This document discusses school improvement and the importance of talent development and creativity. It argues that the focus on school effectiveness should be expanded to creating "significant schools" that emphasize developing students' talents and strengths. Ten attributes of significant schools are outlined, including shared leadership, goal-setting, a constructive learning environment, assessing student progress through authentic measures, and recognizing diverse stakeholders. The role of creativity and creative problem solving in supporting school improvement and talent development is also discussed.

1. SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT, TALENT DEVELOPMENT, AND CREATIVITY
Contents
1. School Improvement and Effectiveness
2. The Importance and Role of Talent Development
3. Importance of Creativity and Problem Solving
4. REFERENCES
This article reviews five frequently-cited attributes of effective schools, and argues that
educational leaders and decision-makers would be well-advised to expand our focus to give
greater emphasis to creating significant schools. Developing significant schools will be a complex,
on-going process, in which a number of additional essential attributes must be considered (ten of
which are described briefly). In this effort, contemporary, dynamic approaches to talent
development can, and should, play a central role. Creativity and Creative Problem Solving (CPs)
offer well-established, practical methods to support the creation of significant schools, to promote
talent development, and to enable these goals to be integrated and implemented effectively. The
article identifies nine benefits of applying CPS strategies and ten examples of ways CPS can be
applied in relation to school improvement and talent development.
In today's educational circles, we hear a great deal about the themes (or slogans) of quality,
excellence, and improvement. We are urged to pursue these goals by ardent reformers within
education as well by politicians, business and corporate leaders, and a broad array of other
leaders. The purposes of this article are: to propose that education (in general) needs a rich,
constructive, and process-wise conception of improvement and effectiveness; to argue that
contemporary emphases on talent identification and development hold substantial promise for
contributions to such a conception of school improvement; and to outline the important role of
productive thinking and Creative Problem Solving in creating, implementing, and continuously
enhancing efforts towards those goals.
School Improvement and Effectiveness
The indicators or essential ingredients of an "effective school" have been widely-discussed in the
literature (e.g., Weber, 1971; Lezotte, Edmonds, & Ratner, 1974; Edmonds, 1979, 1982; Davis &
Thomas, 1989); several commonly cited essential elements include:
• Strong leadership by the principal;
• High expectations for pupil performance; goals focus on traditional academic skills and outcomes
(often in response to perceived limitations or weaknesses);
• Safe and orderly environment;
• Strong emphasis on traditional basic skills and minimum competencies;
• Frequent monitoring by testing, with a focus on meeting "world class" standards.
These factors do not represent adequately the stronger conception of effectiveness toward which
educators, and, indeed communities, must direct their efforts if they are to aspire to deal
successfully and effectively with the challenges of innovation and quality. Treffinger (In Press)
defined school improvement as:
The deliberate or systematic efforts made by any school or school district to define, work toward,
and sustain excellence. School improvement is concerned with applying the principles and
practices of continuous improvement, learning, commitment to quality, and innovation to the
schools' efforts to bring out the best in everyone (staff and administration, students, parents and
community). [p. 2.]
Perhaps, then, we need to focus more on significant schools than merely on effective ones. The
school improvement challenge is not over, nor has it attained all its major goals, when minimum
competencies are being met in a school, when people are physically safe, or when there is a quiet
and dutiful sense of respect and order. At best, these are merely starting points on which
continuing work might build. To enrich and extend the challenge of school improvement, there
must be continuing or sustained commitment and effort to move toward significant schools--

2. schools in which there is an emphasis on recognizing, using, and developing everyone's talents as
fully as possible, on "order" that arises from engagement in learning, on authentic assessment of
meaningful tasks, and on innovation as well as quality. Movement in these directions will require
an alternative, process-wise conception of effectiveness and a richer framework for examining its
dimensions. At least tentatively, we can describe ten important steps to help school improvement
efforts become more responsive to the challenge of creating significant schools; Figure One
summarizes these steps.
Apply a contemporary model of shared leadership. Leadership today is viewed as a complex
set of behaviors and situational roles, distributed among many people, and carried out differently
for various tasks and among different constituencies. Rather than a focus on a single, powerful
leader, contemporary models recognize the importance of ownership, involvement, and
collaboration (e.g., Blanchard, 1987; Kouzes & Posner, 1987).
Invest in Goal-Setting and Goal-Seeking. High expectations are important, but significant
schools in the future will be characterized by broader, more inclusive perspectives about the goals
for which those high standards will be set, as well as about the nature and documentation of the
high standards. Significant schools will engage in goal-setting, but they will also draw on a broader
base of participation and involvement in continuously seeking new goals, and in recognizing tasks,
problems, opportunities, solutions, and actions that must be addressed.
