Introducing KEYS and its Importance to CSI

How the KEYS Survey Supports Continuous School Improvement

The KEYS survey is an instrument that helps a school community identify the status of conditions in its school that are essential to productive teaching and learning. The conditions that the survey helps schools examine are those that research has identified as having important influences on the quality of teaching and learning. To learn more about research on effective schools, CLICK HERE. [link 1c]

The KEYS survey plays at least two important roles in the CSI process.  First, it identifies conditions that will influence the improvement process itself.  For example, the survey helps a school identify its readiness to engage in collaborative action. Second, the survey facilitates an understanding of conditions in schools that may need improvement in order to accelerate student achievement.  For example, the survey helps in the assessment of the adequacy of professional development. To learn more about how the KEYS survey supports continuous school improvement, CLCK HERE. [link 1d]

You should anticipate that users of KEYS will have numerous questions about KEYS the survey.  Answers to many of these questions depend on the situation in your school.  Being ready with the answers, if you are a facilitator or teacher leader, will significantly affect the response of the school community to the use of the KEYS survey. To learn more about the KEYS survey, CLICK HERE. www.keysonline.org/guide/intro_data.htm

As you consider using the KEYS survey, it will be helpful to anticipate some issues that may need to be addressed when schools participate.  The NEA has commissioned research on the implementation of the KEYS 2.0 process.  To learn more about this, CLICK HERE.  [link 1e]

Commentary

•    The relationship between the conditions assessed by KEYS survey and continuous school improvement is summarized by Michael Fullan in Chapter 1 of The Keys to Effective Schools book.

•    Rubén Cedeño, Senior Policy Analyst, NEA. Rubén Cedeño discusses two ways that KEYS survey promotes continuous improvement is outlined.

•    Kenneth Leithwood, Professor of Education at the University of Toronto, Kenneth Leithwood is among the most prominent scholars studying school reform. He shares his observations on the importance of the conditions assessed by the KEYS survey to good teaching and the role of leaders in facilitating the kinds of changes promoted by KEYS-CSI.

•    Mark Smylie, Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, describes the characteristics of schools that were able to improve in Chicago emphasizing the importance of professional collaboration and shared responsibility assessed by the KEYS survey.

Link 1e

Lessons Learned from Research on Uses of the KEYS Survey
 
Research and Commentary

The NEA commissioned several studies of early efforts to implement KEYS in sites throughout the country. In a book reporting on these cases entitled, Self Reflective Renewal in Schools: Local Lessons from a National Initiative,  Portin, Beck, Knapp and Murphy (2004)  make the case that five prerequisite conditions need to be in place for a process such as the KEYS survey to be optimal:

a) a sense of precipitating issues and a sense of urgency;

b) concerted leadership;

c) school-level discretion;

d) access to resources; and

e) familiarity with data analysis.

No doubt these lesson apply equally to the implementation of the KEYS-CSI process.

•    Michael Knapp: Director of the National Center for Teaching and Policy at the University of Washington. Michael Knapp shares some of the lessons learned from his studies of efforts to implement the KEYS survey in two schools.(Transcript available)

•    Joseph Murphy: Professor of Educational Administration at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. Joseph Murphy has studied school change throughout the United States and conducted a case study of the uses of the KEYS survey. He shares his comments on the importance of viewing the KEYS survey in context.(Transcript available)


•    Mark Smylie: Professor, University of Illinois, Chicago. Mark Smylie describes two obstacles that one KEYS school experienced when it launched a KEYS reform effort. (Transcript available)