Visionary Leadership, Focus on Success for All Students, and a Dash of Humility

Yesterday the AASA named Marc Johnson of Sanger, California the National Superintendent of the Year. I happened to meet Marc a few weeks ago at a superintendents' conference and was very impressed with him. He is passionate, wise, and committed to kids -- and very modest about his accomplishments -- he was able to turn around a failing district in just a few years - and not with millions in federal funding. Read here to learn more.

What Marc did was focus on a limited set of critical results for student achievement and then depend on teacher collaboration to develop solutions. Good teachers want to improve the learning environment for students and they generally know how to do it. Marc Johnson knew this and initiated professional learning communities in Sanger, and then got out of the way.

Teachers collaborated to develop, implement and measure strategies to make every student successful. Now the district is no longer in school improvement and most of the schools are achieving at high levels. The results are magnificent!

What did the teachers do? They identified minimum standards for students to achieve at every grade level and then committed to help every single child achieve those objectives (rather than pushing them to the next grade unprepared).  Through the PLCs they shared best practices and coached each other. They always focused on the kids - not politics - and the school leadership ensured that everything that worked was measured and replicated.

It's not that complicated, but in most districts, there are too many distractions on 'new programs' to perform miracles rather than focusing on the processes that work.

"Bust a Deal and Face the Wheel" - The Craziness of High Stakes Testing!

Sometimes moments in your life become juxtaposed to create a heightened awareness of reality - or -  a new view of it.

I just watched Mad Max - Return to Thunderdome for the umpteenth time and then a few days later during the holidays I listened as my nephew described the depressing situation in his elementary school.  The story thrust a line from the movie into my head - "Bust a deal and face the wheel" uttered by Auntie Entity (Tina Turner).

First, the background. Dan is a gifted special ed teacher who has dedicated his career to helping children, like his mentally disabled brother, achieve the highest levels possible. Yet, it is challenging to say the least. Every day he sees slight progress - he's a professional and recognizes and can measure his students' progress.

Yet, once a year the teachers are forced to administer the state tests. And here's the "deal": if your students pass with adequate yearly progress, the government will leave you alone. But if they don't make the expected progress, and you "bust the deal." you become a failing school and get to "face the wheel" - choosing between longer hours for more drill and kill, getting fired or furloughed, being taken over by a charter organization, etc.

So he is now in a failing school.

Here's the craziness of it all. Our rules around testing in the U.S. seem almost as strange as the rules in Barter Town in the movie, a bureaucracy carved out for a failing system. When Dan tests his kids, they must be tested at their grade level and they must read the test by themselves. Now the population in his school is 25% special education (it is a kind of magnet school) and on top of that, 50% ESL, leaving only 25% of the students without these challenges. He told me of one boy who had just arrived in this country from Africa, who could speak no English, and was directed by the teacher to 'play the game' of marking one circle per question - questions that he could not read!

One test, on one day out of 180 school days, determines the fate of an entire school community. Welcome to Thunderdome! "Two men enter, one man leaves" - 50% drop out rates have some root causes and this is one of them!

Dan is thinking of changing careers, though he really doesn't want to - he loves his students. But for his mental health, he might have to.

We must stop the insanity! Give back the schools to their communities and apply what we know works to make all schools better!

Bill Gates - Education Reform Expert Strikes Again

Once again, billionaire Bill Gates, philanthropist extraordinaire, announces his simplistic solutions for education reform at the Council of Chief School Officers annual meeting (Gates Urges School Budget Overhauls). In his speech, Gates recommends re-aligning school budgets, but then he focuses on specific teacher-related budget cuts like ending tenure (I agree, but for different reasons), eliminating incentive pay for graduate work, and worst of all, creating larger class sizes and reducing the number of teachers.

This article really frustrated me. How can Gates appoint himself an expert on education when he doesn't even take the time to back up his beliefs with research? Focusing solely on teachers is just wrong-headed. Sure teachers can get better, and I am against tenure - I saw enough bad teachers protected not only by the union but by administrators who simply liked them. But teaching is the core competency of education. A lot can be done to improve medical services by improving doctors' skills, for example, but would we undermine them by not rewarding them for keeping up with the profession? 

If we want to improve teaching, let's look at the top performing countries in the recent PISA report from OECD. The top countries view teachers as professionals and spend a lot of money on training them initially and then continuing to improve their skills with professional learning communities. They look at teaching and learning as processes that can be documented, replicated, and measured. 

