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Question: We the Navajo Nation, have a serious educational problem and that is our student achievement is very low. We would like to improve the student achievement from within. There are method that could be used such as the "Action Research" method, but this would take working on each individual school to address this problem. Any advice would be appreciated.
Answer: Thanks Ernie for your wonderful question and your concern for the young people in your schools. One of the first steps to creating change in schools is to get those in the community to be concerned about the outcomes. You raise a great question that faces us when we address significant issues - Do we have tackle the problem one site at a time or can we create system change? In your case is it one school at a time or something larger in scope. Many of the tools in the Tool Box can be applied to either situation - an individual school or a whole school system. So it really is somewhat your choice? What advantages do you see to tackling the whole system vs. one school? Do you feel you have greater leverage with the whole system or just one school? Creating community change often is better done with a group of allies so these questions might be ones to pose to those willing to work with you. Does that make sense? Feel free to come back to Ask An Advisor and ask follow up questions. We really appreciate your interest.
Question Date: Thu, 04/03/2014