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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
Cut through the mystique to learn the real drivers of great school leadership Leverage Leadership 2.0 answers the basic question: what do great school leaders do that separates them from the rest? Rooted in the observation and training of over 20,000 school leaders worldwide, Leverage Leadership 2.0 offers a practical, updated and easier-to-use follow-up to the original, with field-tested techniques and actionable advice. As educational leaders around the world implement Leverage Leadership ideas, their collective stories have revealed a simple framework by which the seven levers may be implemented: See It, Name It, Do It. This book aligns classic Leverage Leadership principles with this proven framework to streamline implementation and help good leaders become great. Expert discussion and real-life success stories prove that effective leadership is not about innate charisma, charm, or personality--it's about how a leader uses their time. Aimed at all levels of school leadership, this book shows you what to do, and how and when to do it. The companion DVD includes 30 real-world videos that showcase effective leadership happening in our schools right now, and all templates, tools, and other professional development materials have been fully refreshed with a renewed focus on real-world implementation. Informational, inspirational, and highly motivational, this book explores both the separate components of success and what it looks like as a whole. * Learn the core principles of effective leadership * Understand what success looks like on the ground * Practice the seven levers of leadership that allow transformational growth * Adopt the tools and techniques that facilitate a schoolwide transformation Educational leaders from a diverse array of schools around the world have found unprecedented success using the key principles detailed in Leverage Leadership, and this book is inspired -- and informed -- by their stories. Leverage Leadership 2.0 is the practical resource school leaders need to start making real change happen today.
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Seitenzahl: 610
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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CONTENTS
Cover
Praise for Leverage Leadership 2.0
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Video Content
Additional Materials
Foreword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
A Paradigm Shift: The Levers of Leadership
A “Practical Guide”: What You'll Find in the Book
Who Should Use This Book—and How
The Path Ahead
Part 1: Instruction
Chapter 1: Data-Driven Instruction
Assessment: What Will Students Learn?
Action: Teaching and Reteaching to Mastery
Put It All Together—Lead Data Meetings
Making It Work: How It Fits Into a Leader's Schedule
Turnaround—DDI is the Strategy
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Planning
Unit Planning
Lesson Planning
Coaching for Effective Planning
Monitoring Planning
Turnaround—What To Do First
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Observation and Feedback
Observe More Frequently
Identify the Right Action Step
Deliver Effective Feedback
Systems: Monitor Your Feedback
Turnaround—What to Do First
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Professional Development
What to Teach: Follow the Data
How to Teach: Live the Learning
How to Make It Stick: Follow Up
Turnaround—What To Do First
Conclusion
Part 2: Culture
Chapter 5: Student Culture
Set the Vision
Roll It Out to Your Staff
Roll It Out to Your Students
Monitor and Maintain
Turnaround—Fixing a Broken Culture
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Staff Culture
Set the Vision
Roll It Out
Protect It
Turnaround—Coming Together
Conclusion
Chapter 7: Managing School Leadership Teams
Choose Your Team
Train Your Team—Roll Out the Vision
Monitor the School
Lead Effective Leadership Meetings
Conclusion
Part 3: Making It Happen
Chapter 8: Finding the Time
Build Your Weekly Schedule
Defend Your Time
The Final Step: Managing Tasks
Conclusion
Conclusion A Brighter Future
Appendix A: A Sneak Peek: A Principal Manager's Guide to Leverage Leadership
Preview Opening of Chapter 2: Identifying the Right Action Step
Criteria for Principal Action Steps
Appendix B: The Online Materials: PD Workshop Materials and Key Documents
How to Use One-Pagers
How to Use Supporting Documents
How to Use the Workshop Materials
Preview: observation and Feedback Workshop
Quick Reference Sheet
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Table 3.1
Table I.1
List of Illustrations
Figure 2.1
Figure 1.1
Figure 1.2
Figure 2.1
Figure 2.2
Figure 3.1
Figure 4.1
Figure 5.1
Figure 6.1
Figure 7.1
Figure 8.1
Figure I.1
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Part 1
Chapter 1
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Praise for Leverage Leadership 2.0
“Paul Bambrick-Santoyo has his boots on the ground. This gifted teacher, school leader, and leader of leaders does the work every day in his highly successful Uncommon Schools. Leverage Leadership 2.0 affirms his rare ability see what works in school leadership—and to share those best practices with others. This book is as crucial for superintendents as it is for principals, teacher leaders, and policymakers. A must-read!”
—Kim Marshall, consultant, principal coach, and author of Rethinking Teacher Supervision and Evaluation and the Marshall Memo
“In the fight to eradicate the achievement gap, Leverage Leadership 2.0 is the complete arsenal. Culled from thousands of hours of observing extraordinary leaders obtaining exceptional results, this book identifies the seven key levers of school and student success. But it doesn't stop there. The real gems here are the detailed systems and strategies that any leader can apply to transform his or her schools and replicate the staggering success of the Uncommon Schools. Don't just read Leverage Leadership 2.0, implement it—now! The state of our schools demands it.”
—Elizabeth Topoluk, director, Friends of Education
“Leverage Leadership 2.0 is a stand-out among the million books principals have cluttering their shelves on leadership and student achievement. This one won't collect dust! Bambrick-Santoyo provides an unequivocal blueprint on implementing effective change that will bolster student achievement in an actionable way.”
—Nakia Haskins, principal, Brooklyn Brownstone School
“As a school leadership coach, I often see leaders struggle with making meaning of complex systems, harnessing the power of data in all its forms, and navigating lead team dynamics. In Leverage Leadership 2.0, Paul distills the essentials of school leadership, beginning with what leaders are doing well in schools right now, naming what and how they do it, and empowering readers to make change in their own schools or districts tomorrow. It can't get any simpler than that!”
