Michigan Coalition of Essential Schools

The coaching continuum ranges from the stereotypical coach of sports lore to the more recent occurrence of "life" coach. Coaching for professional learning in schools has as many different images as any along that continuum: from a peer coach, to an internal school-wide coach, to an external school reform coach and turnaround specialist.

A quick review of the most recent research on coaching led me to the NSDC publication, Powerful Designs for Professional Learning, edited by Lois Brown Easton. Several chapters describe coaching-like strategies but the chapter on school coaching defines the role of coaching as taking people from where they are to where they want to go, serving as a guide and a supporter helping others learn skills to solve problems and achieve goals on their own. When teachers are coached along with engaging in quality professional development, the level of application increases to 90% (from as low as 5%) according to studies by Joyce & Showers, 2002.

The Michigan Department of Education recognized the impact that an external coach has on school reform and created the ABC's Coaches Institute to develop experienced educators as facilitators of school improvement in high-priority schools. Contracting with a coach or a "turnaround" specialist is one of several options for schools that need "corrective action" or to meet "restructuring" guidelines to meet AYP requirements.

The National Council of Teachers of English, NCTE, offers many resources on its web site and reviews a study on the "Promises and Practicalities" of Coaching by Neufeld and Roper. They offer a guide (commissioned by the Aspen Institute and Annenberg Institute for School Reform) for district and school leaders who are considering adding coaching to a battery of PD support, and NCTE collaborated with the International Reading Association and the National Councils of Teachers of Math, Science and Social Studies to recently publish Standards for Middle and High School Literacy Coaches.

These references only scratch the surface as a rich body of research and case studies is emerging on coaching. My experience has been primarily with the external school reform coach, but the diversity of coaching roles is as varied as the needs of each school and the educators within those schools. I'd like to present a brief description of coaching in the context of comprehensive school improvement that could be easily replicated across Michigan.

Michigan Coalition of Essential Schools (MCES) is one of several Comprehensive School Reform model providers that relies on school reform coaches as a major intervention to facilitate school-wide reform. The MCES Theory of Action is to provide professional development specific to various school groups; such as, Principals and Leadership Teams, instructional leaders who learn to facilitate collaborative study of student work and other student performance data, parent-action teams, and content standards and alignment with classroom instruction and assessment.

The roadmap to student achievement starts with engaging staff in creating the vision of the school's "graduate" and analyzing student data to determine gaps between the vision and current reality. Next is the small group collaborative work of aligning curriculum, instruction and assessment to the state standards and embedding best practices in instruction into the lesson plan design. Then school systems and structures are changed (if necessary) to support best instructional practice. Finally staff is engaged in collaborative and reflective learning communities that examine student work to inform lesson design and implementation or to engage in other action research.

The school reform coach supports focused professional development by embedding the new knowledge and skills in the daily work of the school, holding all accountable for implementation of best practice and analysis of results. Action research using a Cycle of Inquiry is the basis for a process of professional collaboration, reflection and data-driven inquiry. The coach works with whole staff, the principal, small groups of educators in department, grade, cross-grade or cross-content groups, and with individuals. Thirty-two schools across the state have been or are currently engaged in this comprehensive process. These schools serve K-12 students and are considered high-poverty schools because 50% or more of their students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. With few exceptions, these schools have shown significant gains in student achievement. The educators in the schools attribute those increases to the professional learning in which they engaged and to the on-going efforts of the coaches to reinforce and support the professional learning.

MCES has seen similar results in several middle schools focused on literacy and engaged in Comprehensive School Reform through the Michigan Coalition of Essential Schools model as well as the Middle Start CSR model. Through a program originally funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, MCES has provided professional learning for improving literacy across the content areas. The program, Real Reading in the Middle, provides a series of literacy workshops and coaching by external Literacy Coaches. Again, educators in those schools cite the coaches' follow-up as being a significant factor in the student achievement gains in literacy.

In the introduction of the “Standards for Middle and High School Literacy Coaches” recently published by IRA (International Reading Association), it states that "literacy coaching - a form of highly targeted professional development - is a particularly potent vehicle for improving reading skills. Literacy coaching adheres to what research identifies as the essential features of effective professional development. Common components include training that is:

The research on coaching in general supports the inclusion of these components. Said another way in the Standards mentioned above: Coaches need to be skillful collaborators, skillful job-embedded coaches, skillful evaluators of (literacy) needs and skillful instructional strategists. As described in the school coach chapter in Powerful Designs for Professional Learning, coaching can take three forms: directive coaching, collaborative problem solving, or non-directive coaching (or a combination of all of the above). This chapter suggests that the coaching process generally requires that coach and client (school):

Effective coaches have curiosity and the ability to listen, question, focus, and achieve results. "Great coaching is transformational… and can help people see the world with new eyes and continue down the lifelong path of self-discovery and professional growth."