Learning,for a Change: School Improvement as Capacity Building

Abstract

I know of no other strategy which has taken 20 or more schools and shown this level of success — even more quickly than we thought possible — and in a cost effi cient way. (M. Fullan)

Since 1991, a number of secondary schools in the Canadian province of Manitoba have been part of an experiment in school improvement. The result? Many of these secondary schools have really moved — they have shown gains in student achievement and have become the kinds of schools that are likely to sustain improvement. Of the 22 schools that were involved in MSIP at the time of our intensive evaluation, one third showed substantial improve ment and half had made considerable movement along the continuum. Although the improvement in schools was excit ing, as evaluators we were particularly interested around how the schools 'got there' and whether or not they could sustain their movement. In our evaluation, we set out to look inside the 'black box'to describe how specific schools actually went about changing their schools, in practice with the hope of uncovering some general principles that could guide schools as the approach any improvement initiatives.