If you follow me on twitter and have read a few things I have written, I often talk about how to improve schools.  Many times I believe that some schools do not improve because many people take the wrong approach to school improvement.  We must all remember that schools do not get better because you change things.  They get better because you change the mindset of the stakeholders within the school.

As a fan of fried chicken I came across an article from Brian Solomon of Forbes Magazine about the transformation that took place at Popeyes Chicken.  If you are like me and love fried chicken, you know that Popeyes makes good chicken.  No one can deny that!  However the company was suffering and needed help.  Well, help came in the form of Cheryl Bachelder, the newly hired CEO.  She has been the CEO for 7 years and the last 5 years they have seen unprecedented growth.

So what does fried chicken have to do with transforming a school? I believe the steps that Ms. Bachelder took to transform Popeyes can be applied to schools.

**The first thing that she noticed was that Popeyes restaurants had an image problem.  I can surely echo that.  They were dark and dingy, and sometimes plain dirty.  The actual chicken was good, but folk were starting to believe it wasn’t good based on “the look” of the restaurants.  The same is true of schools.  You have to start from the inside out with the culture of the school.  It has to be bright and happy filled with folks that want to move the school forward.  When people enter they have to believe that their child is receiving a quality education.

**The second thing she did was track how each restaurant was doing after they changed the look and feel of the restaurants.  If you want the people to believe that they are actually doing better after you improve culture you have to back it up with data.  If we say student performance will improve when we are better then they need proof.  Why do we do this?  We do it so we can know what all students learn and can do.  When we know this data we provide feedback incrementally.

**The next thing they figured out at Popeyes was that they needed to keep “the main thing the main thing.”  If you go to Popeyes you will not see any salads on the menu.  Why?  It’s because they are a fried chicken joint, who makes greasy fried chicken.  They do not make salads for P.R. purposes.  Ms. Bachelder simply tells people that she isn’t here to solve the world’s problems at Popeyes.  Schools can learn from this.  When we are transforming a school we need not do what everyone else is doing.  Just do what works for you and your school-community.  It makes things much simpler.

So what do you see when you go to Popeyes now?  The restaurants are bright and colorful, and their product, fried chicken is prominently featured.  They aren’t ashamed of what they are, they own who they are.  This is a special word for those who are in our most challenging zip codes.  Celebrate the gifts your students bring!

So, let’s learn from Popeyes as we transform schools into the places that will make students thrive.
*Change the look and feel (Culture)
*Use data to track the progress or lack thereof of your students so that you can ensure mastery of learning is taking place
*Keep the main thing the main thing!  You can achieve transformation by being who you are and not someone else.

Let’s go to Popeyes!