Schools want to improve student learning but often they do not have a vehicle for it.  The authors show how the use of SMART goals can help transform a district or a school into high student achievement.

The writers  frame the  thinking of  districts and school around a triangle-based graphic. Inside the triangle is “shared responsibility for leadership”. At the lower left is Reflection with the questions of “Where are we now?” and “What are we learning?”. Then there is Leadership on the left. At the top is Focus with the questions (“Where do we want to be?” and  “Where should we focus next?). To the right is Capacity. At the lower right is Collaboration with the question (“How will we get to where we want to be?”).

SMART goals are strategic and specific, measurable, attainable, result-based, and time-bound. They are strategic since they focus on the few areas (the vital few)  that are the greatest area of need; they align district, school and team goals. Likewise, specific goals are concrete, tangible evidence of improvement; they target specific skills and specific students. SMART goals can be measured by summative and formative measures. The frequent, ongoing  formative assessment provides feedback as to success or the need for change.  These SMART goals  include where the students are now and where the institution wants them to be (attainable).  Since the goals are results-based, educators have immediate feedback as to the success or the re-evaluation of the goal.  Lastly, SMART goals are time-bound; the authors suggest most districts need three  years to see a change, schools may be do shorter time limits and classroom teachers even shorter. The authors include a graphic organizer with goal, indicators, measures, and targets. For example, a school may have the goal of “85% of students will be proficient writers at their grade level within 3 years”, an indicator (criteria) can be writing organization, a measure the district or state test, and one of the targets “65% will be proficient by the end of year 1”. One technique for measurement is to color code the writing rubric with green (above proficient), blue (proficient), yellow (below proficient) and red (way below proficient). Classroom teachers can focus their SMART goals on increasing the number of students in the above proficient and proficient zones.

Goal achievement is based on the leadership of the principal, team leaders  teachers, and students. Teachers become empowered as they collaboratively work on identifying learning outcomes, devising common comprehensive assessments,  identifying proficiency levels that all students should achieve,  investigating “best practices” in research and in other teachers' classrooms, analyzing student achievement  data, reflecting on their efforts, and sharing successes. As they see that their students improve in their learning in the SMART goal, the teachers  and the students  feel successful.  Based on the explicitly stated learning goals and analysis of their own work, students can create their own SMART goals and self-assess themselves. For example, a student might write “I can create pieces of writing to tell others how I am thinking or feeling by spring vacation” as her goal, her indicator is “I can write sentences with different beginnings”, her measure is “Do Begin Again! Sentences” her target is “My writing will earn a rating of 3”, and her methods of achieving the goal include “practicing writing sentences” and “self-assess”.

When curriculum, assessment and goals are linked, powerful teacher and student learning can take place. SMART goals help districts and schools to  approach student learning through a systemic fashion. The authors present numerous case studies of schools that have turned themselves around, going from a “low performing” schools to a “highest performing” schools.

Readers of this book will want to begin to use SMART goals so that their students will be smarter!

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