A Second Look at an Ontario Provincial Student Success Initiative: An Emergent Ethic of Care

In 2003, the Ontario Government undertook a comprehensive multi-year Student Success Strategy to keep more young people learning to age 18 or graduation. This followed the release of a Ministry commissioned research report showing that Ontario's graduation rates lagged behind other provinces in Canada, and that up to 30% of students did not complete diploma requirements. As a result, from 2004 to 2007, the Government of Ontario, Canada provided funding to district school boards across the province for local development of 225 "Lighthouse Projects" designed for at-risk students who had difficulty coping with mainstream programming in secondary schools, or were at risk of dropping out of school, or who had already left school without graduating. The Lighthouse Projects Initiative (LPI) exemplified an approach to educational change that was radically different than the traditional top-down model in which changes are designed centrally and then mandated for adoption and implementation at the local level. Instead, this LPI illustrated a process of mutual engagement (Campbell, Elliott-Johns, & Wideman, 2010) in which the central authority supported local projects to develop and evaluate creative solutions to shared problems. The experience of the LPI supported Furman's (2004) argument for valuing the development of shared leadership, local autonomy, and problem solving as a means of school improvement in the twenty-first century. Towards the end of the Ministry funded lifespan of the LPI a research study was undertaken by Curriculum Services Canada (CSC) who commissioned Wideman & Shields (2007) to review the nature and impact of these initiatives. The research provided insights that were helpful for provincial and school board authorities to consider policies and directions to support program flexibility in schools to serve the needs of students for whom the traditional school program has proved inadequate. While officials were pleased with the outcome of that study, they felt that more insight could be gained from a second view of the LPI. The key focus of this article pertains specifically to the ethic of care that emerged from the analysis of the LPI data and it's implications for shared educational leadership.