As Margaret Spellings points out, understanding and diagnosing the problem will help us start the much-needed process of reconstructing our schools so that the organization meets the varied needs of all students (as cited in Higgins & Pratt-Dawsey, 2008). This book contends that this very difficult journey begins with the adults, the professionals, taking an honest look at how this gap in student performance began and how it is perpetuated despite the honest efforts of very intelligent and concerned people. Universal achievement remains a pipe dream until we take an honest look at our beliefs, practices, behaviors, and the norms of our organization. These elements make up a very sensitive system known as a school’s culture. This is where many school officials and reformers fear to tread, but it is this place that holds the biggest keys to unlocking the potential of our public schools.
School Culture Research
In my work, I hear people use the terms culture and climate synonymously, and they are very different. In short, culture is how we behave, and climate is how we feel. Culture is “the way we do things around here,” and climate is “the way we feel around here” (Gruenert & Whitaker, 2015, p. 10). It is very possible that a group of professionals could feel very good about themselves and their students but still fail to modify their behaviors and practices and see no substantive change. The flattening world, described earlier in this chapter by Thomas Friedman through the lens of globalization, and the economic and social challenges of our world demand that schools make substantive improvements so that students have a fighting chance in a world that continues to become more competitive. Simply feeling better about ourselves is not enough. It is going to take a deep reflection of our individual and collective behaviors and creating conditions that allow all of us to improve our practices and behaviors.
According to Kent D. Peterson, educational consultant and professor, “School culture is the set of norms, values and beliefs, rituals and ceremonies, symbols and stories that make up the ‘persona’ of the school” (as cited in Cromwell, 2002). For years, we did not consider how the varied and diverse human elements from stakeholders—students, parents, and educators—impacted our schools. But we do now.
Peterson’s explanation of school culture is functional and accurately describes how the unseen human factors of a school affect the day-to-day practices and behaviors within a school (as cited in Cromwell, 2002). Peterson categorizes school culture into two types: (1) positive and (2) toxic. He describes a positive culture as one where:
There’s an informal network of heroes and heroines and an informal grapevine that passes along information about what’s going on in the school … [a] set of values that supports professional development of teachers, a sense of responsibility for student learning, and a positive, caring atmosphere. (as cited in Cromwell, 2002)
In essence, he is saying that a positive school culture is a place where:
• Educators have an unwavering belief in the ability of all their students to achieve success, and they pass that belief on to others in overt and covert ways.
• Educators create policies and procedures and adopt practices that support their belief in every student’s ability.
Richard DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Rebecca DuFour describe the cultural conditions necessary to create a powerful school in a way similar to Peterson (DuFour, 2015; DuFour & Eaker, 1998; DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008). In order for a school to be a place that provides high levels of learning for all students regardless of student background, the staff must articulate through their behavior the beliefs that:
• All students can learn.
• All students will learn because of what we do.
DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, and Mattos (2016) argue that not only must staff hold as their fundamental belief that each student has the ability to learn, but members must also organize to utilize their resources to support that singular focus.
On the flip side, Peterson describes a toxic culture as one where “teacher relations are often conflictual, the staff doesn’t believe in the ability of the students to succeed and a generally negative attitude prevails” (as cited in Cromwell, 2002). That is, in a toxic culture:
• Educators believe that student success is based on students’ level of concern, attentiveness, prior knowledge, and willingness to comply with the demands of the school, and they articulate that belief in overt and covert ways.
• Educators create policies and procedures and adopt practices that support their belief in the impossibility of universal achievement.
Peterson accurately describes the characteristics and function of school culture (as cited in Cromwell, 2002). Descriptions are helpful and provide a good starting point, but descriptions alone are inadequate to initiate transformation. I contend that in order to transform school culture, we must do more than analyze its characteristics and functionality; we must also trace its development and the educator’s motivation for hanging on to paradigms that are contrary to those articulated in the public belief statements of the school or district as an organization.
The Importance of Closing the Gap
Research has been helpful in exposing the significant power school culture wields in the functioning of schools. In fact, the American Sociological Association finds that a school’s level of efficacy and its collectively held expectations for student success may be the leading indicator in whether students attend postsecondary education (Jones, 2008). What is not so evident, and is perhaps even controversial, is that educators’ personal belief systems may be the most powerful variables perpetuating learning gaps in our public school system. Traditional legislative mandates that focus solely on student outcomes, even when coupled with threats of embarrassment and loss of job security, may be powerless to effect change in the face of personal belief systems that perpetuate the achievement gap. In fact, this book will contend that dysfunctional school cultures create systems that maintain the gap. Mary Kennedy (2005) writes, “The traditional induction to teaching encourages teachers to rely on their own prior beliefs and values for guidance and to think of their practice as a highly personal and idiosyncratic endeavor” (p. 11). School culture is indeed a delicate web of past personal experience, organizational history, and interaction with the greater society; however, I contend that dysfunctional or toxic school culture is not insurmountable. As we shall see, many aspects of human behavior, social conditions, and history suggest that these types of environments can be transformed.
This book’s goal is twofold: (1) to provide a framework for understanding how school cultures operate from a political and sociological perspective and (2) to offer practical strategies to manipulate that culture in order to intentionally create positive atmospheres that not only tolerate change but that seek and embrace the changes that maximize organizational effectiveness.
Technical Change Versus Cultural Change
To clarify the power of school culture, I must first identify the two types of organizational change prevalent in today’s schools: (1) technical and (2) cultural change. Technical changes are changes to the tools or mechanisms professionals use to do their jobs effectively. These changes within a school context refer to changes in structure, policies, or teaching tools (for example, changing from a six-period school day to a block schedule, revising the curriculum with changes in learning standards or text material, or offering more advanced and rigorous classes, to name a few). These changes are definitely necessary to effect improvement in student performance, but they produce very few positive results when people who do not believe in the intended outcome of the change use them.
In The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, Patrick Lencioni (2012)