Strategic Planning: Only the Beginning

By Howard J. Feddema, Ed.D.

As a senior associate with Cambridge Strategic Services (formerly The Cambridge Group) since 1988, I have had the honor of working with scores of school districts in developing and implementing strategic plans using the framework for planning developed by Dr. William Cook. This framework is very rigorous, and is designed to dramatically improve student learning over time. It depends on collaboration among teachers, administrators, board members, parents, and community leaders to identify long-term strategic direction and link that direction to the development of annual operating plans that drive daily practice in schools.

Over time, many of the districts I have worked with have implemented many of the strategies within their strategic plan and have achieved their objectives for improving student learning. Through the years, they have more deeply penetrated meaningful change initiatives within the school system and have expanded the capacity to achieve the RESULTS they sought by engaging more and more teachers in improving instruction so that more students would learn what the system wanted them to learn. It is always hard work, and I am always on the lookout for ideas and resources that can assist my clients.

In 2000, I read Mike Schmoker’s Results (2nd edition) and recommended it to several districts. I think this book and the companion volume which followed, The Results Handbook: Practical Strategies from Dramatically Improved Schools, are useful tools to help districts using the Cambridge planning framework to achieve the strategic objectives in their plans. These districts had already implemented strategies initiated in previous years to align their curriculum with state standards. Many had also developed local assessments to measure student progress against those standards. RESULTS help them to take the next step; to use assessment data to improve instruction so that all students can meet or exceed the standards. In short, I thought Mike Schmoker and Cambridge Strategic Services were helping districts achieve the same ends; dramatically improving student performance.

When I read Mr. Schmoker’s article titled Tipping Point: From Feckless Reform to Substantive Instructional Improvement in the February 2004 Kappan, I was stunned. Since the work to which I have dedicated my professional life was characterized as “feckless,” and “patently discredited,” I have to respond. But, what compels me most to respond is the thousands of dedicated teachers, administrators, board members, parents, and community members who have worked diligently for years to create school systems that they are genuinely proud to call their own. They are real heroes in their communities, and I resent anyone claiming that their work was “well-intentioned” but “ultimately irrelevant.”

This response is tricky because I agree wholeheartedly with many of Mr. Schmoker’s points. Let me be clear… I agree that professional learning communities which engage in sustained collaboration to continuously improve instruction are a very effective means of improving student learning. I also agree that the strategic objectives should be few in number so that teachers can coherently connect the change effort to what they do in the classroom. I also agree with his assertion that staff development needs to be effective and sustained throughout the year so that teachers develop better assessment literacy and can more effectively differentiate instruction so that all of their students achieve.

I support all these points because they are precisely the strategies my clients are focusing on now to achieve the OBJECTIVES for student learning that are explicitly stated in their strategic plans. What I disagree with completely is the assertion that the Cambridge framework for strategic planning (“Bill Cook’s Model”) PREVENTS that from happening. My experience is that strategic planning leverages a school district to get to that point better than anything else that exists. In order to make that case, I have to relate several of my concerns with Schmoker’s article.

LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE CAMBRIDGE FRAMEWORK FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING
After reading Mr. Schmoker’s article several times, it is obvious to me that he is familiar with Dr. Cook’s planning framework, but he really does not understand it. From the article and its references, I know that he read up to page three of Dr. Cook’s first book Strategic Planning for America’s Schools. I also know that “In the late 1980’s, (he) began to work closely with schools to develop such strategic plans.” I suspect he may have been an administrator in a school district which utilized Dr. Cook’s framework. I know he had never attended any of our training sessions.
I also know that he does not know our planning framework well, because he uses terms we have never used. Schmoker uses words such as “needs assessment,” “vision,” and “goals” which have never been part of the Cambridge lexicon. They may be part of someone’s planning process, but not ours. He also claims the words “goals,” “action steps,” “objectives,” “evaluation,” or “results” were used interchangeably and indistinguishable from each other. This is not true. Every term ever used by Cambridge Strategic Services has a unique definition, and each is explicitly written into all our materials. I actually know something about this process, and the one he described bears only a passing resemblance to the one I have taught people over the years.

He also seems to make the implicit assumption that all planning frameworks are the same. As the saying goes, if you have seen one, you have seen them all… Nothing could be further from the truth! By far, the Cambridge framework is the most rigorous framework there is. It is designed that way to ensure school districts actually implement the plans they develop. The reason school districts who have used the framework well have continued to use it over the years is because it has been effective at achieving RESULTS. Even in the face of multiple waves of state and federal mandates and through no less than two recessions, these districts have developed tenacious leaders; administrators, teachers, board members, and community members; who are still committed to creating better schools in their towns.

