Cultivating Innovation: How a Charter/District Network is Turning Professional Development into Professional Practice

Abstract

If an effort like the charter school movement, which affects only 1% of public school children, is to succeed in effecting broader change, we must find ways to disseminate isolated successes to the larger system. Mr. Andrews and Mr. Rothman describe one such effort. IT WAS near the end of June, and Terri Wellner, a committed veteran teacher in the Boston Public Schools, had just finished several months of meetings with other teachers from neighboring schools. At these meetings they had shared ideas, practices, and insights. However, these neighboring schools weren't just any schools; they were charter schools. And the impact of the meetings was clear. had thought we were foes rather than friends. Now I see we're all in this together, Terri told us. It's good to see we're a group of people in this thing called education, and we're all trying to make a difference in people's lives.1 Terri was a participant in the pilot year of the Project for School Innovation (PSI), an initiative of the Neighborhood House Charter School, a public school serving grades pre-K-8 in inner-city Boston. We founded PSI in 2000 and began operations in the 2000-01 school year. Over the course of that year, we worked with six charter and district schools to organize and hold a series of meetings and discussion sessions attended by a total of 65 principals, teachers, and other staff members. is the words of Terri and others like her -- not only about charter/district collaboration, but about their shared and heartfelt commitment to education and their growing confidence about how they can work together to turn that commitment into practice -- that have been instrumental in making this project happen. The founding of PSI comes at a time of renewed interest in education reform at the state and national levels. Words and phrases like standards, high-stakes testing, charter schools, curriculum frameworks, and accountability fill airspace, print space, and cyberspace. Amid these ambitious calls for change, at least two things are clear. First, the demands of education reform fall largely on the shoulders of principals and teachers. If these demands are to be met, they must be coupled with adequate support. Second, it would be a mistake to equate improving a few public schools with improving public education as a whole. If an effort like the charter school movement, which affects only 1% of public school children, is to succeed in effecting broader change, we must find ways to disseminate isolated successes to the larger system. The model we developed to do this brings together charter and district schools in order to cultivate innovation in public education -- a process that research tells us is far too rare. Based on theories of experiential education and organizational change, the PSI model leads practitioners through the steps of identifying, reflecting on, and applying lessons from experience. The Need for Support Five years ago, as calls for education reform grew louder, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future concluded that the single greatest obstacle to the lasting success of reform efforts was neither a lack of good ideas nor a lack of high standards; it was a lack of effective professional development. The Commission wrote: It is clear that most schools and teachers cannot produce the kind of learning that the new reforms demand, not because they do not want to, but because they do not know how and the systems they work in do not support them in doing so. When it comes to widespread change we behave as though mandates, like magic wands, transform schools. But successful programs cannot be replicated in schools where staff lack the know-how and resources to bring them to life.2 Indeed, research over the last decade has repeatedly highlighted the need for better support and better working conditions for teachers.3 Based on our experience with PSI, we propose that the shortcoming of current professional development is not a lack of available offerings. …