Book Study--Tipping Points

According to Gadwell, it is sometimes the smallest thing that will "tip" a situation, either toward the better result or the worse. One example early in the book is one that is directly related to public education. He cites the fact that, when the minority enrollment in a public schools reached the 30% level, the campus would tip to majority minority very quickly. This was certainly true in the 1980's. I would hope that it is not so true today....that we have become much more tolerant.

It does seem that such tipping points should exist in other areas of public school operation. We do know that athletic teams that are successful seem to find ways to win games that they might should not. We know that profiles of student achievement seem to be very stable over time unless there are very significant shifts in teaching faculty or student body. Where schools evolve in any way demographically, the achievement profile seems relatively stable. Even if the absolute scores on measures go up and down, the relationship among the scores, the profile, seems stable. To alter this profile takes something radical--a significant change in instructional methods or materials that is diligently supported with training and supervision; a change in principalship combined with a significant change in total staff; an extreme, rapid change in student body demographics such as that created by revised attendance zones, or new home/apartment construction.

There is little opportunity for most school districts to have rapid, significant impact on student demographics. The staff of the campus is totally under the control of the district. The fact that the current staff has had the opportunity to make significant changes in instructional methods and materials and has not done so with any success. The district can, and is now forced, to change the staff in the belief that a new staff will seek new solutions to consistent problems. This fact alone is the basis for the requirement that consistently low performing campuses be reconstituted.

We can impact campus performance significantly by realizing that we can. It is not impossible and does not always require reconstitution of the entire staff. It simply requires that we do what a new staff coming into the situation would do.
*Identify the performance issues which exist in great detail;
*Identify the performance profiles of the campus and individual students;
*Research the materials and methods which seem to hold promise for impact
to the campus-wide performance issues identified;
*Train staff in the new methods and materials;
*Set an expectation that all staff will properly utilize the selected
materials and methods;
*Commit to supervise classroom implementation of the new materials and
methods every day;
*Commit to take the action necessary to ensure daily implementation of the
new materials and methods;
*Measure student performance regularly and provide tutorials, or other such
individualized assistance as soon as any weaknesses in performance are
seen;
*Evaluate campus performance at the appropriate and adjust to better impact
the campus issues identified.

Really pretty simple, isn't it? Simple, perhaps; difficult, absolutely.