Let's look at the process of teaching and learn from best practices. Targeting a few specific band-aids and focusing only on outcomes will do nothing to improve teaching and will only alienate those who are doing a great job and not being recognized.

By the way, great teachers are leaving American schools on their own. Several studies have shown that 50% of teachers leave within the first 5 years. This isn't only about pay, it's more about the hostile, bureaucratic, and stifling environment these professionals are working in. 

Instruments as Technology - Teacher as Conductor

I recently watched a wonderful show on PBS about the 125 year history of the Boston Pops Orchestra. and it reminded me of the most important role of a teacher - to be the conductor of learning. The Pops latest conductor, Keith Lockhart (who had big shoes to fill - Fiedler, Williams), said he was intimidated but eager to take on the role. He believed that as a conductor he knew his role was "to inspire his musicians; they can't be coerced." He has faith in the musicians and it's his role to create the vision and the story, and let the musicians create the result.

A friend of mine who is a wonderfully creative, ambitious, and technology-savvy teacher recently proved what I mean about teacher as conductor. Her district was considering a one-to-one laptop solution and gave her 3 MacBooks and 3 iPod Touch's for one month near the end of the school year. The goal was to prove to the School Board that the addition of this technology would improve engagement and learning in her 5th grade class immediately and that they should invest their technology budget in this solution.

Putting the challenge in her hands was the genius of the superintendent. Lyssa KNOWS educational technology and has been desperate to get it into the hands of her underserved students. She immediately went to work teaching every student the basics of using the equipment, the accompanying software, and exposed them to many online tools and websites.

She DIDN'T create a complicated curriculum. Instead she set goals for a final product to have them demonstrate their knowledge in the most creative ways. And off they went!

In one month the 30 kids in her class explored and then almost mastered over ten different online tools and every application on the MacBook. They taught themselves! They did their research and then created wonderful representations of their learning in a variety of formats. There were no discipline problems, there was intense engagement, and many stayed after school to get to use the computers. (Remember, she had only 3 of each device).

After one month, Lyssa presented, with her kids, to the School Board to make the case for technology. She showed their work and their testimonials, and the students themselves spoke about the intense engagement they felt - that they were finally free to learn the way they were comfortable. There were tears on the faces of the adults in that room to see those kids so passionate.

Lyssa was truly a conductor in this situation. She determined a vision for her students' learning, gave them access to their 'instruments' and guided them to individual outcomes that, woven together, created a powerful learning symphony.

For the kids, their instruments are the technology, the music is their learning.

Give Kids Technology and Let Them Go - They Will Show You Amazing Things!

I recently attended an exciting technology open house at my local K-8 school district. The combination of a visionary principal, hard-working staff, committed parents, and a persistent fundraiser brought a one-to-one laptop solution to the schools in only one year.

Looking in on our well-to-do community, one might not be surprised that we were able to do this from a financial perspective. But that is not what is important here. Many communities, wealthy and poor, are finding ways to make computers accessible to every student. What is impressive here is that in less than one year, all teachers and students are using these computers throughout the curriculum, throughout every day.

This isn't because the teachers are forcing their use, but because the kids are being allowed to use computers as a work tool - something quite natural for them. For this to happen, teachers need confidence that they can ease their need for control and let learning occur. To help with this they visited other successful 1:1 schools, attended many hours of professional development, and were coached and encouraged by hard-working educational technology specialists. Teachers are comfortable letting the kids take out the computers whenever they need to. What resulted was not the typical "once a year major multimedia project" as one teacher told me, but "quality, everyday learning products."

Many districts buy the technology but forget that it is hard work for teachers and staff to weave technology into their daily learning environments.

The open house was amazingly student-centered and reflected this philosophy of computer as learning tool. Throughout the evening students from kindergarten to eighth grade presented their digital products (500+), reflecting the use of technology in every subject. There were no teacher presentations. The products revealed the willingness of teachers to encourage students to display their learning in their own ways. There was much evidence of independent learning, and the sophistication of much of the work shows how far kids can go when you have high expectations while letting them be creative, which is quite natural for them.

As a kindergarten teacher who encouraged students' natural creativity, I used to say, "If they can do these things at 5 years old, imagine, if we let them go, what they'll be doing when they're 16!" We are still learning this lesson and technology is making it easier.

Bullying Is Beyond Teacher and Administration Control - My Personal Experience

A recent rash of bullying by teens that has resulted in deaths and suicides appears to be something new and disturbing, inflamed by the Internet.  Everyone is trying to find someone to blame - teachers, administrators, the victim, but I feel strongly that the greatest responsibility lies with the teens who did the bullying and their parents.  And this is nothing new, although the Internet can add to the frequency and intensity of the bullying.

