Unit 3: Elements of Standards-Aligned Instructional Systems

Participants have already engaged with major features of NISL’s Conceptual Framework for Strategic Thinking in our first unit, which focused on the educational context, and in our second unit, which centered on context, vision, strategy, and decision-making. With this broad canvas of globalization, urgency, and challenges as the backdrop, NISL now spotlights the elements of a High-Quality Standards-Aligned Instructional System. The interlaced parts must all be coherent in themselves and aligned with one another for this system of systems to work in the most effective ways. At the end of the day, as leaders, we must concern ourselves with creating the best conditions for children to learn at very high levels of achievement. Proven instructional practices and sustained leadership form the core of our enterprise.

We have provided participants a laminated card that depicts the NISL Wheel—a wheel that is in dynamic and progressive movement driven by leadership and professional development in the best instructional practices. The NISL Wheel is intended to serve as a guide for school leaders to the way in which NISL views the school leader’s challenge. Taken as a whole, it draws a picture of the kind of school we hope NISL participants will create. There is nothing arbitrary about the wheel. All of the elements are based on decades of research conducted by NCEE and many others, in the United States and elsewhere. It draws heavily on what we have learned about effective schools in those countries in which student performance is highest and in which there is the most equity of results among schools and students.

The NISL Wheel depicts the school building as an aligned and coherent system that can be described using clear criteria organized into the following six categories:

• High-Quality Aligned Instructional Systems
• High-Quality Teachers and Teaching
• High-Performance Organization and Management
• Performance and Information Management Systems for Resource Equity
• School Ethos and Culture
• Connections to the World Outside of School

In the center is a single objective: getting all students to the point at which they are genuinely ready to be successful in college, if they choose to attend, and in the careers they choose for themselves. A majority of high school graduates in the United States do not yet meet this standard.

The wheel is about what should be. It says nothing about how to get those things to happen. That, of course, is the job of the school leader—to make it happen. To do that, the principal must have a vision, be able to enlist others in that vision, add to the ranks of her adherents and reduce the numbers of detractors, make sure the focus is always on student learning and nothing else, lead change when change is needed and hold steady when steadiness is needed, provide the support that teachers need and empower both them and the students, the first as professionals, the latter as the drivers of their own educational progress.

In Unit 3, Elements of Standards-Aligned Instructional Systems, facilitators and participants will explore in some depth each of the elements of the first area of the NISL Wheel, “High-Quality Aligned Instructional Systems,” and will examine tools for analyzing the character of each element within those systems. The unit provides many opportunities to discuss and assess instruction in classrooms as well as the alignment of elements—for example, not just assessment, but formative assessment keyed to progressions and summative assessment based on standards and curriculum. Participants will take the measure of what they believe to be their own authority over each of the elements, and begin to plan how best to make the elements coherent and aligned.

As a follow-up to our earlier work leading to an Action Learning Project (ALP), in this unit participants will begin to identify and plan for the ALP that they will conduct during the remainder of the NISL program. There is no more important thrust to NISL’s work than to apply what is learned to real projects that will improve classroom instructional practices and thereby increase student achievement. This unit will be followed by study of principles of teaching, learning, and curriculum.

The school building as an aligned and coherent system can be described using clear criteria organized into the following six categories, as presented in The NISL Wheel: A Guide for School Leaders:

• High-Quality Aligned Instructional Systems
• High-Quality Teachers and Teaching
• High-Performance Organization and Management
• Performance and Information Management Systems for Resource Equity
• School Ethos and Culture
• Connections to the World Outside of School

The elements of a High-Quality Aligned Instructional System (the first category) are

• High Standards for All Students
• Well-Designed Curriculum Frameworks
• Syllabi and Instructional Materials Based on the Frameworks and the Standards
• Formative Assessment Keyed to Progressions
• Summative Assessment Based on Curriculum
• Clear Gateways for Students

In addition, a system of supports for students who need additional help must be in place to support all of the above elements.

School leaders have the opportunity to add value to all of the elements, but especially standards, curriculum frameworks, and syllabi, by virtue of how these get operationalized in the school.

Finally, instructional leadership at the school level needs to pay attention to

• a tight instructional focus;
• accountability for practice and performance in face-to-face relationships;
• direct observation, analysis, and criticism of current practice;
• differential treatment based on performance and capacity, not on volunteerism; and
• administrative control based on quality of practice and performance.

As a result of completing this unit, participants will be able to

• Apply systems-thinking to the ways in which a school building functions, based on benchmarking research and best practice from the United States and other countries
• Identify the critical features of a High-Quality Standards-Aligned Instructional System
• Identify the characteristics of performance standards and assessments that can be used to drive teaching and learning in schools
• Define the specific characteristics of curriculum frameworks, syllabi, and instructional materials, aligned to the standards
• Define the specific characteristics of a system of supports for students who need additional help, aligned to the standards
• Analyze the elements of the High-Quality Aligned Instructional System within their own schools
• Illustrate how leadership and professional development can promote a standards-aligned culture in which meeting the standards comes first in everything that the school does
• Design an Action Learning Project that enhances the elements of the standards-aligned instructional system in the participant’s own school or district

Note: In these opening units, participants will continue to focus on identifying the topics and approaches they will take in their Action Learning Projects. In the process of examining the school or district context in which they find themselves and in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of their environment, participants will focus deeply on the project they will undertake and complete within the EDP. The goal of the Action Learning Projects is to result in the higher achievement of students.

The pre-work—about 2 hours of work in total—is designed to introduce participants to concepts and issues of systems thinking as applied at the level of the individual school. Participants will read the case studies and complete the self-reflection (diagnostic) that will serve as the basis for class discussion.

1. Complete the online Diagnostic for High-Quality Aligned Instructional Systems.

2. Where possible, bring a laptop or tablet with wireless Internet capabilities.

3. Read “The Turn-Around at Highland Elementary School” Case Study. (Online PDF. This case also was distributed during Unit 2.)

4. Read Chapter 2 of Leading for Equity, “Implementing a Differentiation Strategy.” (This book was distributed during Unit 1.)

5. Read pages 25–34 of Building a New Structure for School Leadership by Richard Elmore. (Online PDF. This report also was distributed during Unit 2.)

6. Bring a copy of your current school improvement plan (executive summary, not the whole plan).