Establish a constructive environment for productivity. Classroom teachers have long
known that students who are intently involved in interesting and challenging tasks do not become
management or discipline problems. Wise parents and teachers realize that respect based on
understanding, participation, and commitment is often much more powerful and sustained than
command respect based only on obedience or threat of punishment. We might consider the
proposition that an authentic, challenging environment could serve as an excellent vehicle for
creating a safe and orderly environment. In creating significant schools, we will also be challenged
to establish and maintain a climate for creativity and innovation. Research on climate and
creativity (e.g., Ekvall, 1986) indicates that challenge, lively involvement or dynamism, time and
support for ideas, freedom, and open debate are important components of a healthy and growing
organization. In a significant school, then, there will be a climate in which both disciplined
engagement and creative energy are valued and evident. A focus on productivity-engaging
students in using or applying what they are learning in meaningful or authentic tasks and
situations, with results and products of consequence is an essential commitment in a significant
school; the students' accomplishments and success (and consequently, the teachers' and the
schools' success and quality) will not be judged only by test scores.
Attend to the "new basics" and developing students' strengths and talents. Minimum
competencies too easily become maximum expectancies, and in the process deny all students
opportunities to rise to the challenge to excel. To be prepared for personal and career
competence, and perhaps literally for survival, in tomorrow's world, students must have
opportunities to master new "basics" along with the knowledge and skills of traditional academic
disciplines. They must learn to work successfully both independently and in teams; to pursue
challenging and complex content and processes calling for creative and critical thinking, problem
solving and decision making; and to develop the skills of self-direction, leadership, and
productivity. Education must be concerned with finding and nurturing the best potential-- the
strengths, talents, and sustained interests of all students, and with stimulating students to aspire
and work beyond the traditional basics.
Monitor progress continuously using authentic assessments. We need to continue and
expand our efforts to apply profiling, performance assessment, and portfolio approaches for
documenting students' progress, growth, and success, and not be limited to a view in which local,
state, national, or international comparisons of test scores become our only defining criteria of
excellence. The performance of students, staff, and schools must be assessed through on-going
and developmental monitoring of multiple criteria, assessed in a variety of ways, not simply
through a one time, one shot, one score judgment (such as publishing the rankings of schools
based on average performance on a single standardized test).

3. Recognize and involve many stakeholders. There should be explicit attention to diversity and
unique styles of staff members, community members, and students, accompanied by efforts to
build consensus and full participation in education by all stakeholders. These efforts will
increasingly recognize the need for involvement and participation by many people from the
community, including students themselves, parents, employers, and representatives of a variety of
different community organizations who are involved, directly or indirectly, in the processes of
teaching and learning.
Adopt a proactive and constructive outlook. A significant school is concerned with building
on a constructive foundation, not preoccupied with its limitations and deficiencies, as an institution
and in its view of its staff, parents, community, and students. The participants in the school
improvement process for creating significant schools should consider the strengths or
programming positives of the school, and how those can be sustained or expanded. They should
explore the desired future-- the goals, wishes, and aspirations of the school as well. School
improvement efforts focused on creating significant schools challenge participants to use their
creativity and talents to set and work towards a positive vision and goals, not just to identify
what's wrong, or what needs fixing up in the school. In doing so, it becomes affirming and
energizing for those who are involved.
Invest in professional development (in new and varied formats). Significant schools
recognize and value on-going and life-long learning, and view personal and professional
development by all participants as important and valuable. Learning activities for staff, parents
and community members, and students--separately and in cross-age or cross-role groups-- will be
on-going and goal-directed. It will arise from the vision and needs set by the group. It will draw
upon the expertise and leadership of many, including those within the system. It will take place
over a sustained time, and it will integrate theory, research, and practice. These approaches will
replace obligatory, one-shot, large-group "conference days" that all too often are entertainment at
best or, at worst, meaningless exercises devoid of substance or value.
Sustain on-going, dynamic process work (a process that is always in process). No
structure or system is flawless or works perpetually without growth and change. Significant
schools are always in the process of refining, or even recreating themselves, and are ready and
able to apply structured approaches or strategies to enhance those efforts. Efforts to create
significant schools will involve an on-going process; genuine improvement is indeed a process, not
an event.