We have worked with clients who have used and discarded other strategic planning frameworks. Some of these I call: Strategic Planning Lite! They are quick, streamlined processes that do not have a chance to work. They are inexpensive. They are usually chosen so that someone can claim to have a strategic plan rather than because they are committed to dramatically improving student achievement. When strategic planning is done in this way, there is very little commitment from the people who were involved in the planning exercise much less from any constituent in the district who was not involved.

In other cases, the strategic planning process chosen has not been effectively translated from a corporate setting and, hence, is not very meaningful in public education. Strategic planning frameworks vary greatly, and we have gone to great lengths to make ours effective at serving the needs of our education clients. I, too, have very little faith in strategic planning done badly.

Perhaps, what happened was Mr. Schmoker experienced some type of hybrid planning process which mixed and matched pieces from different planning persuasions and got what any sane person would expect when amateurs concoct something without careful thought. I suspect that since he did not like whatever he experienced, he has concluded that strategic planning is worthless.

Consequently, in his zeal to discredit strategic planning, I believe Mr. Schmoker wrote some things that are intellectually dishonest. In his Kappan article, he chooses two quotes from Dr. Cook’s book. Both of these quotes are acknowledging serious problems with strategic planning when it is done ineffectively. These quotes were taken from pages two and three. I wonder if he read beyond the introduction because, in the rest of the book, Cook teaches people how to do strategic planning well in public education.

Mr. Schmoker also totally misrepresents the point of Henry Mintzberg’s seminal work The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. He used one highly selective reference from the book to make the case that all strategic planning is fruitless. Mintzberg’s book was published in 1994. It was a reaction to corporate strategic planning models developed by MBA programs of the 1980s which were enamored with “number-crunching” computerized statistical analysis. The new computer-driven models ridiculed intuitive judgment made by corporate executives as outmoded. What Mintzberg decried was the overreliance on data to the exclusion of critical and creative thinking by corporate leaders. The book never claims that strategic planning is obsolete.

The Cambridge framework, done as designed, always stimulates deep, critical, and creative thinking on the part of all stakeholder participants: teachers, administrators, board members, and community members. Oh, by the way, corporations still use strategic planning. They have to if they want to survive in a world in constant flux. Some corporations do it well, and some do not. Just because some companies plan poorly does not mean that the concept per se is “feckless”.

Schmoker’s point seems to be that since strategic planning frameworks have been used ineffectively, all should be abandoned. That is ridiculous! It is like saying that since some people write bad computer programs, no one should use computers. Or since some orchestras absolutely butcher a Beethoven symphony, all orchestral music is “patently discredited.” Just because some people cannot handle the complexities of making system-wide change within a school system, does not mean that all people should abandon the concept.

LINKING STRATEGIC PLANNING TO EXTERNAL REFORM INITIATIVES
Schmoker claims that strategic planning and external reform initiatives are “close cousins”. He includes “systemic models of reform, accreditation schemes and name-brand whole-school or comprehensive reform designs.” This is conclusive proof that Mr. Schmoker does not understand strategic planning. These “close cousins” are all external prescriptions for change. Genuine strategic planning always depends upon internal locus of control. Dr. Cook has always talked about the need for unrelenting localization. Because of this, he chafes when anyone refers to the Cambridge framework for planning as “the Bill Cook Model.” It is not a model; it cannot be replicated. It is a dynamic, decision-making framework, which engages local leaders in discovering the shared values of the community as well as the long-term aspirations for their schools and classrooms. This is why two similar districts in close geographic proximity who start strategic planning at the same time, will have very distinctive strategic plans. No two school districts are alike. They have distinctive constituencies, organizational cultures, and histories. No one can determine the future direction of a school system better than the people who live and work in that setting.

This is why we have little faith in mandated solutions or imported whole-school reform models developed out of context. The local context colors everything. In fact, nothing has meaning except within the local context. The best a school district gets if it imports a change initiative from the outside is COMPLIANCE by teachers who are expected to implement the changes. Strategic plans that are totally designed and driven by the values and aspirations of local leaders are implemented well because teachers and administrators develop genuine COMMITMENT to see these ideas flourish within their schools. That commitment is developed through the wide-spread involvement by teachers and administrators in designing their own strategic plan.

WHAT IS THE PUBLIC’S ROLE IN PLANNING FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Schmoker’s attitude toward public involvement in transforming public schools is very troubling. He quotes researchers that claim that fragmentation and overload are often a function of planning that requires the involvement of parents and other community members whose input can easily dilute and complicate the improvement effort. What is his point? Is Schmoker saying that we can’t trust the public to know what is best for their own schools? Whose children are these? Whose schools are these? He quotes Fullan here saying “there is no evidence that widespread involvement at the initiation stage is either feasible or effective”. This article was written in 1993. He needs to update his sources! It is 2008, and I can identify scores of districts who have made public participation BOTH feasible and effective. In fact, some superintendents in tremendously effective school districts believe the exact opposite; that they cannot successfully improve student learning without public involvement. Many superintendents insist on involving the pubic every year in evaluating and updating the strategic plan (Solon, OH, Millard, NE).

