Readers of this blog appreciate that I have been posting since January 2010. In August 2011 and upon my retirement from the North Carolina system of public education, I re-purposed this blog of then Triangle Leadership Academy Executive Director to the blog of Steve Bingham, private citizen and continuing contributor to an amorphous audience of education and business leaders, including my graduate students, all candidates in the Master of Executive Leadership Studies at Gardner-Webb University. Students, I continue to be honored by your readership.
Alas, we now find ourselves at an intersection in our democracy so important that I want to turn to the words of a writer who has in me a secret admirer. The object of my admiration is the 70-something- young, Dr. Diane Ravitch, education historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education in the George H. W. Bush administration. I have written about Diane earlier. I yield to her now the balance of my post. From her own blog, Diane writes:
Over the past three years, I have been an outspoken critic of the
education policies of the Obama administration. In my view, Race to the
Top is a disastrous program that is almost indistinguishable from the
Bush administration’s failed No Child Left Behind legislation. Both
programs require teaching to the test, both encourage privatization of
our public schools, and both have demoralized the nation’s educators
while doing nothing to improve education.
But as bad as the Obama education policies are, they are tolerable in
comparison to what Mitt Romney plans. Romney claims credit for the
academic successes of Massachusetts, but he had nothing to do with the
gains in that state, which were enacted 10 years before he
became governor. The Massachusetts education reforms doubled the budget
for public schools, increased spending on early childhood education,
and raised standards for new teachers, but Romney intends to do none of
that if elected President.
If elected president, Romney will curtail spending on everything
except privatization of public education. He will lower standards for
entering the teaching profession. His policies will devastate our public
schools and dismantle the education profession. He supports charters
and vouchers and welcomes the takeover of public schools by for-profit
entrepreneurs. Unlike the Massachusetts reforms that he wrongly takes
credit for, he offers not a single idea to improve public education.
Romney nowhere acknowledges that free public education is a public
responsibility and an essential institution in a democratic society.
Under a Romney administration, I fear not only for the future of
public education but for the future of our society. Presently, nearly
25% of American children are growing up in poverty. We lead the advanced
nations of the world in child poverty. Romney offers no proposals to
reduce that scandalous number. Only government action can make a dent in
a problem of that magnitude, but Romney believes in private charity,
not government action.
What frightens me most about the Romney-Ryan ticket is the Republican
Party’s rigid ideology. There have been times in recent history when
moderate Republicans were in the ascendancy in the party. Today, the
moderates are gone; the GOP is dominated by radical anti-government
ideologues. The party seems determined to roll back the social policies
of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great
Society and to bring our society back to the 1920s. We know what
followed the free-market exhilaration of the 1920s.
If Romney has the chance to select one or two or three Supreme Court
justices, then women’s rights, voting rights, and the rights of
minorities will be imperiled. We can anticipate that a Romney Supreme
Court would favor the rights of multinational corporations over
consumers and individuals.
One shudders to imagine what will happen to our environment, to our
water and air, if its protection is turned over to those who deny the
reality of climate change and who despise regulation. We can expect that
our precious resources of parks, beaches, and oceans will be handed
over to private enterprise to mine for profit—theirs, not ours.
What of the millions of jobs that Romney promises to create? Romney’s
private company was known for outsourcing well-paying middle-class jobs
to low-wage nations. In the debates, he has expressed admiration for
trickle-down economics, his belief that whatever helps the rich and
powerful will eventually create jobs further down the food chain. We can
expect that jobs of the future created by a Romney administration will
be for retail clerks, fast food servers, operators in call centers, and
home health aides, none paying the kinds of salaries that lift families
into the middle class.
Romney has made clear that he will not pay for early childhood education, despite the fact that an independent survey by The Economist magazine ranked
the U.S. 24th in the world in taking care of its youngest citizens.
His education platform says that he will not expand any federal aid to
college students now drowning in debt. Nor will he increase support for
prenatal care for indigent women, even though a survey by the March of Dimes reported last spring that the U.S. ranked 131st among 180 nations in protecting the health of pregnant women; in that respect, we rank shamefully alongside Somalia.
A Romney administration promises a society in which life is very
sweet for those at the very top, but hard, mean, and brutish for the
growing number of Americans falling out of the middle class and into
poverty. Every successful nation in the world has taken positive steps to
reduce income inequality, to reduce poverty, and to protect the
environment in which we all live.
I cannot support a candidate who promises to shred the safety net for
our most vulnerable citizens. I cannot support a candidate who wants to
reward those who are richest and to deny government support to those
who need help to survive. I do not want to turn the clock back almost a
century.
That is why I will vote to re-elect President Obama.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Diane Ravitch.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
An Unsustainable Course
President Bonner, my new boss at Gardner-Webb University, called a special meeting of faculty and staff today. It was a good news, bad news meeting. The good news--the freshman class is the brightest ever, and we're getting a raise! The bad news--higher education is on an unsustainable course. And the latter will ultimately impact the former. I'll tell you why.
Parents may already know that college tuition has outstripped wage increases among average Americans sixteen times over in just the last five years. Many of those costs to universities--ultimately passed on to parents and students--are brick and mortar--new buildings, including dormitories and especially student recreation and entertainment centers. Other costs are for talented teachers and administrators.
