Excerpted from “Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform”
Michael Fullan, Centre for Strategic Education
 ‘Drivers’ are those policy and strategy levers that have the least and the best chance at driving the
change you want to see

Criteria for determining the effectiveness of a driver or set of drivers:
1. Does it foster intrinsic motivation of teachers and students?
2. Does it engage educators and students in continuous improvement of instruction
and learning?
3. Does it inspire collective or team work?
4. Does it affect all teachers and students (100%)?
 The key to success is to situate the energy of educators and students as the central driving force.
(Align the reform to the intrinsic motivation of the participants.)
 Choosing a combination of drivers makes matters significantly worse or better. To achieve
success, base your dominant set of strategies on the right drivers in combination.
 You can use all eight drivers, as long as you make sure the less effective four play a second role
to the right four.
 A first step is to focus on the actual limitations of current levers.
WRONG DRIVERS
- Compelling (at first) for people with
urgent problems
- Are not forever wrong – just badly placed
as leading drivers
- Alter structures and procedures without
reaching the internal substance of reform
RIGHT DRIVERS
- Work directly on changing the culture of
school (values, norms, skills, practices,
relationships)
- Are the anchors of whole system reform
1 - focusing on accountability
using test results and teacher appraisal to
reward or punish teachers, focusing only on
standards and assessments
1 - focusing on capacity-building
building new skills and generating deeper
motivation, focus on the learning-instructionassessment annex to get improvement
2 - individual teacher and leadership quality
promoting individual vs. group solutions
2 - group quality (focus on group development)
embed teacher appraisal in a culture of learning
(teachers are motivated to learn from feedback)
Culture is the driver, appraisal is the reinforcer.
3 - focus on technology
assuming that the wonders of the digital world
will save the day
3 - focus on instruction
teachers need to get grounded in instruction so
they can figure out with students how to best
engage technology
4 - fragmented strategies
breaking things into disconnected pieces
4 - systemic strategies
all elements of the system are interconnected
and involved