—Denise M. de la Rosa, senior director of leader development, IDEA Public Schools
“Leverage Leadership 2.0 is the ‘how’ behind my ‘why’: excellent education for all. Bambrick-Santoyo distills leadership moves until they are replicable and repeatable—read this book and learn from one of the best!”
—Tera Carr, principal, Hamilton Elementary School, Tulsa Public Schools
“This is it! Leverage Leadership 2.0 is a masterful example of what key actions—or ‘levers’—leaders can take to bring about change in schools and improve student achievement. Working in an urban school, I needed to understand what great leaders do in order to bring about significant change. Leverage Leadership 2.0 provides that answer: a detailed plan on what matters most—the quality of your instructional leadership!”
—Ginger Conroy, principal, Denver Center for International Studies at Ford Denver Public Schools
“Most books on school leadership tell you what to do. Bambrick-Santoyo goes further: he not only tells you what to do, but more important he shows you how to do it. Leverage Leadership 2.0 provides school leaders comprehensive steps and clear models to create positive school change for all students—every school, every classroom, every day.”
—Mary Ann Stinson, principal, Truesdell Education Campus, District of Columbia Schools
“Leverage Leadership 2.0 provides a clear blueprint to navigating the complex waters of school leadership to create dramatic gains in student achievement.”
—Erica Jordan-Thomas, principal, Ranson Middle School, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
“Leverage Leadership 2.0 is the playbook that prioritizes the work for every school leader who strives to maximize outcomes for all kids. If you want to move from 1.0 to 2.0 in your capacity to lead, Leverage Leadership is your guide.”
—Eneida Padro, principal, Roberts Elementary School, Dallas Independent School District
Leverage Leadership 2.0
A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools
Paul Bambrick-Santoyo
Foreword by Doug Lemov
Copyright © 2018 by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo. All rights reserved.
Videos © 2018 by Uncommon Schools. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read.
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Certain pages from this book and all the accompanying online materials are designed for use in a group setting and may be customized and reproduced for educational/training purposes. The reproducible pages are designated by the appearance of the following copyright notice in the gutter margin of each page:
Taken from Leverage Leadership 2.0: A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo. Copyright © 2018 Paul Bambrick-Santoyo. Reproduced by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All video clips copyright © 2018 by Uncommon Schools, Inc.
This notice may not be changed or deleted and it must appear on all reproductions as printed. This free permission is restricted to limited customization of the online materials for your organization and the paper reproduction of the materials for educational/training events. It does not allow for systematic or large-scale reproduction, distribution (more than 100 copies per page, per year), transmission, electronic reproduction or inclusion in any publications offered for sale or used for commercial purposes—none of which may be done without prior written permission of the Publisher.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 978-1-119-49659-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-49662-5 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-119-49660-1(epub)
Cover image: © Veer
Cover design: Wiley
For children everywhere—that we can build you schools of excellence that allow you to fly.
Video Content
How to Access the Videos
Here is an overview of the video clips for your quick reference. The videos can be accessed at http://booksupport.wiley.com. Search for 9781119496595 in the ISBN field.
Introduction
Clip
Technique
Description
Page
1
See It, Name It, Do It—Weekly Data Meeting
“What is the conceptual understanding that [your students] would need?”
Laura Garza works with her fifth-grade math teachers during a weekly data meeting to determine the highest leverage conceptual understanding for a reteach lesson, planning side-by-side with her team before they practice.
12
Data-Driven Instruction (Chapter 1)
Clip
Technique
Description
Page
2
See It, Name It (Gap)—Weekly Data Meeting
“What are the key misconceptions demonstrated in this student work?”
Mary Ann Stinson and her teachers use student work to identify the highest-leverage gap that needs to be retaught.
26, 63
3
Think-Aloud—Set Listening Task (Teaching Clip)
“I want you to write down what I'm doing.”
Art Worrell prepares his students to take notes during the think-aloud.
52
4
Think-Aloud—Model the Thinking (Teaching Clip)
“When I think about the Era of Good Feelings, right away I'm thinking about nationalism.”
Art Worrell walks his students through the thought process he uses to read a history text effectively, modeling annotation skills and providing the rationale for them step-by-step.
53
5
Guided Discourse (Teaching Clip)
“…one-third black, one-third white, one-third gray.”
Andrew Schaefer shows students three different examples of how their classmates have solved a math problem, pushing them to determine through discourse which one is correct.
54
6
See It (Standard)—Weekly Data Meeting
“What would a student need to know and be able to do to show mastery?”
Mary Ann Stinson has her teachers begin their weekly data meeting by analyzing a Common Core State Standard for writing, a teacher exemplar, and a student exemplar.
61
7
See It (Exemplar)—Weekly Data Meeting
“Break down what you see the student doing.”
Nikki Bridges launches a weekly data meeting with her team by reviewing student work that reflects mastery to identify what an ideal student response looks like.
63
8
See It (Gap)—Weekly Data Meeting
“Using the language of the standard…”
Juliana Worrell works with a team of teachers to utilize the language of the standard and the exemplar to determine the highest-leverage gap.
64
9
Do It (Plan)—Weekly Data Meeting
“It's time to consider the reteach plan.”
Denarius Frazier plans a reteach lesson alongside his teacher, and then they compare their plans to craft a final refined reteach plan for a geometry class.
65
10
Do It (Plan)—Weekly Data Meeting
“Should we use modeling or guided discourse?”
Mary Ann Stinson asks her teachers to determine the best structure for the reteach lesson and the most effective monitoring plan to close the gaps identified in their analysis of student work.
65
11
Do It (Practice)—Weekly Data Meeting
“We want to get through the model succinctly.”
