Need Everyone Agree?: Changing Resisters to Supporters.

Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true. -- Familiar idiom.
	Powerful Persuasion?

Here is a thought experiment to try with your friends, family or students:

a. Fill in the blank with a goal, a situation, condition or event, to complete the following sentence:

Wouldn’t it be a better world if everyone could agree on (Goal).
You could substitute other phrases for “a better world” such as “nice,” wonderful,” “a real moral improvement,” or “peachy keen” or “healthier.” Pick something you can get your group to agree on as a substitution.

b. Once you have your statement, e.g. Wouldn’t it be more environmentally sound for people to agree to ban all automobile traffic from inner city commercial areas?, ask your participants to speculate as to who would likely agree to the statement (and why) and who would likely oppose it (and why).

c. Using the chart available at Assessing the Likelihood of Implementing Change , (ALIC) locate your supporters and resisters and the proportions of each you estimate there are. Fill in Line A on the chart.

d. Continue using the above chart to speculate how much you would have to change the percentages of each subgroup to bring them to the likelihood of supporting the change (here, agree with the statement.) Fill in Line B on the ALIC.

e. Considering the Ways to Overcome Resistance suggested by Kotter and Schlesinger in the ALIC, fill in the grid block the likelihood, or your group’s likelihood, of finding the resources to implement these ways, e.g. education & communication, participation & involvement, … etc.

Now consider the following questions:

1. Is the goal well enough defined to be operationalized to avoid a slow shifting (creep) of the target? (See Operationalization.)

2. Consider some of the costs involved in implementing the changes needed; would they be worth the benefits hoped for? Consider who it is who would perceive the achieved goal as a benefit; and, who would think it to be a cost. (You might want to revisit step b. above at this point.)

3. Considering the costs involved in implementing the changes needed, would it be wiser to redefine the Goal so as to shrink the budget needed? (This is a very common practice in all institutions, public and private.)

4. Are the needed ratios of supporters and resisters (see Line B in the ALIC) likely to remain constant through the change process?

To examine these issues further, if you are involved with education, see POLITICS, CONSENSUS AND EDUCATIONAL REFORM

If you are involved with other kinds of organizations, or if you want a more general overview, see Employee Resistance to Organizational Change

Cordially
--- EGR

School Reform and the Pathology of Domination by Gary K. Clabaugh

Present school “reforms” involve non-consultative top-down changes that are force-fed to gagging teachers. Research reveals that this approach not only doesn’t work, it is counterproductive. Successful innovation requires voluntary, highly motivated participants.[1] Forced change, on the other hand, produces frustration and anxiety while it increases resistance to change.[2]

Unfortunately, this imperious style of school reform is bipartisan. It characterizes both conservatives and liberals. William Bennett, the blowhard Clown Prince of Education in Reagan’s day, gave top-down school reform a distinct right wing edge. But these days the left wing Arne Duncan, President Obama’s conspicuously unqualified Secretary of Education, is up to the same tricks.

Since teachers must implement classroom change, their resistance to strong-arm tactics can be quite effective. They have numerous opportunities to suffocate imposed change, ranging from half-hearted, foot dragging to outright sabotage. And, when they close their classroom door, some of them do resist. Too often, though, they just stew silently or even blame themselves.

Autocratic Reform and Teacher Morale

The condescending style of school reform dates way back to the days when classroom teachers were long-suffering females and the power holders were self-satisfied males. Today’s “reformers” are far less chauvinistic but every bit as patronizing.

Sometimes it does seem that teachers, or at least teacher’s unions, reflexively oppose change. And the widespread perception that teachers stand in the way of needed reform is a major motivation for imposed change. But resistance is a common response to any major change in any organization.[3] And if those changes are being pushed on you by people who are disrespectful and don’t even ask for your opinion, resistance is sensible. But the would-be “reformer’s” react to the resistance they themselves provoke by becoming even more controlling, autocratic and disrespectful.

