The Current State of Education

There are many technologies and strategies that have been shown to work in improving educational systems and student outcomes, yet "instead of embedding systems that help schools become a better place to teach and learn critical standards, we've simply increased the number of standards being taught, reduced funding for the arts, disregarded the fact that individuals learn at different rates by creating a timeline of expected learning, and developed numerous punitive sanctions to enforce ill-advised policy (Gavoni & Weatherly, 5)."

Direct Instruction is one of the research-based approaches that has had high success in schools, including Seattle's Morningside Academy featured in a Case Example (Gavoni & Weatherly, 7), but it is not a widely adopted method across the United States. It's hypothesized that this is due to systematic change management, which highlights how difficult it is to make large changes within systems. "'You can't teach and old dog new tricks.' Well, one might consider the educational system the old dog and direct instruction the new trick (Gavoni & Weatherly, 7)."

We are in a state of high turnover in schools, as "teachers and leaders are coming into the field unprepared to meet the demands of the classroom and school." This problem may be brought about by teacher preparation programs focusing more on theory than on providing active practice, feedback, and coaching on the skills they learn about (Gavoni & Weatherly, 20). Many teachers are left to fend for themselves under the many pressures they face in the school environment, including pressure to "teach to the test" to ensure student test scores reflect their competence as a teacher.

There is a great need to improve the connection between preparation program content and what is actually needed in the classroom, as well as a great need to improve school systems to support incoming staff. So where do we go from here?

We need to step away from the blame game and "instead of telling, focus on helping (Gavoni & Weatherly, 27)." The rest of this book will help provide insight on how to fight to support educators.

Science offers us a wealth of reliable information and practices in all sorts of fields, including the fields of education and coaching. Just like we don't go to the tire store and select the "'flavor of the month' tire developed by the plumber around the corner," we should not resort to the "flavor of the month" approach in education (Gavoni & Weatherly, 29).

Overall, when faced with the many problems in educational settings, it's important we do something. But what guides that 'something' that we must do? The answer to this should behavior principles, which are often misunderstood by educational legislators. These include:

• Establishing metrics

• Goal setting

• Pinpointing

• Shaping

• Feedback

• Motivation

"So we strongly encourage you to use the wheel and not reinvent it. A lot of good science has been conducted and applied over a long period of time to help us make good use of our time as educators and leaders. We don't have to rely on trial and error. We don't have to waste half a school year with approaches that don't work. This book offers a summary of some key areas of behavior analysis that we feel can benefit your leadership and culture and offers a few tools based on this science. We hope that this knowledge will help save you some time so that you can truly maximize the time you spend with your students (Gavoni & Weatherly, 33)."