Rethinking School Requires R&D

A few months ago I was asked to do some consulting for a district that was looking to create a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t excited. I had been dreaming of consulting for a long time because I have an entrepreneurial spirit. But I also had a healthy dose of imposter syndrome. Who would hire me? Why would they hire me? And…what if I fail?

These not-so-quiet voices filled my head, but also affected my ability to wrap my brain around the task. I decided that if I was going to do this project, I was going to do it well. So I agreed to do the job and got to work planning out my approach.

The first thing that I noticed as I did this planning was that I felt invigorated to be in control of this project. I had spent the last 15 years carrying out initiatives that were handed down from the state or that came from district administration. Some initiatives, I will admit, I supported; but, others were just…well…dumb! The negative self-talk that I had experienced at the outset was, I think, a product of a culture that is predicated on handing down initiatives in an attempt to control output. But in this consulting work, I was driving the learning and it felt great to be in charge. (Yes, I’m aware of how egotistical that sounds!) It highlighted something that I have sensed for a long time: Schools suck at innovation.

And I say this as someone who has been fortunate to work in districts where the principals trusted me to develop curriculum and teach lessons that I felt were standards-aligned and that met students’ needs. But even in those situations, the job of a public school teacher is bound by the culture and climate of the building, by the resources available, and by the test scores the district produces. The result is that even for really creative and energetic teachers–and I’d consider myself one of those–the school environment has a creative governor that slows innovation unwittingly.

So consulting for me highlighted a recurring thought. Why don’t we have a mechanism in school where teachers are paid to have innovative ideas? In essence, why don’t we have a Research and Development department? All relevant companies know that to stay competitive they need to push the boundaries and create new versions of their existing products or create entirely new ones. But in school we seem to ignore the fact that creating newness requires exceptional energy and effort, and we expect innovation to come from practitioners. Teachers who spend 6 hours a day teaching students, being counselors, and providing data to district office really are not in a position to be prime movers for educational thought.

In my opinion we need to begin developing systems and creating departments where exceptional teachers–our innovators and early adopters–can gather in a quiet space and create a new vision of what classrooms can look like. Then we need to allow them to test these ideas and workshop them into a version that is implementable on a wider scale.

And so, as I’m working with this district, I’m helping them to see the necessity of innovation in driving improvement. I’m recommending that they staff an R&D department to help drive the building and district to improve test scores. Because when we don’t push for innovation, we settle for what we know. And that’s not good enough. Our students deserve better.