Seek and manage both innovative and adaptive change. Drawing on Kirton's (1976) theory
of adaptive and innovative styles of creativity among managers, we might characterize approaches
to change as either more innovative (emphasizing efforts to redefine, redirect, or reconfigure the
existing system or structure in entirely new and different ways or directions), or more adaptive
(emphasizing efforts to improve existing structures or systems, working from within to make the
current reality better or more effective). Both approaches are important and necessary, and can
be attained in harmony.
Some important implications of this process approach to significant schools and school
improvement include important contrasts between long term commitments and short term fads
and quick fixes. These contrasts are summarized in Table One.
In sum, the most difficult and complex, but also potentially the most renewing and far-reaching
opportunities and directions for school innovation, educational quality, and continuous
improvement remain before us, and challenge us all to think and work in new ways. The task of
creating significant schools will be an on-going process, not an event, and it will challenge adults
and students to be productive thinkers and to discover and use many talents.
The Importance and Role of Talent Development
Many writers have argued previously that gifted education and school improvement have
important and valuable contributions to make to each other (e.g., Feldhusen, 1993; Gallagher,
1991; Renzulli & Reis, 1991; Renzulli, 1993; Tomlinson & Callahan, 1992; Treffinger, 1991, 1993;
Van Tassel-Baska,1991). The 1993 United States Department of Education Report, National
excellence: A case for developing America's talent, posed the challenge succinctly:

4. In today's climate of education reform, many questions about gifted and talented education
remain to be answered. When school practice is being rethought and the norms of general
education are changing, where does the education of children of outstanding talent fit? How do
we raise the ceiling of educational accomplishment in our schools and provide appropriate
opportunities for all? How can we use what we have learned about gifted education in the last 20
years to improve education for all youngsters and provide the caliber of schools we need for the
future? (p. 25)
Feldhusen (1992), Renzulli (1994), and Treffinger and Feldhusen (In Press), among others, have
argued for the important role of talent development in all schools. These views involve much more
fundamental issues than simply using just another name for gifted; they are beginning to
represent the form and format of a much more extensive paradigm shift that has been taking
place over several years (e.g., Treffinger, 1982, 1986; Treffinger & Renzulli, 1986; Treffinger &
Sortore, 1992). Advocates of gifted education are beginning to be challenged to consider the
proposition that recognizing and developing a broad array of talents among many people may, in
fact, be the most singularly powerful contribution we can make to education as a whole.
This shift is not simply a cosmetic change, nor merely an effort to employ more politically correct
terminology, although it has on occasion been so simplistically or superficially characterized. New
approaches to talent identification and development do not involve the business-as-usual
approaches to definitions, identification, or programming, reissued with a new, more palatable set
of labels. Rather, the trend towards a talent development approach represents a deep or
fundamental new orientation concerning the nature, scope, and practice of our field, and thus
involves challenges for growth and change in areas that are deeply embedded in the history and
traditions of gifted education. It can bring us into closer and more productive interaction with
others throughout education, not just because it plays better. It is a stronger opportunity and a
greater challenge than gifted education has heretofore represented, and it is a framework in which
all educators and community members can find opportunities for involvement, support, and active
participation.
To illustrate the major dimensions of the shift towards talent development, let us consider four
primary issues: concern for talents across the lifespan; establishing a broader conception of
talents; understanding the contextualization of talents; and, defining a broader concept of
programming.
Talents across the lifespan. The shift towards talent development addresses the importance of
talents across the lifespan, and reminds us that we should be seeking ways to recognize, nurture,
and use the many and varied talents of children, adolescents, and adults. Education for talent
development deals with the talents of our students. But it must also consider the recognition,
development, and effective use of the talents of teachers, administrators, parents, and adults in
businesses and many other community organizations; we should be looking for, and at, the
ecology of talents.
Broader conception of talents. Despite more than two decades of discussing numerous
categories of giftedness and multiple criteria, practice in gifted education has continued to focus
extensively on a narrow band of psychometrically-defined academic strengths and aptitudes. The
talent recognition and development approach challenges us to consider a substantially broader
and more varied constellation of strengths and talents. In concert with much theory research over
the last four decades on the multi-faceted nature of human abilities (e.g., Guilford, 1977; Taylor,
1978; Gardner, 1983), contemporary talent development models heighten the importance of
recognizing and developing many kinds of human strengths and talents.
