ABSTRACT
Organizational learning as a model for school reform suggests that staff working within a school setting share a common social understanding related to the purposes of their work. Agassiz Elementary and Okanagon Middle School were chosen to illustrate our basic argument: any school can become a learning organization. In Agassiz, the extensive role of the school in parent education is also emerging, while at Okanagon the teachers’ recent efforts to design and score school-wide assessments reflect a sea-change in their sense of collective responsibility for student learning. The recognition of these shifts increases teachers’ sense of excitement about learning: they see themselves as challenging what others think and believe about teachers and inner-city schools. In Agassiz, the principal were viewed by teachers, and viewed themselves, as the source of ongoing intellectual leadership on a daily basis. In Okanagon and Agassiz, information distribution and interpretation can be best thought of as focusing on the use of information to enhance shared understandings.
