, state or
national policies highly threaten any reform

4. STRATEGIES
•SYSTEMATIC REFORM
•SCHOOL-BY-SCHOOL REFORM

5. SYSTEMATIC REFORM-
• Government stablishes broadly accepted
standards of student performance,
therefore rewards those who meet
standards and punish those who don’t
motivating them to improve and seek for
better methods and materials because of
the fear of closure if not qualified to
compete in the market.

6. SCHOOL-BY-SCHOOL REFORM-
• designs ambitious models for school reforms
and builds networks that offer technical
assistance and support from school to school
• Deals against the “problem of scale” as its
models can be replicated with international
training

7. MODELS
• Organizational development models- school staffs are
engaged in creating a vision and implementing it
organized as a group.
• Comprehensive Reform models- provide schools with
specific students and teacher materials focused on
professional developments, and prescribed patterns of
staff, governance ,assessment, and organization.
• Single Subject Models- Programs focusing on a single
subject that are often a limited grade span

8. READINESS FOR REFORM
• The characteristics of reform depend on the
characterizes of individual schools. Depending
on the resources available some schools are
considered as being more ready or less ready
for change and most importantly some schools
are ready for different kinds of change.

9. SCHOOL CATEGORIES
• Highly effective schools (SEEDS)- ideally envisioned
by the organizational development models
• Highly ineffective schools (SAND)- Most of the time
school´s staff feels as it has performed ok and done a
good job and require fundamental changes before they
can support any type of school change
• Schools amenable to reform with help (BRICK)-
ideally envisioned by developers of both comprehensive
reform models

10. • The probability and consequences of attempting the
wrong kind of reform in a school vary because of the
categories.
• Through modest investigation it should be able to
determine the strategy to apply for a certain school

11. POLICY IMPLICATIONS
• 1. Implement state-level reforms around standards and
accountability
• 2. Fund development and evaluations of well-specified
“bricks” models
• 3. help schools make informed choices among a variety
of models
• 4. Target funding to adoption of proven practices