Contextualization of talents. The paradigm shift also involves the contextualization of talents
or aptitudes. That is, we are beginning to move beyond a conception of giftedness that focuses
only on a specific set of aptitude factors that are presumed to exist entirely within the head or
mind of the individual. In many important ways, talents arise from, and talented performances
over time are influenced by, many social, cultural, or circumstantial (or climate) factors outside the
person's internal, testable cognitive abilities. In the past, these factors were too easily dismissed
as noise or error variance, but we are now aware that they may influence the definition,
development, and expression of talents in profoundly important ways. These shifts are leading

5. researchers and practitioners towards viewing profiles as dynamic, task-specific, and inclusive of
many contextual variables rather than merely as a composite of several test scores or rating scales
(Isaksen, Puccio, & Treffinger, 1993; Treffinger & Cross, 1994).
Broader concept of programming. In addition to stimulating new dialogue about the nature
and breadth of talents and the breadth and focus of identification efforts, new approaches are also
challenging gifted education to explore new and more varied approaches to programming.
Contemporary approaches to talent development (e.g., Feldhusen, 1992, 1994; Renzulli, 1994)
propose that we need to assume a dual role: responding appropriately (and flexibly) to the needs
of students who already demonstrate very high levels of accomplishment in many talent areas,
and initiating deliberate actions to seek and nurture the talents of all students.
In sum, new approaches are stimulating many in gifted education to shift their focus from
defining, selecting, and serving the gifted few towards identifying and developing many talents in
students. These changes are being explored as an outgrowth of a variety of new advances in
theory and research in educational and developmental psychology as well as in cognitive science.
They appear also to have considerable promise for creating a new and inviting foundation for
constructive dialogue and synthesis with researchers and practitioners throughout education.
Importance of Creativity and Problem Solving
We cannot expect to create the significant schools we need for tomorrow's world if we limit
educators to yesterday's techniques and resources. To respond to the important challenges of
linking strong new views of school improvement and talent development, new research,
development, and training initiatives are needed that meet several important criteria. The efforts
must be:
• Solidly grounded in research and theory, but still close to the needs and demands of practitioners;
• Integrative, synthesizing many and varied demands for change that are often mistakenly treated
as competing priorities;
• Long-term, extending over three to five years of systematic preparation, development, training,
and phase-in;
• Positive or constructive in their impact and value and responsive to the needs, interests, and
concerns of many stake-holders, and focused more on moving forward than looking backward;
• Contemporary in their use of appropriate communication strategies, adult learning resources, and
technology;
• Multi-faceted, to recognize and respond in varied ways to the unique context, styles, and concerns
of many communities, schools, and individuals, and to build the needed leadership from within the
schools.
Miles and Louis (1990) proposed five issues that are essential in moving from knowledge to action:
clarity, relevance, action images, will, and skill. They emphasized the importance of shared vision
building, creative thinking, and collaboration. They also highlighted emphatically the importance of
training staff members in important skills needed for successful involvement in school
improvement: Visions can't be shared without direct, joint work on decisions that matter, nor
without the ability to support and encourage others. . . . Advice.' Spend time on team building and
on training in group problem solving and decision making. (p. 59; emphasis in original)
Discussing the importance of creative thinking and problem solving, their message was very clear:
The problems arising during school improvement efforts are multiple, pervasive, and sometimes
nearly intractable. In our schools, they ranged from "no place for seven new counselors to sit" to
"delayed funding" to "staff skepticism," "the vice-principal's heart attack," and "conflicts in the
classroom." Good problem coping (dealing with problems promptly, actively, and with some depth)
is the single biggest determinant of program success. (p. 60; emphasis in original)
Gresso and Robertson (1992) also emphasized a similar set of essential skills in their report on the
principal as a catalyst for effective change. They concluded that school-based management can be
effective in empowering teachers and promoting organizational change. They argued, however,
that principals must encourage open communication, build trust, and help staff develop con-
sensus-building and problem solving skills.

6. The potential importance of creativity and problem solving for effecting new, more powerful
relationships between school improvement and talent development, and for stimulating our efforts
to create significant schools, can be viewed more specifically by examining a specific approach.
Although there are many definitions of, and approaches to applying creativity and problem solving,
I will use the framework on which my colleagues and I have been engaged as an example.