To neutralize teacher resistance they design straightjacket policies, dramatically reduce teacher authority, and ratchet up coercion via so-called “accountability” measures. And they do these things with complete disregard for its impact on teacher morale. They seem incapable of imagining the negative state of mind their actions promote. In fact, the most authoritarian reformers have lost all concern for the actual consequences of their “reforms” on those who must carry them out.

The Myopic View from Olympus

One reason policy makers fail to appreciate that they need teacher cooperation is how far removed they are far from classroom realities. Many top-down “reforms” seem plausible when viewed from the Olympus of Capital Hill or the White House. They also seem reasonable in the think tanks of plutocrats. They even seem credible in the rarified atmosphere of a state capital. But on the ground, at the classroom level, non-consultative, out of touch, top-down change fuels resentment and mistrust, lowers teacher morale, and decreases teacher effectiveness.

Sure teachers must be held accountable for being informed, caring and doing their best with the resources they command. But contemporary reformers go way beyond that. They demand that teachers be miracle workers who can somehow nullify anything that impacts school achievement. Never mind what goes on in the home, on the street, in the community, the economy, and so forth. There are “no excuses.” In other words, if a child fails in school it is ultimately attributable to some teacher’s failure! What humbug!

The “Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations”

Teachers know from bitter experience that what the boss calls “excuses” are often well-founded explanations. And researchers have found that a major source of employee resistance to change is fear of failure in a new environment.[4] So what are the reformers doing? They are demanding change that literally allows no room for failure no matter what intrudes. Who wouldn’t be fearful of that craziness? And who, with any guts, would fail to resist?

Reformers say they simply are requiring teachers to outgrow “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” Common sense says this is rubbish. And, because it trivializes the misery, hardship and suffering that many children daily endure; it’s heartless rubbish as well. Push aside the privacy concealing what goes on at home can be horrifying and inexpressibly sad. Do these horrific situations influence what the child learns at school? Of course they do. Can teachers change these situations? Generally they cannot. In fact they often remain totally hidden.

Adding to out-of-school difficulties are the many in school things that influence educational outcomes yet are beyond teacher control. If those in authority build inhumanly large schools, if penny-pinching results in overcrowded classrooms and inadequate support, if school boards wrangle while school buildings fall apart, if school managers select wretched textbooks or badly constructed instructional packages, if school administrators fail to curb bullying and/or tolerate chaos, teachers must live with the results.

Accountability Without Authority

Teachers endure all of these limitations, yet in today’s “no excuses” environment they still are held to account when kids get “left behind.” In fact, if President Obama were to get his way on incentive pay, teachers will take a hit in the wallet if the kids score poorly on those misbegotten high stakes tests.

Research reveals us that accountability without authority fuels frustration, generates feelings of futility, feeds resentment, causes anxiety, worry, depression, aggression and, if the stress continues, a decline in performance.[5] It eventually leads to resignation and learned helplessness.[6]

Moreover, those unfairly held accountable hold back information, refuse cooperation and suppress dissent within their ranks — all in self-defense. Researcher Kenwyn Smith describes this sort of reaction formation as “the pathology of domination.” Pray tell, how is inflicting this on teachers going to improve our schools?

[1] Paul Berman and Milbrey Wallin McLaughlin, Federal Programs Supporting Educational Change, Vol. VIII, Implementing and Sustaining Innovations, R-1589/8—HEW (Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, May 1978).

[2] Piderit, S.K. (2000, Oct). Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: a multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change. Academy of Management -794. A, 783

[3] Albert Bolognese, Employee Resistance to Organizational Change, 2002 (http://www.newfoundations.com/OrgTheory/Bolognese721.html).

[4] Kotter, J. P., & Schlesinger, L.A. (1979). Choosing strategies for change. Harvard Business Review 106 - 114.