In 1968, I was bullied for reasons apparently similar to the girl in South Hadley, MA., who had recently moved from Ireland. At the beginning of my senior year of high school my family moved from Southern California to a small town in New England, a culture shock for sure (think Doors-West Coast v. Young Rascals-East Coast, mini-skirts v. Villager print dresses to the knees, and on and on). My new experience was a weird mix of boys immediately being interested in taking the new California girl to the movies (read that "parking and drinking beer and...") and girls refusing to let me join their clubs, groups, and parties. I had come to the school as a student body officer, cheerleader, and student play director - confident and happy, and because of heartless humiliation and backstabbing (what did I do? I wouldn't go "parking" - what a snob!) by January I had lost all of my confidence, was miserable, and actually started stuttering for the first time in my life!

Who was at fault? While I didn't have thoughts of suicide, I had certainly backtracked and was very sad. 40 years ago I blamed my fellow students, maybe their parents, but certainly not the teachers and administrators - they had little idea about the intensity of my problem. Did I tell my parents? No. I was a typical teen protecting my privacy, blaming myself, confused. Luckily for me I found a group of great kids who were also 'different' and found my way. Peers were the problem and the solution!

35 years later, my introvert son went through a very similar experience at his large high school. After 8 wonderful years at a small private school, my son, a little geeky, a little shy, found life challenging at a large upper middle class public high school. He didn't fit in and was bullied terribly, became very depressed, and desperately needed help. Yet, even though I was aware of his state of mind and got him help (outside of school) I had no idea until he matured and told me the stories, just how horrible his daily life at school was.

We have to stop blaming teachers and administrators for everything that happens to kids just because those kids spend several hours each day in their care (6 hours out of 24!). Instead we - as a society -  should be looking at what is causing the irresponsible behavior of mean kids - what makes them so unhappy, insecure, and aggressive? Why doesn't the silent majority of kids help those being attacked? Are they modeling their parents' behavior?

The key is human behavior and social behavior are complex, and simply blaming the teachers is a cop-out, when even parents don't know what is going on with their children, both the bullies and the victims. Let's start a dialogue about compassion and taking responsibility for each other -  at home, in schools, and in communities. And it wouldn't hurt to have a zero tolerance policy for disrespect in schools either (among students, teachers, and administrators), it just can't be the only solution.

New York Times Thinly Veiled Support of Charters Is Wrong

Today the New York Times published an editorial titled "Who Grades the Graders" and in its first paragraph proposes that a more complex form of evaluating teachers is needed, including rethinking the role of principals and superintendents.

I agree with that sentiment, but the editorial says little about principal's role in evaluation and nothing about superintendents. Instead it focuses on a study by the Center for American Progress about the effectiveness of teacher evaluation in 5 charter schools representing the three major charter school operators. The NYT once again is pushing the charter school solution for American education rather than a broader view about best practices evident in mainstream public schools as well.

Many education leaders believe in a view of teacher evaluation that insists on multiple measures and focuses the conversation on teacher development rather than a punitive approach to simply weed out bad teachers. Principals and superintendents do have important roles here, especially around providing the time and resources for this to be implemented.

But this isn't happening just in charter schools.

One of the leaders in teacher development is the New Teacher Center which mentors and coaches over 49,000 teachers across the country. The involvement of organizations like NTC, who work in thousands of mainstream public schools, in the re-authorization of ESEA is critical if the Feds are to create a balanced view of teacher development and evaluation.

In fact, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island is proposing the Teacher and Principal Improvement Act, which would amend the ESEA Title II to include more comprehensive developmental evaluation processes for teachers. One statistic quoted in a description of Reed's proposal states that the cost of replacing teachers who leave the profession is $7,300,000,000 annually! Firing bad teachers isn't the key issue, it's developing new teachers so they will be more successful and stay.

But we need to go one step further in teacher evaluation by focusing on the work of students as well. The Schlechty Center's work with thousands of educators provides methodology for using a collegial  coaching process for looking at the quality of student work as evidence of effective teaching. By examining the design of learning activities and resulting student products, teachers are evaluated by the success of their customers - their students - who are depending on schools to enable them to be productive and responsible members of our society, in their work and in their civic duties.  This broader, student-centered approach, could fundamentally and positively impact teacher development and retention, as well as the quality of American public schools. We don't need charters to make this happen for all children.