Apparently, educators cannot trust the public to identify their beliefs, the mission for their children’s schools, or select the right achievement objectives for student learning. These must be left to the professional educators who know what is best. This is arrogance at best and destructive at worst. Because educators have attempted to operate within communities, but not as partners with parents and communities, we have state standards, state and federal accountability schemes, mandates upon mandates, and about 40 percent of the population who want the choice to opt out of the public schools they feel do not serve their needs. Nothing could be more counterproductive to improving student learning than to exclude the public from setting future direction for their own schools.

DEALING WITH TEACHER OVEREXTENSION
In fairness, it seems that Schmoker’s chief concern about involving the public is that the parent and community members will dilute the plan with too many initiatives. That, in turn, will overwhelm the classroom teacher’s ability to implement well that which is most important. That concern is legitimate. I, too, am concerned with overwhelming teachers with too many initiatives, but the solution to that problem is not to deny the public access to planning, nor is it to abandon strategic planning altogether.

The right way to deal with that problem is to confront that issue within the planning process itself. Parents and community members are perfectly capable of understanding the potential to overwhelm teachers and in my experience are willing to defer to the judgment of educators during the planning. There is no predetermined number of objectives or strategies in the Cambridge framework for planning. In fact, we work hard to limit the number of strategic objectives to two or three, and only to adopt those strategies needed to achieve them. It can, and has been done, by many districts. If Schmoker’s experience with strategic planning is restricted to the late 1980s he should take another look.

In the late 80s districts did have more strategies and, hence, more action plans. When they initiated strategic planning, there was more to do. Remember, those were the days before state standards, total quality management, the outcome-based education war, state level accountability assessments, most of the recent brain research, and before widespread access to the internet. Strategic plans developed now are much more focused on what is truly essential to improve student learning. That is true for districts which have used strategic planning for over a decade. It is also true for districts who are just now initiating genuine strategic planning for the first time.

JUST HOW DO WE CREATE THESE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES
Schmoker argues persuasively about the need for professional learning communities as a vital structure to create genuine collaboration among teachers and administrators to dramatically improve student learning. Cambridge Strategic Services could not agree more. What Schmoker does not say is how these communities are created. Do they spontaneously generate when several teachers working alone suddenly and collectively discover that they are trapped in a dysfunctional, under-performing school? Of course not! Are they dependent on the good fortune to have an enlightened leader appointed who will share the vision with others and build the culture of success? If so, not too many schools will have the chance to establish these structures. We really do not know what Schmoker thinks on this issue. All he states is that “these structures” can be established by any leader and not just the rare individual with “charisma.”

When districts use the Cambridge framework for strategic planning, this is how these structures are created. It starts at the first planning session when the planning team establishes a strategy such as “We will ensure staff are using assessment data to improve instruction so all students are meeting or exceeding our standards for learning.” Of course, this strategy is needed in order to achieve a strategic objective like “All students will meet or exceed performance standards identified in the core curriculum”.

The collaboration among teachers begins on the action planning team which designs the specific action plans necessary to fully implement this strategy over the next several years. Once approved by the planning team and the board of education, teachers, and administrators begin to implement those action plans. During the early stages of implementation, more teachers engage in the collaborative dialogue to develop the assessment literacy needed to improve instruction. Usually, this results in early success.

Inevitably, however, impediments to full implementation arise. Some teachers resist change in practice. Other teachers want to improve their practice, but desperately seek more time for collaboration during the school day and throughout the year. The genuine need for more collaboration time, leads to increased pressure to alter calendars and school days. Since these changes affect working conditions, changes are negotiated into collective bargaining agreement. This means budgets are impacted as well as calendars and that cannot be done without public understanding and support.

At the update sessions of the strategic plan, commitment to the strategy and objectives are reaffirmed, and new action plans are designed to address the impediments to successful implementation. The work continues to broaden the number of teachers actively engaged in the new practices until the so called “tipping point” is reached. The district builds more time into the calendar for staff development. Often, school days are altered with periodic two-hour late starting times or early release of students so teachers can have ongoing professional development throughout the year.

When you change time, you must actively cultivate parent support. Working parents often resent early release or late start days because they do not want their children home alone without supervision. If they are not supportive, change initiatives are often scuttled by parent complaints. This is why parent support strategies are also needed within strategic plans.

This is really hard work, and even after years of undeniable success improving student learning, some teachers still resist joining the “collaborative learning community.” The strategic planning process launched the creation of these learning communities; the periodic updates of the strategic plan reaffirmed the commitment to do this important work. Savvy administrators have used the widespread involvement in the planning process to leverage reluctant staff to actively contribute to the success of the change initiative.

