Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems

by Michael Fullan

“Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform” (2011a).

The corresponding right drivers were capacity building with a focus on results, collaboration, pedagogy, and systemness (coordinated policies).

The Coherence Framework has four components: focusing direction, cultivating collaborative cultures, deepening learning, and securing accountability.

Focusing direction is systemness (the need to integrate what the system is doing). Cultivating collaborative cultures oversees individualism by producing strong groups and strong individuals. Deepening learning, which is founded on new pedagogical partnerships, is the driver for better outcomes using technology as the accelerator.

Capacity for results is based on developing skills and competencies within the group that, in turn, serves as a basis for being self-responsible and accountable to the outside. The road to securing accountability is through developing capacity within the group that, in turn, interfaces with the external accountability system.

We don’t have capacity building as a separate component in the Coherence Framework because particular capacities are contained and necessary within each of the four components. Leadership, thus, infuses capacity building into all levels and work of the system as it combines the four components.

The researcher John Hattie (2015) has added further confirmation to our conclusions in his report What Works Best in Education: The Politics of Collaborative Expertise. His conclusion represents a powerful endorsement of our findings: “the greatest influence on student progression in learning is having highly expert, inspired and passionate teachers and school leaders working together to maximize the effect of their teaching on all students in their care” (p. 2).

It is time to make good on the promise of public education. Our children need it, the public is demanding it, and indeed the world needs it to survive and thrive. Public education is humankind’s future—for better or worse.

Merriam-Webster defines coherence as the “integration of diverse elements, relationships, or values.”

coherence consists of the shared depth of understanding about the purpose and nature of the work.

There is only one way to achieve greater coherence, and that is through purposeful action and interaction, working on capacity, clarity, precision of practice, transparency, monitoring of progress, and continuous correction.

One other crucial point about coherence is this: you never arrive once and for all, nor should you want to.

Coherence making in other words is a continuous process of making and remaking meaning in your own mind and in your culture.

focusing direction, cultivating collaborative cultures, deepening learning, and securing accountability.

You might ask why politicians endorse solutions that don’t work. The answer is not complicated: because they can legislate them; because they are in a hurry; because the remedies can be made to appeal superficially to the public; because (and unkindly on our part) some of them really don’t care about the public education system, preferring that education be taken over by the private sector; and (more kindly) because they do not know what else to do.

Daniel Pink (2009) has shown conclusively that this “carrots and sticks” approach works at best for only the most mechanical tasks, not for anything that requires ingenuity and commitment. You don’t get coherence by imposing diktats.

Good individuals are important, but cultures are more so.

Once you face tasks where judgment is required, people do not respond to monetary rewards or threat of punishment. In challenging situations, people are motivated primarily by intrinsic factors: having a sense of purpose, solving difficult problems, and working with peers on issues that are of critical importance to the group. Attempting to entice individuals through extrinsic rewards and sanctions demotivates most people.

This goes for teachers and students alike.

“Initiativitis” is enough to give change a bad name.

The work is characterized by five things: It is all about doing, working from practice to theory, and getting better by doing more with added knowledge. It is about whole systems—all the schools and all the students in the district, state, province, and country. It zeroes in on precise pedagogy—what works in promoting engaging learning for students and teachers alike. It identifies and establishes the conditions, the cultures if you like, at the school, region, and broad infrastructure levels that push for and support deep implementation. It always determines impact on learners and those who relate to them.

Capacity building refers to the skills, competencies, and knowledge that individuals and groups need in order to be effective at accomplishing the goals at hand.

Leana typically measures three things in schools: human capital (the qualifications of individuals), social capital (with questions to teachers like “to what extent do you and other teachers in the school work in a collaborative focused way to improve the learning of all students in the school?”), and progress in math achievement from September to June.

Social capital is more powerful than human capital, and they function virtuously by feeding on each other (see also Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012).

Third, if you mix in good pedagogy as the driver (versus technology) as part of the content of capacity building and social capital exchanges, you get a triple benefit. The synergy is powerful. Good pedagogy is what teachers like to do every day. It is close to their hearts and minds, individually and collectively. Then you can integrate digital that, under these conditions, becomes an amazing accelerator and deepener of learning.

it involves a combination of a small number of ambitious goals being relentlessly pursued, being vigilant about reducing distractors, helping with professional capacity building, using student and other data transparently for developmental purposes, building in strategies for implementers to learn from each other on an ongoing basis, and marking progress with lots of feedback and supportive intervention.

“leadership from the middle” (LFTM). LFTM is based on the assumption that the center (the government) cannot effectively run large complex systems and that local school autonomy, if left on its own, will never add up.

Historically, the Department of Education has operated on the assumption that mandating statewide reforms could solve problems in public education and that the state’s job was to police districts to ensure that the state requirements, which define those programs or reforms, were met. This created a basic compliance mind-set and organizational culture in the department. It also created a perception that the people in Sacramento knew better than the professionals in the districts. The state has focused on inputs to districts rather than helping them improve their outputs to children.

School districts, however, need something very different. They need professional leadership from the state that is informed by deep thinking about strategies that help districts build capacity to undergo systems change. The districts need the state to understand that major reforms such as the Local Control Funding Formula will have limited impact on their own unless they are utilized as tools to open up the system.

