The AECT FutureMinds: Transforming American School Systems Initiative

Two pieces of information that are exciting for me to share...

1. The national Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) has a Division of Systemic Change. Members of that division teach, write about, and facilitate systemic change in school systems and other organizations. I recently (March, 2007) became the president-elect of that division.

2. A group of us within the AECT Division of Systemic Change submitted a proposal to the AECT board of directors to launch a new, nationwide initiative to collaborate with selected state departments of education to help them create and sustain systemic transformational change in selected school systems within their states.

Last week, that proposal was accepted unanimously by the AECT board of directors. I am one of the co-directors of this new nationwide initiative, which will be called "FutureMinds: Transforming American School Systems." The other co-director is Dr. Charles Reigeluth from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

The methodology we will be using to help selected state departments of education transform selected school systems in their states is a modified version of my methodology for creating and sustaining transformational change in school systems (called Step-Up-To-Excellence--SUTE). SUTE was blended with Dr. Reigeluth's methodology to create a hybrid methodology that we are calling "The Duffy-Reigeluth School System Transformation Protocol." Dr. Reigeluth has been using an earlier version of this blended methodology to facilitate whole-system change in the Metropolitan School District of Decatur, Indiana (you may visit the website for their transformation journey at http://www.indiana.edu/~syschang/decatur/publications.html).

The new SST Protocol will be described in my 9th book on whole-system change that I am currently writing with the working title "Dream! Create! Sustain!: Mastering the art & science of school system transformation." The book will become part of my Leading Systemic School Improvement Series published by Rowman & Littlefield Education (you may visit the website for the Series by going to http://www.rowmaneducation.com/Series/ and then clicking the link for the series).