Mary Ann Stinson has her teachers practice the reteach plan.
66
12
Do It (Practice)—Weekly Data Meeting
“Now we are going to take this practice live.”
Denarius Frazier gives specific feedback while his teacher practices the reteach lesson.
66
13
Do It (Follow Up)—Weekly Data Meeting
“I am going to come in on Friday at 9 a.m.”
Mary Ann Stinson asks her teachers to list all the action items at the end of the weekly data meeting and to schedule the follow-up.
67
14
Do It (Follow Up)—Weekly Data Meeting
“We can spiral this task…”
Denarius Frazier works with his teacher to identify multiple opportunities for assessing the identified reteach skill, and they establish a comprehensive timeline for next steps.
67
To access the videos online, please visit https://www.wiley.com/go/leverageleadership2.
Observation and Feedback (Chapter 3)
Clip
Technique
Description
Page
15
Do It (Practice)—Feedback Meeting
“What are you looking for?”
Ashley Anderson has Ijeoma “take it live” and practice the aggressive monitoring plan that they developed together during their feedback meeting.
128, 161
16
See It (Model, Gap)—Feedback Meeting
“What is the biggest gap between your practice and what you just saw Mr. Frazier do?”
Ashley Anderson begins her feedback meeting by prompting Ijeoma to analyze a model for aggressive monitoring and to apply that model when identifying a gap in her own teaching of geometry.
156
17
Name It—Feedback Meeting
“What is your action step this week?”
Ashley Anderson asks Ijeoma to name her teaching action step and write it down.
158
18
Do It (Plan)—Feedback Meeting
“…and we will spar with what we both got.”
Ashley Anderson and Ijeoma apply the teaching action step by planning side by side, comparing their plans, and then revising the plan based on key takeaways.
160
19
Real-Time Feedback
“When I put my hand over [the student's head], stop, make eye contact, and give a What to Do direction.”
Nikki Bridges gives whispered and nonverbal feedback to Jackson while students work independently.
164
Professional Development (Chapter 4)
Clip
Technique
Description
Page
20
Do It (Practice)—Leading PD
“Teacher 1, please stand and begin practice.”
Kelly Dowling gives clear directions before the role play and facilitates practice during PD.
182, 201
21
See It and Name It—Leading PD
“The quality of your prework dictates the quality of your students' class work.”
Kelly Dowling leads PD using an exemplar annotated handout to identify what makes aggressive monitoring effective.
197
22
Do It (Plan)—Leading PD
“Who can share a piece of feedback they just got from their partner?”
Jesse Corburn asks a groups of teachers to write exemplar responses to prework questions during PD.
200
23
Do It (Plan)—Leading PD
“Spar with your table about the highest leverage gap to close.”
While leading a PD with Uncommon instructional leaders, Denarius Frazier asks coaches to plan before practice with their partners and then spar with a larger group at their table.
200
24
Do It (Practice)—Leading PD
“One minute for the final round of feedback.”
Denarius Frazier gives feedback during practice to partners and the whole group throughout several rounds of role play.
201
25
Reflect—Leading PD
“…Let's take a moment now of reflection.”
Juliana Worrell prompts the group to write and reflect at a strategic point during the Guided Reading PD.
203
26
See It—Practice Clinic
“I'm actually doing this next period.”
Syrena Burnam leads a practice clinic with a group of teachers around What to Do directions.
210
Student Culture (Chapter 5)
Clip
Technique
Description
Page
27
See It (Model)—Morning Routines
“Our Character Counts word of the week is ‘equality.’”
Students at Laura Garza's school in Dallas, Texas start their morning with a warm welcome and a nourishing breakfast.
222, 226
28
See It (Model)—Academic Discourse (Teaching Clip)
“What is going to happen when he lets the pendulum go?”
Emelia Pelliccio launches her AP Physics class and guides student discourse toward a key conceptual understanding.
225
29
Do It—Roll Out to Staff
“Handshake, high-five, or hug?”
Tera Carr begins her student culture rollout by presenting the model to her staff.
238
30
Do It—Roll Out to Staff
“[A system] exists because it is going to help us function as a team.”
Eric Diamon reviews the written morning routine and then asks a teacher, Julia Goldenheim, to demonstrate the morning routine for the staff.
239
31
Do It—Rehearsal
“Two minutes of uninterrupted practice.”
Tera Carr asks her staff to practice the student culture routine she modeled at the start of the day.
240
32
See It—Student Culture Reset
“Our gap is in the following: we lack precise What to Do [directions].”
Nikki Bridges prompts a group of teachers to see the gap in student culture after the first few days of school.
247
33
Do It (Plan)—Student Culture Reset
“Star anything you want to put in to practice.”
Nikki Bridges presents a one-pager aligned to the gap and asks teachers to plan their prompts before practice.
248
34
Do It (Practice)—Student Culture Reset
“What do you want to make sure you do tomorrow?”
Nikki Bridges gives specific feedback during practice of the reset routine.
248
To access the videos online, please visit www.wiley.com/go/leverageleadership2.
Additional Materials
How to Access the Additional Materials
Here is quick overview of additional materials available online. The additional material can be accessed at http://booksupport.wiley.com. Search for 9781119496595 in the ISBN field.
Resource
Description
PD Sessions for Observation and Feedback, Leading PD, and Student Culture
All the materials needed to lead a professional development session for instructional leaders on three of the levers— Observation and Feedback, Leading PD, and Student Culture:
Session agenda with presenter's notes
PowerPoint presentation
Handouts (including one-pagers)
Data-Driven Instruction—key implementation resources
Key resources to support the implementation of data-driven instruction (DDI), including:
Data-Driven Instruction and Assessment Rubric
Weekly Data Meeting one-pager
Assessment Results Template
Teacher Analysis and Action Plan Template
Interim assessment calendars for elementary, middle, and high school
Data-Driven Instruction Monthly Map
Planning—key implementation resources
Key handouts to support the implementation of unit and lesson planning, including:
Planning Meeting one-pager
Sample lesson and curriculum plans
Get Better Faster Scope and Sequence and Coach's Guide
Print-friendly version of the scope and sequence of action steps for teachers that appears in
Chapter 3
, Observation and Feedback, as well as the coach's guide to coaching teachers to perfect those action steps.
