Educators have been addressing change for a long time, and very intensively for the past 15 years. According to Saul Rockman, the problem is that, "’Our reform efforts have dealt with practically every instructional issue one-at-a-time – and still we persist in our belief that schools are not performing as well as we would like and are in need of additional reforms.’" Many disgruntled educators have come to call new efforts in this parade of reform programs the "flavor of the month". Many are reticent to engage in new change initiatives.

Systemic change offers an opportunity to enact change while moving beyond thinking about individuals and individual organizations, single problems and single solutions. It entails thinking about systems – policy systems, education systems, social service systems, information systems, technology systems.

Systemic change is a cyclical process in which the impact of change on all parts of the whole and their relationships to one another are taken into consideration. In the contexts of schools, it is not so much a detailed prescription for improving education as a philosophy advocating reflecting, rethinking, and restructuring.

Essentially, systemic change entails working with stakeholders throughout the system to:

• Create a vision of what you want the system to look like and accomplish.
• Take stock of the current situation.
• Identify strengths and weaknesses of the current system in light of the vision.
• Target several priority items for improvement.
• Establish a plan for addressing these priority items and for measuring success.
• Assess progress regularly and revise actions as needed.
• Take stock again and use feedback to revisit vision and begin cycle again when the action cycle is completed.

For more information on systemic change and related issues, try these links:

AECT Council on Systemic Change - advocates fundamental changes in educational practice to improve learning and to enable technology to achieve its potential for supporting this improvement.

The Stages of Systemic Change - article written by Beverly L. Anderson for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education - Funded by a 5 year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the mission of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is to continuously develop new knowledge about what is needed to initiate and sustain deep systemic changes in K-12 public education.

Systemic Change: Rethinking the Purpose of School - an article written by Tony Wagner, Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group

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In the Toolkit: