Post 11: John W. Kingdon's "Three Streams" for School Leaders

In John W. Kingdon’s “Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies,” he gives politicians advice for approaching problems and changes.  These suggestions apply perfectly well to principals trying to motivate teachers and influence change in schools as well.  He points out that there are 3 factors (or "streams") to consider when implementing change.  If any of the three streams is either low or highly negative, then willingness to change will suffer and the costs of implementing the change might outweigh the benefits.  School leaders should consider the three streams and work on boosting any that are low before attempting to implement change.

The three streams are Problems, Policies, and Politics.  There are several questions that a school leader should ask about each stream before moving forward with change.

Some examples of questions that a school leader might ask about “Problems” are:
 - Is there a sense of urgency regarding this problem?
 - Is there wide-spread awareness of the problem?
 - Does the problem affect a large number of people?
 - Is the problem one that we have control over?

Some questions that a school leader might ask about “Policies” are:
 - Are there already policies in place regarding this problem?
 - Are changes needed to existing policies?
 - Will new policies be needed to address this problem?
 - Who has the power to make the changes to these problems?

Four questions that school leaders might ask about “Politics” are:
 - Does this change affect a “sacred cow” or long-held practice?
 - Will this change step on anyone’s toes?
 - Who will have to approve this change?
 - Is the leader strong enough and influential enough to see the change through?

Finally, a school leader needs to assess the strength of each of the 3 streams and boost those that are weak before attempting to implement the change.  Moving forward while any of the streams are weak will jeopardize the success of the project.

Let’s look at a current event through the three-streams lens.  We’ll analyze the recent idea of arming teachers and administrators with guns in schools.

Problem- The problem of violence in schools is an extremely emotionally charged problem.  Although the loss of one child’s life is unacceptable, statistically, this problem is not very likely to happen at any particular school.  A child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than to die of any form of gun violence.  But because this problem is so incredibly emotional, this problem would rank as moderate to high because of the reaction that it causes.

Policies- There are existing and powerful policies already in place related to a person’s right to bear arms, laws about concealed weapons, and education code around guns on school campuses.  Most of the policies regarding guns on campus are far beyond the control of a school leader.  As such, the Policies Stream regarding guns on campus would rank as highly negative because the leader will have little influence over them.

Politics- The political ramifications of school violence mixed with the strong emotion around guns make the politics of any conversation around gun violence very negative.  There are huge disparities around both of these issues and tension will be very high regardless of the direction that the decision goes.  The politics around this issue are highly negative.

This pattern of moderate/highly negative/highly negative suggest that guns on campus might not be an issue that a school leader wants to tackle.  Because the stakes are so high, it might be worth risking the highly negative politics and policies, but a better idea would be to try to find a solution to the problem that doesn’t involve guns on campus.  Stronger penalties for gun-related crimes, limiting access to guns for children, metal detectors, counselors, mental health services, parenting classes, and other options can be considered that don’t carry the same baggage as guns on campus.  As you can see, each one of those options has a different mixture of Policies and Politics to consider.  School leaders have little control over the penalties for crimes, counselors and metal detectors cost money, and it’s difficult to get parents to attend classes.  An analysis of each of these options considering Kingdon’s streams can tell the principal which has the highest probability of solving the problem while causing the least friction.

You’ll find that when you begin considering the three streams, some problems will be highly important and extremely political while others will require difficult policy changes but greatly impact an important problem.  The combination of the three will help you determine the best approach and how much preparation work will need to be done before making the change initiative public.

Please share in the comments section a change that you are facing right now and how the three streams might influence your approach.

Post 10: Carol Dweck Part 2- How to recognize fixed and growth mindsets

 How to Recognize Fixed and Growth Mindsets in Teachers

In Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset, she describes the difference between a Fixed Mindset and a Growth Mindset.  These mindsets apply to everyone from children, to celebrities, to athletes, to CEOs and she gives examples from each of these groups.  In listening to her description, I recognized some of the characteristics in teachers and administrators that I’ve worked with.

A person with a Fixed Mindset believes that an individual is born with a certain amount of intelligence or talent and there is nothing that can be done to change that.  These people don’t react well to failure and don’t see the point of practice, studying, or attempts at self-improvement.  The owner of a Growth Mindset believes that talent and intelligence are factors that can be improved with enough practice, studying, and hard work.  They see a failure as an opportunity to learn and improve, not as an insult to their intelligence or natural ability.

When I think of these two mindsets and some of the teachers and administrators that I’ve worked with in the past, here are some of the characteristics I’ve seen that would lead me to deduce which mindset they’ve adopted.

Response to Change:

We’ve all met people who we call “resistant to change.”  These are likely Fixed Mindset people.  They see change as threatening because they’ve settled into the present system and any changes might upset that balance and make them look bad.  To a Fixed Mindset, looking bad means that there is something innately wrong with them.  Because they believe that characteristics are inborn and cannot be improved, this new system may reveal some of their natural weaknesses.  It’s not change that they’re resistant to; they resist new situations that might make them look bad.

Teachers with a Growth Mindset see change as an opportunity to help more students succeed.  Not only do they see change as an opportunity to improve themselves because they have a Growth Mindset for adults, but they also see the possibility that change might also improve students because they have a Growth Mindset for children too.  Sometimes change really, really isn’t good for teachers or students, so these teachers don’t always automatically welcome change.  But if it seems to be good for kids, Fixed Mindset teachers will gladly welcome such change.