Observation and Feedback—key implementation resources
Key handouts to support the implementation of observation and feedback, including:
Giving Effective Feedback one-pager
Observation Tracker
Professional Development—key implementation resources
Key handouts to support the implementation of PD, including:
Professional Development one-pager
Professional Development Delivery Rubric
Student Culture—key implementation resources
Key handouts to support the implementation of student culture, including:
Student Culture Rubric
Minute-by-minute exemplars for whole-school and in-class routines
Rollout exemplars for whole-school and in-class routines
The Classroom You Want one-pager
30-Day Playbook—HS Sample
Finding the Time—key implementation resources
Key handouts to help leaders find the time for what matters most, including:
Sample leader weekly schedules for elementary, middle and high school
How to Create a Monthly Map one-pager
Monthly Map Template
Monthly map samples for data-driven instruction and student culture
To access the material online, please visit https://www.wiley.com/go/leverageleadership2.
Foreword
When Leverage Leadership was first published six years ago, the Urban Institute had recently set out to answer a question that had immense ramifications for education and educators. The question had nothing to do with curriculum or governance or instructional methods. It wasn't about the strategic use of data, a topic about which the author of this book, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, has written the quintessential volume and which, he shows, can cause a sea change in the effectiveness of day-to-day instruction. The study had nothing to do with accountability or human capital management. In short, the study was silent on the issues we most commonly believe—with some justification—drive excellence in schools.
Still, the study yielded critical insight about the things that stand in the way of excellence for a typical school and its leadership team, even if the study's focus seemed a bit pedestrian. The question it set out to answer was how principals spend their time. To do so, it followed sixty-five principals in Miami's public schools as they worked, keeping track of what they did and for how long. The study found that on average, principals spent more than 27 percent of their time on administrative tasks—managing schedules, discipline issues, and compliance. They spent 20 percent of their time on organizational tasks such as hiring, responding to teacher concerns, or checking to see if there was money in the budget for projector bulbs or travel to workshops. These two types of tasks, administrative and organizational, were the largest sources of time allocation.
On the other end of the spectrum, principals spent, on average, less than 6 percent of their time on what the study called “day-to-day instruction”: observing classrooms, coaching teachers to make them better, leading or planning professional training for teachers, using data to drive instruction, and evaluating teachers. It turned out that day-to-day instruction—what teachers did in the classroom with their students and how—wasn't really the focus of most school's leadership. The most important work in the building—the most important work in our society, you could argue—went unmanaged 94 percent of the time in the face of a thousand other tasks and distractions.
These numbers are dispiriting for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that the tasks described in the “day-to-day instruction” category include, as Paul Bambrick-Santoyo explains in this book, the tasks that essentially determine student achievement levels. The 6 percent of leadership spent on the five tasks amounts to just thirty-six minutes in a ten-hour day spent on all of them combined, or just over seven minutes per day on each of the tasks. That's about seven minutes a day observing classrooms. Seven minutes a day coaching teachers to make them better. Seven minutes a day developing and leading training for teachers. Seven minutes a day using data to drive instruction. Seven minutes a day evaluating teachers.
You almost don't have to read the rest of the study to know what comes of those kinds of numbers: lower student achievement and the death spiral of a rising number of distractions that only increase as achievement declines. The precious minutes spent on key tasks are even fewer and farther between. You can hear the echo of those principals, their shoes striding down the hallway from one low-value task to another. (You can download the complete report from https://www.urban.org/research/publication/principal-time-use-and-school-effectiveness.)
Sadly, for the most part, this remains just as true today as it was when this study was first released. I suspect the principals probably know the truth—that they are not spending their time doing and getting better at the tasks that would bring about excellence. In many cases, they may even choose not to do them because, in the end, they do not have time to do them well or perhaps because they have not seen a model of excellent implementation. And this is especially disappointing, because the people who run schools are almost all driven, hard working, committed, and passionate. Given the right tools and protected from distractions, they are capable of running outstanding schools.
An organization or a society ought to be able to remove incentives (or requirements) to spend time on secondary tasks, provide a clear sense of how to do the most important tasks well, and provide tools to ensure their ease and efficiency. That's what organizations should do for their people, but in fact they are too often looking in the wrong direction—looking for the next new idea rather than studying how to do the core tasks, fighting a philosophical battle when it's the tasks that pop up from below and the systems that manage them that make the champions of school leadership successful.
But what happens when that changes? For answers, look at what has happened in the six years since the book in your hands was originally published. In the cities of Newark, Camden, Boston, New York City, Rochester, and Troy, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and the school leaders who work alongside him have continued the success of Uncommon Schools: a growing network of elementary, middle, and high schools attended by students almost entirely of poverty and facing every difficulty you might imagine, yet that consistently put students on the path to college—reliable, even predictable excellence in the face of the sort of everyday adversity that keeps so many potentially strong leaders from performing their best. The schools have quietly gone about this work for more than twenty years now, changing lives and providing the proof that making schools great can be systematically accomplished.
