Trust & Improvement in Schools

Louis’ article examines how trust affects teachers’ willingness to work with innovations introduced by central office administrators. Data was collected over a three-year period in five schools and were used to analyse “the centrality of trust to teachers’ willingness to work with administrators to implement continuous improvement and quality management practices for their schools and classrooms” (Louis, 2007,p.1). Two of the schools were characterized by high trust and high willingness to change. The remaining three were characterised by mistrust. Louis’ findings generally support Bryk and Schneider’s (2002) conclusion that trust is a core resource for school improvement and change. Where the trust level was high, change was easily introduced and vice-versa.

Three things stood out for me when I read the article. The first was this statement: “Many schools have weak overall levels of relational trust among adult employees, even when there are pockets of high relational trust in small groups of like-minded teachers (Goddard et.al, 2001, cited by Louis)”. As I reflect on this statement, I believe this is also generally reflective not only of the schools back home but my previous school as well. Louis’ states that it is the leaders who need to create and maintain trust. Between institutional and relational trust, the former is perhaps ranked higher than the former in our schools. Louis (2007) states that school leaders are required to create trust by having “daily relationships” (p.18) with their staff. This generally requires a conscientious effort on the part of school leaders to create this relationship. Also, it entails putting administrative work on the back burner rather than on the front burner as day-to day social exchanges take up time. Generally, most school leaders are so swamped by administrative work and deadlines that to find the time to engage in “daily relationships” or “day-to-day social exchanges” (Bryk and Schneider, 2003, p. 43) with their teachers is sometimes difficult, if not impossible for them to do. Perhaps that explains why many schools have weak overall levels of relational trust among adult employees Once a school administrator, I realized that I had not taken the time to engage in daily relationships with my staff due to heavy administrative work. Having read Louis’ article as well as Bryk and Schneider’s article, I am convinced that school administrators “must pay more attention to transactional considerations (usually categorized as manager)” (p.18) even while they try to achieve their “transformative goals (often associated with leadership). The phrase “more attention” indicates the tipping of the scale towards transactional considerations. This is something school administrators back home need to be conscious about and make every effort to ensure that the scale tips more to transactional considerations so that a climate of trust can be built up in their schools and trust as seen in Bryk and Schneider’s (2003) study has suggested that it can enlarge “the arena for legitimate action on the part of the administrators, and during a change process, this ‘goodwill’ can be an important resource” (p.18).

The second thing that stood out was the need for administrators to “assess current level of trust in a building prior to initiating a significant change” (Louis, 2007, p,18). This is indeed a wise step to take. Yet, this is not done. Often school administrators back home initiate change because of the directives that have from higher authorities. When they encounter resentment from the staff or when the outcome is unexpected, they often wonder why. The answer is possibly due to low relational trust in their schools. It is therefore wise to assess and address trust issues before initiating changes especially in schools where the level of trust is low. Personally, I feel that school leaders should also consider two other factors - timeliness and availability of resources when implementing a change in their organizations as these factors can affect the implementation and outcome of new initiative.

The third thing that stood out for me in the article was that “administrators …must be ruthless in scrutinizing how their behavior and context are interpreted by others” (Louis, 2007, p.19). Louis (2007) suggested using “techniques like rapid feedback 360 evaluations, in which subordinates and peers provide anonymous assessments of performance” (p.19). What troubles me is how many school administrators actually do this? Scrutinizing one’s own behavior and how one’s context is being interpreted by others can be a very sensitive issue for some school administrators. School administrators must have an open mind if they are to undertake such a task. Also, there needs to be a follow-up of the feedback from the 360 evaluations. For school administrators who are not ready for the 360 evaluation, perhaps they can ruthlessly engage in reflective practice as it can help increase their awareness of their professional performance and enable them to improve their performance (Blase and Blase, 2004). In a society such as ours that is so Asian and conservative in nature, reflective practice is perhaps more acceptable and non-threatening to the school leaders.