On why we can’t (and shouldn’t) do everything

The hidden costs of whole-school programs

The hot mess of priorities in many schools. Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash.

Some interventions seem too good to be true. They’re low-cost, straightforward, seemingly minimal engagement, but produce potentially outsized results. Take mindfulness to support wellbeing and growth mindset to improve outcomes as examples. There’s just one little problem: they often don’t work. 

Mindfulness has been found to be ineffective at best and harmful at worst. This phenomenon is called iatrogenic harm, where the treatment itself can be damaging. Similarly, growth mindset programs delivered by teachers have produced mixed results. If such treatments cost nothing but a little teacher-tweaking and some time, why not roll the dice to see if students can benefit? In order to scratch an itch, I’m going to try to tease this question apart, not only in relation to low-cost interventions, but any whole-school efforts. 

First, let me say that academic interventions (almost) get a free pass. If we ask the question, “Could student outcomes be better?” and the answer is yes, then play on. This goes for high and low performing schools, and everyone in the middle. Could your gifted students be learning more? Do students experience a teacher-lottery at your school each year? Is every minute of student time valued as if it belonged to the teacher’s own child? Then crack on. Implement that program. Put all your muscle behind it. Just use the data to identify where the more urgent need is. There’s no point implementing a Mathematics intervention if nobody can read. 

Thinking about the recent mandates to adopt explicit teaching, people may ask whether there’s data justifying this as a potentially national approach. Well, one in three students still fails to meet NAPLAN standards. Our rankings benefited from an international PISA malaise in 2023, but I don’t think that’s cause to celebrate. Since we are in the business of teaching young people things, I’m going to go right out there and say that academic programs where a need has been identified, and which are evaluated for efficacy, should be present in schools, even if just one focus area at a time, as I explained in this recent post. 

But what about other programs, like the ones I mentioned earlier, that appear low-cost? I was recently at a professional learning session where we heard about the kinds of professional learning that improves student outcomes. For example, this intervention focused on ensuring teacher interactions with students produced greater motivation and effort, with its foundations based on the autonomy-supportive practices that underpin self-determination theory. We know these practices to work — and they did! Simple changes to the ways we interact with students can produce exceptional results. 

However, there were significant costs which go some way to explain the program’s success. The program was supported by remote coaches, with teachers recording their lessons for feedback. The program spanned 13 months with 20 yearly hours of in-service training at a cost of $3,700USD per teacher — small change in the US apparently! The per-student cost was relatively small. But just as I suspected, a full-school financial and time commitment ensured fidelity. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

I suspect that one of the reasons some programs work is because of the equivalent of newbie gains. In the example above, greater gains are going to be seen when outcomes, motivation and school culture are already poor. Primary students make greater gains because they learn so much so quickly, and under this logic, so would secondary disadvantaged schools. That’s not to diminish the results, but it provides valuable context when schools are deciding which programs or projects to focus on, or whether to implement a program at all. 

To answer the ‘whether’ part, I’ll illustrate with a scenario. Say that we all agree that patting puppies is good for student wellbeing. And we know wellbeing is an inherently good thing — it’s even linked to stronger academic outcomes. The Patting Puppies Program only takes a few hours of teacher professional learning per year and just three minutes of class time per day — and who doesn’t love puppies? 

Now, let’s slow down a second. Three minutes per lesson, five periods, five days for 40 weeks is two weeks of potential content and skill teaching. And we know that competence is also essential for student wellbeing. What professional learning is being displaced by the PPP? How do we evaluate this distal measure of student outcomes? Did we collect data on whether students already had puppies at home? What’s the aim? Improved wellbeing? Improved outcomes? Did teachers facilitate puppy patting or secretly get on with their teaching? 

There are an infinite amount of things schools could do. The research about ‘what works,’ especially when it comes to initiatives that fall outside of ‘what works in most schools,’ will only get us so far in our decision-making. The nuanced answer to how we decide may come from a writer other than myself. The boring answer is to use data to establish whether there is a need — and if you don’t have data on the need for puppies, get some! Ultimately, nothing in schools is truly low-cost so it’s worth investing more time and effort in establishing whether the ‘problem’ is the burning problem we think it is.

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I am running a workshop on Explicit Instruction in the Humanities at Matthew Flinders Anglican College in early April 2025. The event line-up is incredible, with Dr Nathaniel Swain (excellent Substack here), Bronwyn Ryrie-Jones and Brendan Lee (excellent podcast here) to name but a few. I say this now as it’s on the Sunshine Coast and it’s worth planning ahead. It’s great to see schools who are leading the charge and I am so looking forward to meeting you in person there!