Entire departments can have a growth mindset as well.  I set up a group visit to a school once that was doing great things with interventions.  They created post-tests for each essential standard, designed after-school interventions to go with each one, and assigned students who were not proficient on the essential standards to attend the intervention to earn the right to re-take the test.  That’s a great Growth Mindset right there, but that’s not the real story.  The department chair from another school attended this visit and was very impressed.  She took the idea back to her school and invited the department to make the program their own.  They decided that after school wasn’t the best model because students played sports, cared for siblings, and had jobs after school.  They decided to try Saturday school.  To make a long story short, it didn’t work as well as they’d hoped, so they tried providing the interventions during the school day.  This was a great step in the right direction because now the interventions could be mandated.  After each benchmark exam, they built three “Interrichment” days into the pacing guide.  Students who were proficient on the exams would go to enrichment opportunities and students who were not proficient would go to interventions and re-take the test on the third day.  This worked much better and they studied how the program affected students.  They still weren’t happy with the results.  So, they modified it involving honors and AP students in the interventions as tutors.  The results got even better.  Every semester, they changed the program a little bit, getting better and better each time.  Not only was this a demonstration that they believed that they could improve by changing and working hard, but it also demonstrated the belief that with great lessons and enough of the correct interventions, students can improve too!

Response to Failure:

Teachers with a Fixed Mindset believe that some students will get the information and other students won’t.  They are strong advocates of tight pre-requisites for classes with few or no exceptions.  They believe that honors students will be successful despite what the teacher does and less-than-honors students will not be successful no matter what the teacher does.  They attribute the difference between honors and non-honors students to many different things like family life, poor preparation, ELD status, poverty, etc.  But even worse, they don’t believe that anything can be done to make up for these deficiencies.

Teachers with a Growth Mindset believe that all students have potential and can be successful if the teacher and student work together hard enough.  They believe that any deficiencies that students have can be fixed regardless of whose fault they are.  These teachers are constantly improving their practice, their lesson plans, and their interventions.  When a student isn’t successful, they ask themselves, “What can I do differently next time?”  They don’t get wrapped up in things they cannot control and instead, devote their energy to closing achievement gaps.  I work with AVID programs at schools and my opinion is that much (most?) of the success of AVID is in putting a teacher with a Growth Mindset at the front of the classroom who believes that all kids can and should be successful.

Response to Professional Development:

Teachers with a Fixed Mindset don’t think that Professional Development accomplishes much because things like teacher quality and student ability are inborn and nothing changes them.  They can be seen rolling their eyes and grading papers during professional development and would never volunteer to be on a committee.  You’ll never see a request from a Fixed Mindset teacher to attend a conference or purchase a professional journal or book because that would be admitting that they have room for improvement.  I’ve seen Fixed Mindset administrators say things like, “All the professional development in the world couldn’t make so-and-so a great teacher.”  That Fixed Mindset comment is contagious and dangerous.

Teachers with a Growth Mindset read insatiably the latest research and content updates.  They cannot wait for the newest professional journal to come out to see what new strategies they might try.  Then, best of all, they take that research and try to improve their practice.  They lead professional developments, take college classes, and try new things regularly.  In my experience, the most successful administrators are also those who take research and put it into practice.  They’re often found teaching education classes at the university or even students working on administrative credentials.

Response to Evaluations:

Teachers with a Fixed Mindset see evaluation as a thing that must be done but has no value to them.  Since the characteristics measured in these evaluations (quality of teaching, success of students) are beyond their control (in their minds), the feedback from these evaluations isn’t of value to them.  Fixed Mindset teachers are completely against the idea of student achievement being part of evaluations because they feel that student achievement is inborn and the teacher doesn’t affect it.  These are the teachers who say things like, “What would happen if doctors were evaluated on the outcomes of their patients?  They can’t make a patient take their medicine just like a teacher cannot make a kid do their homework.”  It turns out that this is exactly how doctors are evaluated and not only that, but their pay is directly affected by the outcomes of their patients.  My family practitioner explained that if a 50-year old doesn’t get a prostate exam, a diabetic doesn’t get regular blood tests and retinal exams, or a pregnant woman doesn’t get regular wellness exams, her pay is directly affected and so is her public quality ranking.

Growth Mindset teachers don’t always look forward to evaluations (who does?) but they do see them as opportunities for feedback and . . . well . . . growth.  These are the teachers who say, “Sure, drop by my classroom anytime.  You don’t need to tell me you’re coming.”  They are the ones who email you 10 minutes after you leave asking, “So, what did you think?  Where could I improve?”  It is incredibly important for you to give these teachers the feedback that they hunger for.  As a teacher, I had one evaluator who always told me, “You’re a better teacher than I was.  I don’t know what to tell you.”  That wasn’t valuable information to me and I longed for feedback that would help me grow.

Keep in mind that it does no good to just identify which mindset a teacher has adopted and I do not believe (because I have a Growth Mindset) that mindsets cannot change.  The power here is in learning how to hire and support those with a Growth Mindset and try to move the Fixed Mindset teachers closer to a Growth Mindset.  That will be the topic of the next series of posts, how to change a Fixed Mindset.

Read Part 1 here
Read Part 3 here