Meaningful change is always met with resistance by some staff, and it takes courageous and persistent administrative leaders to see it through to the “tipping point.” The ones I know who have arrived at that point have used the strategic planning process as their primary ally to fight through the difficulty of changing their organizational culture from one of people working in isolation to one which is collaborative and clearly focused on improving student learning.

FROM STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES TO SHORT-TERM ACADEMIC SUCCESS
Schmoker stresses the “importance of targeted, short-term cycles of improvement.” He claims the “key is for teams of professionals to achieve and celebrate a continuous succession of small, quick victories in vital areas.” He cites others who exhort educators to “generate short-term wins” and to “win small, win early, win often.” He cites the need for people to “structure their efforts around clear goals and precise, short-term feedback.” He states that this is “the stuff of commitment and collective momentum.”

Cambridge Strategic Services has no quarrel with this. It sounds like good practice. However, he then makes an assertion that is completely false about the Cambridge strategic planning framework. “This emphasis on continuous, collective, short-term experimentation, judgment, and adjustment is seldom found in strategic plans, which tends instead to constrain the very flexibility and creativity – the collective autonomy – that is the heart of such work.”
In fact, Cambridge has always advocated that implementers have the flexibility to exercise intuitive judgment as they implement approved action plans. Nearly all action plans call for professionals to regularly seek feedback on their practice. Our written literature exhorts teachers and administrators to CONTINUOUSLY CREATE the kind of school system necessary to achieve the district’s mission and objectives for student learning. The regular reviews of progress invite adjustment to written plans and the formal periodic updates of a strategic plan are the mechanism to endorse creative discoveries by including them in the plan. Those updates are also the mechanism to remove action plans from the plan when experience tells people they are not working as intended.

The beauty of strategic planning is that it is only the beginning. It initiates action and unleashes creativity throughout the system toward the intended RESULTS. The Cambridge framework sets long-term OBJECTIVES for student learning that drive the whole system. Then, schools and departments will use those multiple-year strategic objectives to set annual performance indicators. Finally, it is expected that teams of teachers, or even a teacher now and then working alone, will use short-term assessments throughout the year to get those short-term victories. The long-term, system-wide, strategic objective provides the context within which to assess the short-term successes.
The formal periodic updates of the plan allow people from within the system to adjust that plan when the adjustment is needed. Strategic plans should be flexible frameworks which stimulate creative action throughout a school system. They are not five-year plans that people mindlessly pursue without change. Even the Soviet Union gave up on these decades ago.

CONCLUSION
It is unfortunate this response had to be written. Mike Schmoker and Cambridge Strategic Services should be partners. We aspire to the same ends; to empower local educators to dramatically improve student learning within their own districts. He could have avoided the misleading assertions and outright mistakes about the Cambridge framework for strategic planning if he had contacted Dr. Cook, myself, or anyone else at Cambridge Strategics. As he noted, we are easy to find. If he had called, I would have sent him to speak with people in the districts listed below:

Solon City Schools
Solon, Ohio

Millard Public Schools
Omaha, Nebraska

Regional School District 13
Durham, Connecticut

New Haven Unified School District
Union City, California

Pomperaug Regional School District 15
Southbury, Connecticut

Frankfort International School
Frankfurt, Germany

Minnetonka Public School
Minnetonka, Minnesota

Oswego Community School District 308
Oswego, Illinois

My colleagues, Cambridge Senior Associate Lindsey Gunn and Cambridge Senior Strategist Shannon Buerk would likewise reference:

Highland Park ISD
Dallas, Texas

Eanes ISD
Austin, Texas

Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD
Carrollton, Texas

Klein ISD
Klein, Texas

Belton Schools
Belton, Missouri

Reed Union School District
Tiburon, California

Jones County School District
Ellisville, MS

Coppell ISD
Coppell, Texas

The leaders in these districts do not consider the Cambridge framework for strategic planning a “feckless failed reform effort.” They view is as an essential tool to improving student learning. All of them have the RESULTS to prove it. In fact, they have created high-performing school systems.

Every one of these districts is lead superbly by an outstanding superintendent who has worked diligently for years to nurture genuine, collaborative teams of administrators and teachers who have created outstanding school districts. They have done this in active partnership with their parents and community. They have created the kind of school systems that Mr. Schmoker says all communities deserve. If you visit with these educators, they “have great stories to tell about specific, concrete successes that led, cumulatively, to truly systemic success.” Because they are all committed to continuously create a better school system, they all still use Dr. Cook’s framework for planning. Mr. Schmoker’s article does these people a terrible disservice.

—Written, March 2004
—Updated, October 2008