Home makeover shows are everywhere. They’ve been around for a good while now. I can still remember some Saturdays growing up flipping between cartoons and finding Bob Vila renovating another home on This Old House. What I have noticed about some of our newer shows in this genre is that many times, the minute walls are starting to get torn down or floor is being ripped up, there is an “uh oh” moment when those working discover something. That’s when it typically cuts to commercial, and you have to wait to find out that a wall wasn’t constructed by code or there’s a leak and the floor is rotting away or something that will cause angst or drama in a genre that doesn’t really lend itself to suspense. Typically what is found has to be repaired first before any other work can continue. The same is true in our schools.
Contractors and home builders can install the finest of fixtures. The highest quality materials can be chosen with care and aesthetic concern. Now, we can integrate all sorts of technology into our homes as they are constructed, making it so smart it is scary. We can pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into all this great stuff that would make a home the envy of the neighborhood. But, if we skimp on the foundation, we might have a problem. If we don’t pay close attention to making it level, ensuring proper drainage, verifying that it is square, spending the time and energy to build a quality, strong and durable foundation for rest of the home to be built upon, then all of that other time, money and energy we pour into all the other stuff won’t matter at all. The house may sink on one side, walls will crack, the house could even collapse if the foundation isn’t what it needs to be to support it.
Obviously this is a Tier 1 parable. Right now, districts and schools are funneling money, time and resources into our Tiers 2 and 3. We see a wall with a crack needing spackling and repainting. Add a new reading intervention program. We need to update our lighting and sound system in the house. Add a new technology to provide instructional support. The tile needs replacing in the kitchen. Add new materials for teachers to utilize to assist students who are behind. We see all these issues, but we aren’t addressing where the real work needs to take place: the foundation.
We cannot spend our way, work our way, program our way, edtech our way, intervene our way out of a foundationally flawed Tier 1. We can continue to remodel, renovate and rejuvenate all of the other components, but if what we provide as the core support for everything we do in the classroom isn’t firm, consistent, solid, and learning centered, we are just blowing money, manpower and materials. Tier 1, just like any home, requires a quality design to be constructed. Design ensures that all the other decisions that will eventually be made have a common potential and purpose. Design makes certain that a quality is present. This quality will provide the long lasting effective foundation on which everything else can be built. The other things we add on will work better, last longer and have higher value when the foundation they all are built upon is one of quality, strength, and durability by design.
So before we spend another day or another dime on other projects and upgrades, rip what we do down to the studs and look at the foundation. Make sure it’s solid by design. Then, and only then, will everything else we do make any kind of difference.