[5] Stress, PsychExchange.co.uk Shared Resource, http://www.slideshare.net/psychexchange.co.uk/psychexchangecouk-shared-resource-2978288

[6] Kenwyn K. Smith, Groups in Conflict: Prisons in Disguise (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall-Hunt, 1982).

For more information on school reform see: http://www.newfoundations.com/SchoolResponsibility.htm

Policy “Reversals”: the Bane of “True Believers”

“We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.” -- Edward de Bono

Poor President Obama. He wants to get things done. He strategically accommodates the opposition when his own forces cannot overwhelm it. At least for the moment.

This drives his “purist” supporters crazy. Surely, they insist, you can fertilize the fields without getting your hands dirty! Surely, there must be some way of making an omelette without damaging an egg!

American public education has long served two incompatible but desirable goals: providing equal educational opportunity to all students and providing each student with an education suited to his individual needs.

At different stages in its development, America’s educational system has emphasized one or the other of these goals and generated ideology which served to celebrate the emphasis, e.g., "a thorough and efficient education for all children.”

Not too long after, a big switch happened. We were bombarded with “individualizing instruction”, that is, “different strokes for different folks,” or “fair is not necessarily equal.”

Is such “flip-flopping” a sign of weakness; or, of wisdom?

To examine these issues further, see Mechanisms for Policy Reversal

Cordially
EGR

“Cat” is NOT a Cat. “Reform” is NOT a Reform.

"The symbol is NOT the thing symbolized; the word is NOT the thing; … -– S.I. Hayakawa (1949)

We live in a society where a “Going Out of Business Sale” sign on a store probably doesn’t mean that the store is going out of business after the sale is over. “Reality” shows on TV are far from reality, the confections of TV writers and producers. Brand names, too, are not infrequently assurances of quality that is non-existent.

Even our schools promote their own form of BS -- think only of the all-too-vagrant usage of such words as “challenged,” “basics,” “excellence,” “diversity,” “needs,” and “standards.” Unfortunately, BS, like other forms of S, can be infectious: it can produce a mind-set that borders on pathology.

Sean Cavanagh in an article, “In War of Words, 'Reform' a Potent Weapon,” (Education Week, 3/2/11) writes

A set of stock phrases, sound bites, and buzzwords has come to dominate the public discourse on education, summoned reflexively, it often seems, by elected officials and advocates who speak a shared, accepted language.

In other words, Big-Wig BS: on such rests the fate of our school populations.

To propose what you call a “reform” is to do two things:

a. it is to propose a change; and
b. it is to recommend that change as desirable.

Here is where the fight begins.

Not every possible change will be seen as a change for the better. Death is a change. It is not a reform. It is because people disagree on what is desirable that the controversy about school reform exists.

To examine these issues further, see The Need for and Possibilities of Educational Reform


Cordially
--- EGR

Who Benefits From School Reform? A Trick Question.

Who does benefit from school reform? Don’t say, “Everyone.” You don’t know everyone. And even if you mean that everyone should benefit, that is a different story. If should’s were does’s, we’d all be rich, happy and beautiful.

Who benefits from school reform? Don’t say, “the kids.” This may make you feel warm deep inside, but that’s where the warmth stays. Expect to be asked, “Which kids?” “Whose kids?” “Where, when, how?”

Does this mean that the idea of benefits from school reform is romantic nonsense? No. It just means that it is highly relative. And in our pluralistic democracy, “highly relative” means “politically difficult to achieve” and when publicly talked about, “likely little more than B.S.”

Certainly, nothing is a reform unless it is a change. And no change is a reform unless it is for the better, that is, the ratio of benefits to costs increases as compared to the status quo.

So, can we recast our “trick question” as “Who receives an increase in benefit/cost ratio when schools are changed?” That’s getting somewhere.

Now we have to tackle the reasonable distinction between benefits (or costs) as perceived in contrast to actual benefits (or actual costs). And who makes those judgments?

To examine these issues further, see Pursuing Educational Targets: 
What is the Collateral Damage?


Cordially
--- EGR