Creative Problem Solving (CPS; Isaksen, Dorval, & Treffinger, 1994; Treffinger, Isaksen, & Dorval,
1994a, 1994b) has been applied successfully with children, adolescents, and adults. It has
emerged and been refined through more than four decades of theory, research, and practical
applications (which have reviewed elsewhere; e.g., Treffinger, Isaksen, & Dorval, 1994b). CPS
been used in many corporate and organizational contexts, as well as in long range planning and
school improvement projects. CPS can provide a very powerful and effective set of practical tools
for everyone working towards meaningful school improvement. Using CPS to help strengthen
efforts to synthesize school improvement and talent development involves many and varied
activities by planning teams at the school, district, regional, or state level; some examples include:
• Assessment and processing of personal and creativity styles and their implications for individuals
and groups;
• Consideration of varying leadership roles and styles;
• Deliberate efforts to establish and maintain a climate conducive to creativity and innovation;
• Explicit attention to team building and collaboration;
• Effective communication, feedback, and debriefing;
• Vision and goal setting;
• Deliberate processes for generating and analyzing ideas;
• Strategies to promote and support reflective practice;
• Identification of, and opportunities to work on significant problems;
• Investment of time, energy, and resources in empowering people to address meaningful and
valued issues for students and adults.
A contemporary process approach to school improvement will inevitably be concerned with many
complex opportunities, concerns, and tasks for which there will not be obvious, ready-made
solutions or courses of action. To deal with many of these issues and goals effectively, educators
will need new directions and solutions of their own design, rather than applying solutions that
have already been developed by others. CPS can be particularly helpful in these circumstances. Its
benefits include:
• Helps planning and development to be a deliberate and systematic process;
• Provides practical strategies that are easy to apply within a group;
• Has broad applicability-- can be used to deal with many kinds of challenges, tasks, or issues;
• Can be applied at all ages, so strategies can be used by professionals working together, and in
instructional contexts;
• Supports teamwork and consensus-building within groups;
• Promotes a constructive outlook--focus on what can be done, not what can't be done or what
won't work;
• Draws upon and blends naturally many processes (creative thinking, critical thinking, problem
solving, decision making, strategic or long range planning . . .);
• Offers a structured approach, but maintains flexibility in selecting and using strategies or
techniques;
• Respects ownership--helps schools plan and develop their own solutions.
In addition to these benefits, which are primarily addressed to the needs of adults involved in
program design or improvement, creative and productive thinking (including Creative Problem
Solving) is widely-recognized as a major goal of the educational process itself. Many national
reports on employ-ability or workplace skills emphasize, for example, the importance of creative
and critical thinking, problem solving, and leadership and teamwork for group challenges, as
essential for today's young people to be successful in the future.
In sum, we need to deal constructively with evolving and expanding conceptions of key issues in
education. School improvement must evolve into a strong process framework that helps us focus
on quality and innovation and on bringing out the best in people. Similarly, traditional narrow

7. approaches to gifted programming are evolving into richer, more powerful efforts to recognize and
nurture many talents among many students. As both school improvement and gifted education
continue along these courses of change, there is considerable opportunity for synthesis and
mutual support. To accomplish such synthesis and innovation, however, we will be called on to
discover and apply our own creativity and problem solving skills.
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9. DIAGRAM: Figure 1 Steps to a Richer Framework for School Improvement (Treffinger, In Press)
(C)1995, Center for Creative learning; reproduced by permission.
~~~~~~~~
By Donald J. Treffinger
Donald J. Treffinger is President of the Center for Creative Learning, in Sarasota, Florida, and
Professor of Creative Studies at Buffalo State College, in Buffalo, New York. He is the author or co-
author of more than 30 books and 200 articles and chapters on creativity, Creative Problem
Solving, and programming for giftedness.
Table 1
UNIQUE COMMITMENTS OF A STRONG PROCESS APPROACH TO SCHOOL
IMPROVEMENT
A Process Approach Involves Long term commitment to:
• Considering strengths, talents, and interests of students, teachers, administrators, and community
members;
• Recognizing, and building on the positive contributions many people can make through their
strengths and talents;
• Balance between improving what already exists ("adaptive" change) and creating new ways of
functioning ("innovative" change);
• An on-going, dynamic process;
• Recognition, valuing, shared involvement and collaboration among all stakeholders;
• Use of deliberate processes to engage group effectively in creative and critical thinking, problem
solving, and decision-making.
Rather than short term emphasis on:
• Focusing primarily or entirely on remediating inadequacies or deficiencies
• The weaknesses or limitations of people who are involved in education;
• Only one approach to change or ("versus") the other;
• One-time, one-shot event;
• Power struggles or confrontation to determine whose views prevail;
• Random or unplanned approaches to generating options or making choices.
Source: Treffinger (In Press).
(C) 1995, Center for Creative Learning. Reproduced by permission.
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