December 24, 2025
On the genius of Ron Edmonds
As I think I have mentioned scores of times, Andrew, Tom and I have been working on a book on equitable and adaptive instruction. We submitted the manuscript at the end of October. The book is intended to fill a gap that we identified when we started diving deeper into the research on high quality, equitable instruction at the start of the pandemic—the gap is between, on the one hand, the literature that assumes that if teachers know about the impact of low expectations on students, they will teach differently, and on the other hand that very little is written for practitioners about the actual instructional practices that enact high expectations for students in the form of asking all students to engage in cognitively demanding tasks. We didn’t initially connect our work to the research tradition called Opportunity to Learn (OTL), but we get the connection now, and so the book will be called Maximizing Opportunity to Learn, and it will be out in the spring: pre-order here from Teachers College Press!
The book closes with a quotation from Ron Edmonds from an Ed Leadership article called Effective Schools for the Urban Poor, published in 1979:
It seems to me, therefore, that what is left of this discussion are three declarative statements: (a) We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us; (b) We already know more than we need to do that; and (c) Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.
So I have been thinking about Edmonds a lot lately. I have known about his 1979 article for as long as I can remember working in US schools; one of the cool things about moving to Connecticut was meeting people—especially Pat Proctor and Mary Jo Kramer, who were kind enough to share their experience with me—who worked with Edmonds and knew him well. (If there is one educator that I wish I could meet, it would be Ron Edmonds, but he died young, and even photographs of him are rare—the one at the top of this post was the only one I could find, no date, no attribution.)
Edmonds was, fundamentally, questioning the assumption that students’ academic careers are already mapped out by their family backgrounds and social circumstances. That was seen by many as the conclusion of Equality of Educational Opportunity, better known as the Coleman Report, published in 1966. That study found that student achievement was more strongly associated with family background than with school-level inputs like funding or facilities (I wrote about it also in Coaching Letter #185). And it turns out that it’s true: student achievement is more strongly associated with family background than with factors such as funding or facilities. But that’s a far cry from concluding that school-level factors cannot overcome students’ social circumstances. That’s because there is a counter-interpretation: that schools, far from being organized and mobilized to eliminate achievement gaps, actually perpetuate them.
In his famous 1979 article,, Edmonds argued that schools could make a profound difference, if they chose to. Edmonds was calling out the selective compassion of the American education system—the way some students’ learning is treated as a moral imperative, while others’ is treated as optional. He identified “correlates” of effective schools (I’m not sure if he used that language—here I’m drawing on my notes from principal prep 30 years ago!):
- Strong Instructional Leadership. Effective schools have principals who focus on instruction as their primary responsibility—not just operations or compliance. They set clear academic expectations and support teachers in meeting them.
- High Expectations for All Students. Edmonds was emphatic that educators must believe in the capacity of all students to learn at high levels. He viewed low expectations as a form of institutional discrimination.
- Safe and Orderly Environment. A calm, predictable school climate is necessary for student learning. This includes both physical safety and psychological safety—students need to feel respected, included, and supported.
- Basic Skills Acquisition as the School’s Primary Purpose. While “basic skills” was the phrase used at the time, this correlate refers to a clear focus on academic achievement. Edmonds argued that schools should not be distracted from their primary mission.
- Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress. Effective schools regularly assess student learning—not just for accountability, but to adjust instruction and support as needed. Monitoring is formative, not punitive.
- Time on Task. Edmonds emphasized maximizing instructional time—ensuring that students spend a high percentage of the school day engaged in meaningful academic work.
I was sure there was one on mission, but ChatGPT tells me that that was a later addition to similar frameworks. Nevertheless, there is a strong implicit message in Edmonds’ writing that all students can learn and the mission of public schooling is to ensure that happens, and if you are old enough, like me, you probably still have a tote bag or a mug that you got at a conference workshop that says All Children Can Learn—that swag is a direct descendant of the 1979 article.
Edmonds didn’t deny the power of poverty, discrimination, or systemic neglect. He just refused to let those realities become excuses for inaction. He insisted that we already know how to support learning—that high expectations, strong leadership, effective use of time, and frequent monitoring of student progress aren’t mysterious or untested ideas. But the part that took me the longest time to understand was the part about whether we change moving forward is dependent on how we feel about our failures up to this point.
And then… we were already working on an article for an upcoming issue of the Kappan on why we should be heeding the work of Edmonds and focusing on what works for marginalized students (as opposed to chasing the latest innovation) when we got this piece of feedback from one of the participants in one of our networks:
I still feel like I do not know exactly what is expected of us. I also do not like feeling like many of the successes I’ve felt over the years don’t matter because we are going to be expected to change our way of thinking. I’m all for new and fresh ideas, but I do not find it advantageous to start over. As educators, we know full well that no one strategy works for everyone, so to be made to feel as though we need to change what we do and make it fit for all kids is preposterous to me. And I am so sick of teaching for the data! It is time we went back to teaching to the children!
That one took me aback—and I can rationalize away a lot of it, like the fact that they’re still confused when I think we’ve been clear, or that we’re peddling new and fresh ideas when in fact we are invoking research that’s been around a long time, or that we are asking people to teach to the data when we’ve put this heavy emphasis on process, because outcomes are just the end result of process—but it also hit me that this is the most perfect embodiment of Edmonds’ point that I have ever seen: “to be made to feel as though we need to change what we do and make it fit for all kids is preposterous to me.”
So, what to do? This Coaching Letter is an homage to Edmonds but it’s also setting the stage for future Coaching Letters. Because if our mechanisms for change rely on individuals overcoming how they feel about what we have done so far, we’re sunk. And our usual responses aren’t going to save us. As a profession we have an annoying tendency to shake our heads with a “what can you do?” expression on our faces, and use language like “will and skill”, “change is scary”, and “buy-in”, which shift all the onus for change onto the individual. I feel for the teacher who gave us that feedback. They should not feel like they’re in a position where they have to defend their work up to this point. So in future coaching letters I’m going to write about big ideas like the theory of constraints, practice architectures, and mental models. My goal is to never have another leader ask me: “How do I get teachers to…” when the question should be “What conditions and structures should I create?” I figure if I put this ambition in writing, I’m more likely to do it—because there’s research on public goal commitment—so we’ll see how that works out.
Whatever your religious or spiritual tradition, I hope the rest of 2025 affords you some time to rest and recharge, because we have work to do if we’re going to change the world. All best wishes to you and yours, Isobel
Isobel Stevenson, PhD PCC
860-576-9410
@IsobelTX
Author of The Coaching Letter
Author with Jennie Weiner of The Strategy Playbook for Educational Leaders: Principles and Processes Routledge, 2021
Author with Sarah Woulfin & Kerry Lord of Making Coaching Matter: Leading Continuous Improvement in Schools Teachers College Press, 2023
