"Everyone here has bruises from working toward school improvement and change," Trilling said. "Education is a very complicated social system to change. If you want to accomplish educational reform you have to address teacher quality, quality leadership, parent and community involvement, accountability and assessment as well as infrastructure, funding and curriculum," he added.
Models of Top-Down Change, Bottom-Up Change and Systemic Change "may not get us what we need," Trilling said as he demonstrated each model. The WestEd RTEC Director proposed using a Transformative Model because "sometimes you have to turn things inside out in order to achieve a great deal of positive action."
'Leave No Child Behind'
The new reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) entitled, "No Child Left Behind" holds "huge opportunities" for implementing transformative change, said WestEd CEO Glen Harvey. But achieving the spirit of the legislation will take "more change in schools and in those of us who support schools - a total social change," she told the audience.
"To have the Act achieve even remotely what it could takes people like you, who understand scale and sustainable solutions, to mine that legislation. Get outside the box. Leverage that collective innovation," Harvey encouraged forum participants.
"Without using technology we won't go to scale, we won't reach those kids, we won't get out of the box. We won't make a difference, and we'll leave a whole lot of kids behind," she added. "What is most powerful are the partnerships you represent - the willingness to work together and say none of you individually knows the right answer. But together, if we leverage what we know and are willing to do what we can do, we may leave fewer kids behind."
The forum discussion findings and the recommendations of expert panel members are summarized inside. Also see the WestEd RTEC website for more information: www.westedrtec.org.