Yet the impact doesn't stop there. In a variety of cities you'll see represented in these pages—from Denver to Dallas to Memphis and beyond—more and more leaders are achieving similar results in equally challenging circumstances. We are witnessing the growth of a new generation of principals who are proving that unprecedented levels of success are not only possible but replicable. These successes, Leverage Leadership 2.0 reveals, are the result of two things above all. The first is a relentlessness about spending time on the most important things and on as little else as humanly possible. The second, far harder, is bringing an engineer's obsession to finding the way to do those things as well as humanly possible. These are simple tools—focus on the right things, intentionally study how to do them well—but their simplicity should not suggest that they are easy. Insights are hard won and implementation is harder. The steps from “I get it” to “I can do it” to “I know people in the organization will reliably do it” are gigantic. Paul has spent years refining both the keys to success and the systems that help people use them. Over time he has chosen to focus on making each idea a little bit better every day, turning his insights into a management system that—like the flywheel in Jim Collins's legendary book Good to Great—keeps an organization (and a leader) getting better and better as a matter of habit.
Now, in this second edition of Leverage Leadership, Paul makes the workings of that system and each of its pieces available to all—honed and sharpened by the work in thousands of schools across the country and the globe. It is of course not as sexy as a brand-new pedagogy or shiny technological machine, but in the end it is far more powerful. If you are one of those educators who understands the power of doing the most important things not only well but better over time, of holding fast to what works instead of chasing temporary “revolutions,” then this book will serve as a touchstone, a guide to which you will return over and over again for guidance, insight, and strategy that can help you and the educators with whom you work to achieve the greatest possible success—to build outstanding educational organizations and to make the greatest possible difference in the lives of your students.
Doug Lemov
Doug Lemov is a managing director of Uncommon Schools and the author of Teach Like a Champion, Teach Like a Champion 2.0, the Teach Like a Champion Field Guide, Practice Perfect, and Reading Reconsidered.
Acknowledgments
When Leverage Leadership was first published in 2012, most of my work was born on-site in working directly with school leaders in my own schools. Fast-forward to today, and we've now had the chance to work with more than twenty thousand school leaders worldwide. And through the Leverage Leadership Institute, I've gotten to work closely with some of the highest-achieving principals and principal managers from across the country. Mary Ann Stinson, Wade Bell, Ashley Anderson, Kelly Dowling, Laura Garza, Adriana Gonzalez, Antonio Burt, Eric Diamon, and many more cited in this text—they are the real heroes of this book, as they do the work every day. Thank you to each and every one of you: you inspire me and many others, and you give us a pathway to success for children for generations to come.
Just like running a school, writing a book is not possible without a tremendous support team. First and foremost, Alyssa Ross is my writing soul mate. She has assisted me once again as a writer extraordinaire—gathering ideas, shaping the drafts, and putting a touch of imagination into each round of edits. For seven years she has made my writing projects come alive. Without her, this project could never have been completed, and the writing would not have been nearly as effective.
The original laboratory for this book was my work with leaders across the Uncommon Schools network. I am indebted to Brett Peiser, mentor and colleague and expert on organizational culture. I have worked alongside Julie Jackson for over fifteen years, and she continues to be the most inspirational and talented leader I have ever met—and a dear friend. Everyone else at Uncommon has played a role: Mike Mann, Jesse Corburn, Tildi Sharp, Serena Savarirayan, Juliana Worrell, Maya Roth, J. T. Leiard, Kelly Dowling, Doug Lemov, and so many more.
The second learning hotspot has been the Leverage Leadership Institute and the Relay National Principals Academy. I'm so lucky to have worked with Kathleen Sullivan, Lindsay Kruse, Jesse Rector, Ben Klompus, Norman Atkins, and a legion of supporters.
Leaders on the front line are the easiest to see, as they are the face of the school. But as is mentioned in the chapter Finding the Time, you cannot focus on instructional leadership without someone doing the “dirty work”—everything operational and strategic. That has been no exception in my own work: Sam Messer, Jacque Rauschuber, and Michael Ambriz have silently and effectively managed all key operational issues in my work, allowing me to focus on growing schools instructionally and culturally. They will rarely ever get the praise they deserve, but their invisible work made this possible. They are accompanied by an extraordinary team that has codified all our best practices: David Deatherage, Amy Parsons, Althea Hoard, and Angelica Pastoriza.
The other silent partners in this work are even closer to my heart—my wife and children. Ana, Maria, and Nicolas were in elementary and middle school when my first book was published. They have blossomed along the way and turned into inspiring young adults. They've endured many an afternoon of me watching videos of leaders or pacing the house as I try to articulate an idea! My wife, Gaby, continues to be the rock—the steady presence of love and listening.
Thank you to each and every one of you. This book is a tribute to you all.
About the Author
Paul Bambrick-Santoyo is the chief schools officer for Uncommon Schools and the founder and dean of the Leverage Leadership Institute, creating proof points of excellence in urban schools nationwide. Author of Driven by Data; Leverage Leadership; Great Habits, Great Readers; and Get Better Faster, Bambrick-Santoyo has trained more than twenty thousand school leaders worldwide in instructional leadership, including multiple schools that have gone on to become the highest-gaining or highest-achieving schools in their districts, states, and/or countries. Prior to these roles, Bambrick-Santoyo cofounded the Relay National Principals Academy Fellowship and spent thirteen years leading North Star Academies in Newark, New Jersey. During his tenure at North Star, the schools grew from serving fewer than three hundred students to over three thousand while at the same time making dramatic gains in student achievement. North Star's results make them among the highest-achieving urban schools in the nation and winners of multiple recognitions, including the US Department of Education's National Blue Ribbon Award. Prior to his work at North Star, Bambrick-Santoyo worked for six years in a bilingual school in Mexico City, where he founded the International Baccalaureate program. He earned a BA in social justice from Duke University and his MEd in school administration through New Leaders from the City University of New York—Baruch College.
