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The High Reliability Schools Project: Findings and Implications

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Title: The High Reliability Schools Project: Findings and Implications


1
The High Reliability Schools ProjectFindings
and Implications
  • Thistle Hotel, Westminster, London
  • 24 September 2008
  • Professor David Reynolds
  • University of Plymouth
  • Professor Gene Schaffer
  • University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA
  • Professor Sam Stringfield
  • University of Louisville, USA
  • Email dreynolds1_at_plymouth.ac.uk

2
Acknowledgements
  • The authors wish to thank CfBT for their
    long-term support of the High Reliability Schools
    project.
  • We also want to thank the three Local
    Authorities, over 30 schools, their heads and
    staffs for all of their efforts in the HRS
    project. We were all co-constructors of this
    project. Further, we thank and admire our local
    educator colleagues for their ongoing work to
    improve the quality of schooling provided to
    their students.

3
Where we started
  • Widespread incredulity
  • HRS has considerably influenced the educational
    zeitgeist

4
Social Context
  • Modern society is highly interconnected, putting
    a premium on reliability
  • A trailing edge of unqualified labour has costs
    for the wider society
  • A need for overall higher skill levels because of
    global competition

5
Educational Context
  • The existence of valid bodies of knowledge
  • Imperfect application of that knowledge low
    reliability
  • Possibility of increased unreliability of system
  • Problems with existing school improvement models

6
Educational Context (2)
  • Very modest, incremental changes in outcomes in
    most societies
  • Evidence from certain cultures about highly
    reliable, failure free schools

7
Some background on High Reliability
Organizations -- Karlene Roberts, 2006
  • 1984 A group at the University of California
    began studying organizations that were creating
    massive damage. (ex. In 1984 an aircraft
    carrier on 6 month tour lost an average of 6
    planes pilots. Todays average is 0.)
  • The consequences of low reliability are VERY
    HIGH. HROs are less costly than not.
  • Found a range of reliability-enhancing processes,
    One size does not fit all. But general HRO
    principles apply.

8
When organizations fail to adopt HRO processes,
they arent thinking about the cost of failures.
-- Karlene Roberts (2006)
  • Believe they wont bear the cost of failure.
  • Overburdened with other activities.
  • Fail to think that training is important.
  • Implementation is THE big deal.

9
20 years of research on High Reliability
Organizations (HROs)
  • Evolve when a failure to achieve is seen as
    disastrous by the society and the employees
  • Have a finite number of clear goals
  • Are alert to lapses
  • Are data rich/information rich

10
HROs (cont.)
  • Possess Standard Operating Procedures
  • Find their flaws and honour Flaw Finders
  • Recruit extensively
  • Train and re-train staff continuously
  • Monitor performance mutually

11
High Reliability Organizations (cont.)
  • Keep equipment in good working order
  • Are hierarchical, but go flat when peak
    performance is required from all
  • Are visibly valued by their governing body.
  • Short term efficiency takes a back seat to high
    reliability

12
Reviewing the challenge in much of our work
  • Education is a very large, complex system.
  • Inevitably less than fully adequate base of
    educational science/technology to guide us
    through day-to-day specifics.
  • In such an environment, one would hypothesize
    that thousands of well intended school
    improvement efforts focused on specific
    interventions would fail, not because ideas were
    invalid but because implementations were
    unreliable.

13
HRO Contributions to Schools
  • The Research Base
  • Teacher Effectiveness
  • School Effectiveness
  • System-wide Reforms
  • Data Use

14
Teacher Effectiveness
  • Clarity of Instruction
  • Pace of Instruction
  • High Expectations for Students
  • Equal Opportunity to Learn
  • Feedback
  • Preventative Management
  • Observation for Improvement of Instruction

15
Effective Schools
  • Clear School Mission
  • High Expectations for Success
  • Instructional Leadership
  • Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress
  • Opportunity to Learn and Student Time on Task
  • Safe and Orderly Environment.
  • Home - School Relations

16
System-wide Reforms
  • Supportive of School Reforms
  • Accepting of School-based Decisions
  • Work to Integrate Reforms into the System or
    Other Schools
  • Encourage Interchange Among Schools
  • Supply Timely Data to Schools

17
DATA USE
  • Data Use Data (The Four Rs)
  • Relevance of data to core goals
  • Rich triangulation to key dimensions
  • Real time availability to all key personnel
  • Regular cross-checking by internal and external
    groups
  • Data Rich and Information Poor
  • Information Rich and Action Poor
  • Actionable Strategies

18
HRO Contributions to the Schools
  • The Co-Constructed Process
  • Determining the Goals
  • Creating the Staff Development
  • Best Practice based on Outcomes
  • Cross-site Efforts

19
Determining the Goals
The goals were long-turn and directly related to
student learning. The mantra of raising
performance gave the schools a central goal that
was directly linked to the performance of the
students. Attendance was considered central to
the process as well. Schools contributed one or
two goals of importance to them and their
students beyond the two goals required by the HRO
process.
20
Creating Staff Development
  • The HRO team continued to come back and discuss
    school effectiveness and high reliability
    throughout the training sessions.
  • The researchers addressed the concerns of the
    schools and, with the schools, developed examples
    of reliability that were well understood by
    faculties in the schools.

