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The Leading Change Handbook (the downloadable form) is great. What a valuable resource for all administrators and lead team members. I, for one, truly appreciate this easily accessible resource and wish to express my appreciation to the Wallace Foundation for providing it to us for free. Thanks.!
Justin Wagner
The part of the ICC that will be most difficult to sell to the community will be that the ICC is not a cure all for all that ails our school. It is not a one shot wonder, a silver bullet or an inoculation. Education has a well deserved reputation for taking on fads, short-lived trends and an initiative-of-the-month mentality. Selling ICC to the community starts with the internal community of teachers, staff and students. If teacher leadership is not established at the beginning of ICC planning, implementation will have limited results because the skepticism and cynicism of what ICC is will start within a school and then spread to the greater community.
dave versteeg
The difficult “sell” will be getting consensus on what the Iowa Core Curriculum will look like in the classrooms. If it significantly changes instruction and course offerings, then we will have to “defend” it for some people. But I am optimistic that we will be able to point to the positive changes in classrooms and courses and say, “Well, that it mainly because of our changes due to the challenges posed to us by Iowa’s Core Curriculum.”
David Fox
The last segment of the book clearly is a call to be bold, to risk innovating if the evidence at hand is compelling enough (not perfect or complete) to justify moving ahead. His emphasis on a culture of commitment speaks to the heart of our work, I believe. His examples are compelling proof that we can close the achievement gap, we can educate all to high levels, and we can sustain the work over time.
The Wallace Foundation has just made available a wonderful resource called The Leading Change Handbook that is free and downloadable at this url:
http://www.wallacefoundation.org/KnowledgeCenter/KnowledgeTopics/CurrentAreasofFocus/EducationLeadership/Pages/leading-change-handbook.aspx
It consists of tools that you can use with your staff to assess readiness for change, creating early wins, sustaining change, etc. I think the handbook would be a wonderful companion piece to Reeve's book as you work as an administrative team or with teacher leaders. Take a look at this resource and see what you think.
In the epilogue Reeves says: "Failing to act when the evidence suggests you must may safeguard you from the catcalls of the cynics, but such a mistake will expose you to judgment, years, hence, form the students and communities you failed to help."
What parts of the Iowa Core Curriculum will be more difficult to "sell" to the community? Around what issues might the catcalls emerge? What are effective talking points to anticipate the skepticism?