Introduction
Some people would say that Laura Garza has done the impossible. Indeed, in her first year as principal of Annie Webb Blanton Elementary School, there were those who warned her she was crazy to have dreams that big, considering that 84 percent of Blanton's students are economically disadvantaged, and over half are English language learners. More to the point, when Laura took leadership of Blanton in 2015, these children weren't learning what they needed to prepare for middle school, let alone high school and ultimately college: less than half of them were achieving at grade level for math and literacy.
Laura made it no secret that she was setting out to change those results—quickly. And she got pushback. “Some were so used to the way things were that they didn't see the need for change,” she recalls. “Others saw the need, but didn't think it could be done.”
Fast-forward to 2016. The results were in: student learning at Blanton had skyrocketed. Now, 60 percent of Blanton's students were reading at grade level, and a triumphant 80 percent were at grade level for math. By 2016–17, Blanton's students were reaching even more impressive heights (see Figure I.1).1
Figure I.1 Texas State Assessment (STAAR): Blanton Elementary School, Percentage at or above Proficiency
It is not surprising that Laura was named Dallas Principal of the Year in 2017!
WATCH Clip 1: Garza—See It, Name It, Do It—Weekly Data Meeting
Numbers like these leave no question: Laura's mission of getting students who enter elementary school at a disadvantage to college may be ambitious, but it's far from impossible.
The obstacles facing Blanton—and so many schools like it across the globe—are so imposing that it might be tempting to dismiss Laura's success as a one-off wonder. But Laura is not a miracle worker. She is talented, driven, and incredibly hard working, but ultimately, she has led Blanton to success because of the choices she makes in how she uses her time: what she does, and how and when she does it.
How do we know? Because Laura's success is not an isolated phenomenon. Colleagues of hers within the Dallas Independent School District have achieved similarly outstanding results; Adriana Gonzalez at Lenore Kirk Hall Elementary School is one example.2 (More about her in Chapter 6.) But beyond Dallas, at the time of this writing, more than twenty thousand leaders worldwide have implemented the practices that have made Laura successful, creating success stories from coast to coast and from Chile to South Africa. What did all of these leaders have in common? They knew how to spend their time and how to lead others to do the same.
Core Idea
Exceptional school leaders succeed because of how they use their time: what they do and when they do it.
A Paradigm Shift: The Levers of Leadership
What makes education effective? The answer: great teaching. In the past decade, a host of studies has suggested that the decisive determinant of whether students will learn effectively is not school technology or building logistics or administrative funding but simply the presence or absence of great teaching. In recent years, a wide variety of scholars have recognized quality of instruction as a principal's or school leader's key responsibility.3 Kim Marshall notes in Rethinking Teacher Supervision and Evaluation that “the quality of instruction is the single most important factor in student achievement.”4 Recently, Robert J. Marzano, Tony Frontier, and David Livingston have built on this work in their book Effective Supervision: Supporting the Art and Science of Teaching. They noted that “achievement in classes with highly skilled teachers is better than student achievement in classes with less skilled teachers.”5 How much better? Data suggests that low-socioeconomic-status schools that can offer students three consecutive years of strong teaching close the achievement gap, correcting for a host of external factors.6 This is game-changing improvement.
Yet although it is easy to assert that great teaching creates great learning, it is much harder to encounter schools where all teachers are making this sort of learning happen. Why? The typical school leadership model has not been defined precisely enough to work for this purpose. Much of the current research has studied effective school leadership and identified the characteristics of effective schools.7 Yet these are often the outputs of effective schools, not the actions leaders took to get there. At its best, the current leadership model encourages and develops a handful of great teachers, but it does not succeed in reaching further.
To envision what it takes to change this, consider the performance of an outstanding athletic team. The University of Connecticut's women's basketball team is the most successful program in the nation and in collegiate history: the team holds a record eleven NCAA Division 1 national championships as well as the two longest winning streaks of all time for any gender. When you watch them play, you can describe what this success looks like at game time: you might notice the superstars, but what is even more striking is how well all players work in unison. The offensive plays expose the gaps in the opponent's defense, the footwork is precise, the passing is phenomenal, and every player makes a maximal impact. But no one can replicate this success just by watching the game. The difference comes in what each player has in her mind of what she has to do. The point guard has to read the defense and determine where to break it down with either dribble penetration or an effective pass. The shooting guards have to rotate through their teammate's picks to isolate them for an open shot. And the forwards and centers must take up precise positions underneath the basket to receive a pass or get a crucial rebound. Each one knows the precise moment when she has to move or shoot or pass, based on thousands of drills done in practice. In essence, the team has a detailed step-by-step plan that is capable of adjusting to what happens in the moment.
What, then, is a school leader doing at each moment of a school day to make a great school run as effectively as a great basketball team? What are the “plays” that lead not just to somewhat effective learning but to phenomenal results? How does every member of a school's staff get on the same page about what needs to be done to win the championship? What do these leaders prioritize on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute schedule? And has anyone done all this in a replicable way, moving away from the “Superman” model of outstanding schools?
Answering these questions is what inspired me to write this book. Over the past fifteen years, I have had the privilege of working with thousands of school leaders across the country. During that time, I have observed firsthand the challenges facing school leaders. I have also witnessed how many have overcome those obstacles to make a difference in student learning. Driven by Data captured a number of those success stories. Yet Driven by Data focused only on one critical lever of leadership—data-driven instruction—and didn't try to put all the pieces together. This book sets out to show how a leader does it all.
To make this book come alive and to demonstrate its application to schools of all types, I have selected a small group of school leaders who have attained the same extraordinary results as Laura Garza. These leaders come from every type of school and every type of location: small and large, city and rural, district and charter, and everything in between. They hail from Dallas to DC to Denver to Memphis to New York City. They represent school leaders in the broadest sense of the word: they are in roles from principal to coach of principals. And they all meet two basic criteria:
Exceptional results that exceed expectations.