21
Best Practice Based on Outcomes
  • Members of faculty suggested and presented
    effective ideas from their own schools based on
    academic success of students.
  • Commitment was made to regularly review
    organization and processes to create widely
    understood, time-saving Standard Operating
    Procedures
  • Schools identified through data and intervened in
    a school-wide fashion with their pupils who
    appeared to be at risk of failure.

22
Cross-site Efforts
  • The researchers presented school-level series of
    workshops on the theoretical underpinnings of
    High Reliability and both the research bases on
    school effectiveness and teacher effectiveness.
  • Armed with practical and research-based
    knowledge, teachers would engage in both
    within-and between school classroom observations
    and no-fault feedback to peers.

23
Day-to-Day Co-construction
  • The participating secondary schools were charged
    with taking abstract HRO principles and working
    to turn them into day-to-day actions.
  • The school became knowledge generators, peer
    observation specialists, staff trainers in
    specific topics and contexts.

24
Research Design Hypothesis
  • A school reform that focuses not just on the
    validity of the reforms claims, but also on the
    reliability of the design as implemented, would
    get more promising results over several years.

25
High Reliability Schools Project (HRS) Methods
  • Sample Schools in 3 LEAs in Great Britain
  • Intervention co-constructed, based on Teacher
    Effects School Effects HRO HRS.
  • Timeframe 3 year intervention (late 96 early
    2000), then 7-year follow-up (2007)
  • Main Quantitative Outcome GCSEs on English and
    Welsh HRS schools, all years, using English and
    Welsh national means as comparison
    groups/controls.
  • Note This presentation focuses on the Welsh LA.

26
The General Certificate of Secondary Education
tests (GCSEs)
  • Taken by virtually all British children at the
    end of Secondary education (age 15-16)
  • Formerly the O (or Ordinary) level tests.
  • Students may take exams in a wide range of areas
    English literature, chemistry, several
    mathematics examinations, biology, information
    technology, etc.
  • Scores on each test range from A to H.
  • The historicand currentnational standard for
    students Obtaining a score of A to C on 5 or
    more separate tests.
  • The national standard for Schools and Districts
    The percentage of students obtaining 5 A-C.

27
Sites for 3 yr. Intervention and Follow-up
  • Began in three British LEAs in relatively rapid
    succession, beginning with the first English ½
    district in the winter of 1996.
  • The 2nd English Cohort began the next spring and
    was followed shortly by a 3rd, Welsh, full LEA.
  • The Welsh cohort received the most developed
    implementation, with all secondary schools in a
    district, (11) plus one neighboring school.

28
Methods (qualitative)
  • Detailed case studies (100 pages) of each school
    during implementation phase.
  • Follow-up case studies on selected sites during
    2006 and 2007.
  • Interviews with current and former heads,
    long-term administrators and teachers.
  • Constant comparative analyses.

29
The Welsh District
  • Historically a mining and iron production
    community.
  • The mines are now closed and the steel mills
    employ 20 the workers of 25 years ago.
  • Deprivation Index stable at 19th of 22 Welsh
    counties
  • 11 Secondary Schools.

30
HRS LA GCSE gains v. Wales ( students with 5
GCSEs)
31
LA Selected Schools gains ( students with
5 GCSEs)
32
Welsh Governments 2005 Value Added Results
  • In 2005, the Welsh Government computation of
    value added by district (unweighted) for all 22
    Welsh districts (LEAs)Welsh district V.A. range
    -8.9 to 6.6
  • HRS district (11 secondaries) 6.6, 1 value
    added LEA in Wales.

33
Northern England GCSE gains 4 original
schools, LA, England
34
Conclusions
  • A focus on heightening organizational reliability
    produced large, long-term measured outcome gains
    in secondary schools..
  • Long-term success came where schools worked
    together with district support. The authors, the
    teachers, the heads and the districts used T.E.,
    S.E., and Systemic Effects research to
    co-construct the reform.

35
Conclusions, (cont.)
  • In follow up interviews (Spring 2006 2007),
    many teachers and heads related original and
    continuing gains to HRS intervention.
  • HRS schools were hiring new Heads from successful
    HRS schools (further endorsing the model and
    addressing the transition issues)
  • Several heads and teachers reported wanting an
    HRS-2.

36
Conclusions, (cont.)
  • Success in obtaining longitudinal (11 year)
    impacts (GCSEs) indicates a learning to learn to
    improve, this is institutionalization plus.
    the biggest challenge of all is to make it
    durable and sustainable.
    ------Hargreaves Fink, 2006, p. 2

37
HRS Implications for School Effectiveness
Research
  • Dramatic secondary school improvement is possible
  • The value of using reliability at a conceptual
    and measurement levels
  • The importance of classroom teachers

38
HRS Implications for School Improvement
  • The importance of audacious, measurable, and
    measured, goals.
  • Focusing on what may be possible beyond the
    current range of schools
  • The importance of little, practical things.

39
HRS Implications for British Educational Policies
  • Provide research knowledge and the means to
    invent better.
  • Avoid core goal multiplicity.
  • Forget the what of educational
    processesspecify the systems that produce the
    what.

40
How to contact us
  • david.reynolds1_at_plymouth.ac.uk
  • schaffer_at_umbc.edu
  • sam.stringfield_at_louisville.edu
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