School districts need the state to understand accountability as a strengthening process not a punitive exercise designed to punish for lack of performance according to state process requirements.

Effective change processes shape and reshape good ideas as they build capacity and ownership among participants.

Leaders need the ability to develop a shared moral purpose and meaning as well as a pathway for attaining that purpose.

The moral imperative focuses on deep learning for all children regardless of background or circumstance

What is my moral imperative? What actions do I take to realize this moral imperative? How do I help others clarify their moral imperative? Am I making progress in realizing my moral purpose with students?

Effective leaders foster moral purpose when they do the following: Build relationships with everyone, including those who disagree, are skeptical, or even cynical. Listen and understand the perspective of others. Demonstrate respect for all. Create conditions to connect others around that purpose. Examine with staff evidence of progress.

The problem is not the absence of goals in districts and schools today but the presence of too many that are ad hoc, unconnected, and ever-changing.

The senior leadership team must develop a common language and approach that is sustained and communicated consistently across the system. All parts of the organization, including unions, classified staff, students, and parents, must feel they have a place in the process. Collaboration during initial and ongoing implementation is especially crucial.

Avoid the temptation of trying to realign them or cluster them into a new picture of the old way. Start with student learning. Ask, “What learning do we want for our students?” instead of starting with, for example, “How do we implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)?”

Alignment on paper does not generate clarity.

Clarity, thus, precedes coherence.

The interplay between a strong climate for change and an explicit strategy for achieving the goals promotes and sustains trust, communication, connectedness, and meaningful work.

Directional vision emerges from working in partnership to develop a shared purpose and vision and by engaging in continuous collaborative conversations that build shared language, knowledge, and expectations.

Leaders need to set the directional vision, allow experimentation connected to the vision, put in mechanisms for learning from the work, and then establish ways to share the promising approaches across the organization.

At the diffusion phase, schools and districts need to develop expertise to do the following: Cultivate multiple internal sources of innovation. Support safe places for risk taking. Build capacity vertically and laterally across the organization. Provide opportunities for deeper collaboration within and across schools. Develop mechanisms to make and share collective insights and knowledge.

Once positive change gets moving, the challenge is how to sustain it. We recognize that the cycle will never be finished in a rapidly changing world. Leading for an unknown future means that leaders must foster cycles of innovation by attracting and selecting talent, providing a culture of trust and exploration, synthesizing the learning gleaned from the innovation, providing communication pathways vertically and horizontally in the organization, and celebrating each step of the evolving journey. This not only fosters current growth but also reinforces the cycles of innovation by building on the emerging knowledge and creating an environment of ever reaching potential.

This evolved to talking the walk—when any member of the district could articulate the goals and strategy of the school and its connection to the district in a meaningful way.

Third, improving teaching and learning practices was at the heart of the capacity building strategy. Investments were made in collective capacity building related to instruction and leadership. Sustained professional learning, focused on a set of high-yield instructional practices, was offered consistently across the province to create a common language, knowledge base, and skill sets for teachers and leaders. Learning sessions were always followed with application and networks for support. Change was accelerated with the easy accessibility of video exemplars, digital supports, and webinars created by Ontario teachers and leaders. Capacity building was not mandated, but when the quality was so high and so accessible in multiple formats, the diffusion was widespread. At the secondary level, a similar set of high-yield literacy strategies for grades 7–12 were identified. Curriculum teams from each content area were then invited to create resource banks tailored to their content areas. This engagement of expertise from the field ensured that the offerings were relevant and credible, while reinforcing the partnership and goals.

The approach built the collective capacity of teacher teams to better target instructional strategies to meet the needs of their students using a collaborative inquiry model.

As we step back and consider whole system change in perspective, some market-oriented initiatives such as charter schools or Teach for America may be able to improve the chances and outcomes for some students, but none have been successful at simultaneously improving student performance and increasing equity of outcomes for all students. Whole system reform is about improving every school and every district in a province, state, or country, not just some.

Third, Garden Grove has developed a strong and clear strategy and culture (called locally “the Garden Grove Way”). It consists of four elements: Continuous improvement of instructional quality and spreading the best instructional practices and ideas to achieve these goals across the system are a relentless focus. Core strategies were identified and consistent support is provided to build expertise at all levels. Building teacher capacity is seen as the route to improvement as articulated by the former superintendent Laura Schwalm: “You’re never going to be a better district than your teachers.” The selection of core strategies avoided the “pockets of success” problem by using a collective capacity strategy to achieve results. This success has diffused across the district, and with that foundation in place, there is greater trust and empowerment for schools to tackle deeper learning accelerated by technology. The district values its relationships highly and takes great care in recruitment and hiring of the best people and building their capacity through induction, coaching, mentoring, and a lifetime of learning. They nurture the development of existing school leaders and that of teachers on special assignment roles in order to foster instructional capacity across the district. Culture and collaboration are pervasive. People talk proudly of the Garden Grove Way as both the aspiration for quality and a valuing of students and each other. Central office staffing is very lean b...

For hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. —Ernest Shackleton