By any metrics, the leaders achieved staggering academic successes. Their state test or AP results marked each leader's school as a top-performing school in its city or state. What makes this even more impressive is the population that these schools served. In all cases, the schools served populations that had large numbers of students receiving free and reduced lunch and that were mostly Black and Latino. But the point bears noting: the schools we found are not “good urban schools”; they are superlative schools outright.
8
Replicable results.
These leaders didn't succeed in some idiosyncratic way: they used replicable systems and structures that others can follow. The successes these leaders built were not the products of unique charisma; they came from strategies and systems that any leader can apply.
This book tries to answer another key question: Can this work for you? The question takes many forms:
Can these solutions really work for my school?
We serve a particularly challenging population and are a school traditionally labeled “failing”; will this turn my school around?
I lead a big district; is this feasible for us?
I work in a small rural school isolated from others—what about my school?
The answer to each of these questions is a resounding yes. Indeed, this book's goal is to show that the success these leaders enjoy does not stem from some magical quality but from a practical set of decisions that any leader, at any school, can apply. But don't take my word for it right away; in fact, given the number of impractical solutions and changes you've seen in the past, don't take my word for it at all. Instead, read about and listen to the leaders presented in this book. They are here not simply to tell their stories about leadership but to show how success is possible anywhere.
Over the course of the next chapters, you will hear the stories of Laura, Adriana, Jesse, Antonio, and many others. Each chapter in this book will highlight their success to teach us about leveraging leadership. Many of them have emulated these actions to replicate results or to turn around struggling schools. Examine their leadership up close, and patterns emerge that separate their practices from those of other school leaders I observed who were doing “well” but not achieving the same dramatic results. This comparison allowed me to identify the key levers of leadership that move a school from “mediocre,” or even “good,” to “great.” The overwhelming conclusion was this: Each of them leveraged more out of each minute of the day. They carefully and intentionally chose the actions that would have the biggest impact on student learning—and they avoided those actions that wouldn't.9 More specifically, they leveraged feedback and time for practice to transform teaching and learning. None of their practices were revolutionary in their own right: it was the combination of practices and the precision with which they were implemented that made the difference. The precision with which a leader uses his or her time for what matters most is what marks a paradigm shift.
So what really makes education effective? The answer: well-leveraged leadership that ensures great teaching to guarantee great learning.
Core Idea
So what really makes education effective? The answer:well-leveraged leadership that ensures great teaching to guarantee great learning.
Myths of Effective School Leadership
This paradigm has the potential to reshape any school in any context. To make this paradigm shift, however, leaders must avoid some of the common myths about effective leadership. Despite the growing body of work around the characteristics and actions of successful schools, certain myths or obstacles still persist:
Principals Are Administrators and Firefighters, Not Instructional Leaders
One of the largest obstacles blocking school leaders today is the sheer volume of noninstructional work. All too often, principals and other school leaders find themselves focused on a host of tasks far removed from directly improving instruction and learning: filling out compliance reports, attending noninstructional meetings, or managing facilities, just to name a few. This has led some to argue that principals should devote themselves to this work and shift instructional leadership to coaches whom they bring into the building. What I saw in exceptional school leaders, however, was an insistence on being instructional leaders. Even where they had coaches to support the development of teachers, they kept their actions and their eyes squarely on instruction.
Comprehensive Observations, Walkthroughs, and Teacher Evaluations Are Sufficient
Another growing wave of support in the leadership books is the push for comprehensive teacher evaluation rubrics, classroom observations, and building walkthroughs. All of these elements are important, but they occasionally forget their core purpose: to make teachers more effective. Every moment spent filling in a teacher evaluation rubric is a moment not used working with a teacher to improve. As we'll see in the upcoming chapters, exceptional school leaders are very intentional about how they use observations and walkthroughs, placing the utmost emphasis not on scoring but on giving the right feedback and follow-up to make sure teachers implement that feedback. (See more in Chapters 1–3.)
Change Is Slow—Teacher Development Takes Ten Years
There is a common belief in the education field that teacher development takes ten years and that any school change takes multiple years. From this perspective, only slow, gradual change—change based around the piecemeal introduction of various systems—is effective.10 The leaders in this book dispel that myth quite dramatically. As high school principal Mike Mann says, “Our students cannot wait ten years for a teacher to become effective—that's their entire educational career.” The leaders described here develop teachers in what matters most: making sure students learn. Whether or not these teachers would be labeled “master teachers” on a teacher evaluation rubric is beside the point; students learn at the levels they would in a master teacher's classroom. What are the keys? A detailed structure for teacher development that focuses on the highest-leverage teacher actions and that can adapt to the varying needs of teachers. We'll talk more about this in Chapter 4.
There Is a “Principal Personality”
Many believe that great school leaders have a “Principal Personality”: extroverted, forceful, and charismatic. Many of the “good” schools I observed had leaders who met this profile, but they struggled to replicate their successes. By contrast, the leaders who succeeded and replicated exhibited an extraordinary variety of personality types. With the (important) exception of a willingness to work hard, the leaders we studied shared few personal traits. The one common trait—if it can be called that—was an incredibly self-critical eye and a “good-to-great” mentality. Each of them was far more likely to tell me the five things wrong in his or her school that had to be improved than the twenty things he or she was doing extraordinarily well. These leaders are far more motivated by self-improvement than simply by the results themselves. Outside of this trait, there is no one Principal Personality.
Culture Comes Before Instruction…or Instruction Before Culture
One of the great debates of school leadership is what should take priority: student instruction or student culture. In the culture camp, some argue that without order, joy, and respect, academic success is impossible. In their eyes, the game plan should be to “delay” instruction until culture is “right.” On the other side, some argue that instruction creates culture, and that as teachers create engaging and rigorous lessons, student conduct and attitudes will naturally improve. Both views are badly flawed. If instruction is strong but culture is weak, a school's success is crippled: newer teachers face serious discipline challenges, students experience radical inconsistency between classes, and core values cannot be taught. Yet at schools that decide to “wait” on improving instruction, the end result is often order without rigor, a “false positive” that looks like education but is anything but. The truth is that both instruction and culture are vital, and both must be led simultaneously. Without this, neither can succeed.
The Seven Levers
Dispelling these myths, the leaders highlighted in this book followed a core set of principles that allowed for consistent, transformational, and replicable growth. These principles were truly levers: with the intentional focus on these areas, leaders leveraged much more learning from the same time investment. Fundamentally, each of these levers answers the core question of school leadership: What should an effective leader do?
The Seven Levers
Executing Quality Instruction and Culture
Instructional Levers
Data-driven instruction.
Define the road map for rigor and adapt teaching to meet students' needs.
Instructional planning.
Plan backwards to guarantee strong lessons.
Observation and feedback.
Coach teachers to improve the learning.
Professional development.
Strengthen culture and instruction with hands-on training that sticks.
Cultural Levers
Student culture.
Create a strong culture where learning can thrive.
Staff culture.
Build and support the right team.
Managing school leadership teams.
Train instructional leaders to expand your impact across the school.
The levers tell you what to do, but we need a “light switch” to show you how.
Turning on the Light: See It, Name It, Do It
There's a well-loved proverb in literary circles to the effect that a writer works in the dark, until a reader comes along and turns on the light. That was certainly true of this book. When we published Leverage Leadership in 2012, we described each of the seven levers distinctly with their own language. However, as more and more leaders read Leverage Leadership and implemented the practices it advocates, a unifying framework began to illuminate what it really takes to implement each of these levers. It can best be encapsulated in my experience learning to cook cod.
When I was growing up, I never liked fish. Fast-forward years later to my first year living in Mexico City: my father-in-law, Miguel, prepared a delicious cod dish called Bacalao a la Mexicana. I was hooked! But I had no idea how to prepare it. I watched Miguel cook it once and wrote down the ingredients and instructions, but when I got around to cooking it myself, I couldn't remember the details. So I watched him again, this time noting the subtleties and writing them down: strain the diced tomatoes before adding to the mix, skim the water off the top, and continue cooking until only oil is bubbling along the edges of the pot. I asked Miguel to watch me, and he let me cook, just adding subtle tips. Sure enough, I was successful (although not quite as good as Miguel himself).
My experience in the kitchen mirrors what we saw when observing instructional leadership. Each lever boils down to a core process in three parts: see a model of success, name it in concrete steps, and do what it takes to make it real. See it. Name it. Do it.
Core Idea
The fastest way to develop a skill? See it. Name it. Do it.Repeat until you've mastered it.
Think about how that played out for me in the kitchen. If I had not seen Miguel prepare the meal (see the model), I wouldn't have captured the subtleties that made his preparation magical—and far better than my own (see my gap). Then I needed to write down those steps (name it), and finally I needed to do it myself (do it).
This clearly doesn't apply just to cooking. We recognize this need in other professions as well. We'd never ask an aspiring doctor to perform an operation before seeing one in action, or a firefighter to rush to the scene of an emergency without having rehearsed the steps of getting there quickly and prepared. Leverage Leadership 2.0 simply brings those same principles to education. See It, Name It, and Do It are the three essential steps to implementing any one of the seven levers of school leadership: seeing a model of excellence in clear detail (and the gap between that model and our own practice); naming the qualifying characteristics that make that model effective (so that others can name it as well); and doing those actions repeatedly—first behind the scenes in extensive practice sessions and then daily in the classroom.
Leverage Leadership 2.0 is built on the premise that we need a guide to lock down the same certainty of success in our schools that we can find on high-quality teams in any other profession. Our students deserve no less.
A “Practical Guide”: What You'll Find in the Book
In the pages that follow, we will offer a concrete, step-by-step guide to creating exceptional schools. The first seven chapters are devoted to each of the seven levers, differentiating between those that drive instruction (Chapters 1–4: Data-Driven Instruction, Planning, Observation and Feedback, and Professional Development) and those that build school culture (Chapters 5–7: Student Culture, Staff Culture, and Managing School Leadership Teams). These are followed by Part 3, Making It Happen, devoted to how to put this all together (Chapter 8 for school-based leaders—Finding the Time). In Appendix A we give you a sneak peek at our new companion guide, A Principal Manager's Guide to Leverage Leadership (perfect for superintendents, leadership training programs, and anyone who supports principals); Appendix B is a preview of the extensive professional development materials available online that accompanies this book for you roll out with your staff.
A Word on…What's New Here?
Key Differences Between Leverage Leadership and Leverage Leadership 2.0
Readers who are familiar with the Leverage Leadership model may be curious to know exactly how this text differs from the earlier version of Leverage Leadership published in 2012. Although the seven levers themselves remain the same, we've rewritten nearly 80 percent of the text in Leverage Leadership 2.0! Here are the key changes:
A unifying framework.
See It, Name It, and Do It are three simple steps that summarize how to implement any one of the seven levers. This means that what we've formerly described as the six steps to effective feedback (in Observation and Feedback) and the Living the Learning framework (for leading professional development) have all been streamlined into the same process: See It, Name It, Do It. Our hope is that this makes the process of implementing each of the levers easier both to remember and to put into practice.
Globally field-tested.
Since the publication of
Leverage Leadership,