Make no mistake. Among universities of every ilk, the race for the brightest students is on. One reason is that more-capable students are statistically less likely to drop out. That was the other piece of bad news from President Bonner. Gardner-Webb is experiencing a five-year trend where fewer and fewer students either do not matriculate to the next level or fail to graduate at all.
We are not alone. Since 2008, college completion has fallen to less than 50 percent for all universities. I think we can agree that the Great Recession has hit more than home prices. So now, over one in five American families have significant college indebtedness at a level that exceeds even credit card debt, this at a time when many college graduates are underemployed or unemployed.
The problem is such that even the brightest students and their parents are questioning the value of a college degree. What is the point of a degree if a career is not part of the deal? It's a fair question, especially in an age where knowledge acquisition is a click away. Want an actual college course? Many universities are giving them away for free, just to get their foot in the door.
The pundits and trend-watchers occupy space on a continuum from "take a deep breath and stay calm" to "the system as we know it is already dead." As I become increasingly acculturated in the world of higher education, I find myself somewhere in the middle. It's like I tell my masters and doctoral students in education--learn to work on a system, not the system. The system we know may or may not be dead, but it's fair to say that it's dying.
Everything we currently do to create and disseminate knowledge at every level of education should be subject to examination and change. We need to consider new revenue streams, public-private partnerships, new business models, new ways of convening and catalyzing learning communities. And we need to consider how we hold ourselves accountable for results.
I'm glad I attended the meeting today. President Bonner could have been any university president anywhere in the United States. I would love to hear what is happening where you work and what ideas you have. Let's get the conversation started about how we're going to make the unsustainable sustainable.
Parents may already know that college tuition has outstripped wage increases among average Americans sixteen times over in just the last five years. Many of those costs to universities--ultimately passed on to parents and students--are brick and mortar--new buildings, including dormitories and especially student recreation and entertainment centers. Other costs are for talented teachers and administrators.
Make no mistake. Among universities of every ilk, the race for the brightest students is on. One reason is that more-capable students are statistically less likely to drop out. That was the other piece of bad news from President Bonner. Gardner-Webb is experiencing a five-year trend where fewer and fewer students either do not matriculate to the next level or fail to graduate at all.
We are not alone. Since 2008, college completion has fallen to less than 50 percent for all universities. I think we can agree that the Great Recession has hit more than home prices. So now, over one in five American families have significant college indebtedness at a level that exceeds even credit card debt, this at a time when many college graduates are underemployed or unemployed.
The problem is such that even the brightest students and their parents are questioning the value of a college degree. What is the point of a degree if a career is not part of the deal? It's a fair question, especially in an age where knowledge acquisition is a click away. Want an actual college course? Many universities are giving them away for free, just to get their foot in the door.
The pundits and trend-watchers occupy space on a continuum from "take a deep breath and stay calm" to "the system as we know it is already dead." As I become increasingly acculturated in the world of higher education, I find myself somewhere in the middle. It's like I tell my masters and doctoral students in education--learn to work on a system, not the system. The system we know may or may not be dead, but it's fair to say that it's dying.
Everything we currently do to create and disseminate knowledge at every level of education should be subject to examination and change. We need to consider new revenue streams, public-private partnerships, new business models, new ways of convening and catalyzing learning communities. And we need to consider how we hold ourselves accountable for results.
I'm glad I attended the meeting today. President Bonner could have been any university president anywhere in the United States. I would love to hear what is happening where you work and what ideas you have. Let's get the conversation started about how we're going to make the unsustainable sustainable.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Idealized Design
"If you don't know what to do if you could do anything you want, how could you possibly know what to do if you could not do anything you want."
The late Russell Ackoff, Professor of Management at the University of Pennsylvania, had a lot to say about the limits of our imagination. In propagating a kind of thought experiment he termed "idealized design," Professor Ackoff implied that the real constraint on our ability to change things is our own mind.
Ackoff argued that our ability to remake existing institutions, for example. might lie in a game of "Let's Pretend." Education reformers might consider the following:
Imagine that a nuclear holocaust has destroyed every infrastructure humankind has ever known. You are in charge of reconstructing an educational system. What do you do?
Students in my Gardner-Webb University School of Education doctoral course, "Change and Reform Theory in Education," are facing just such a question. To be clear, we are in the throes of designing a university laboratory school. Talk about authentic engagement.
Practicing educators in my class and that of my colleague, Dr. Steve Laws, are coming at the problem from slightly different perspectives, my students from a Curriculum and Instruction approach and his students from an Educational Leadership approach.
So what is the problem of public schools? In other words, what do we want to change and why? This is the subject of our next class. To be sure, we will trace the sorry history of educational reform, one bandwagon after another, using in part the excellent Tyack and Cuban text, Tinkering Toward Utopia.
We will examine university laboratory schools such as the famous one established at the University of Chicago. What happened to it? How do we prevent the Gardner-Webb University Laboratory School from becoming a boutique for professors' children? How do we market the school within the context of the regular public school district in Cleveland County, North Carolina? What will make our school unlike any other school that has ever come before it? Big questions, these.
I am reminded of the first class in my own doctoral program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro 20 years ago. Ironically, one of my classmates was the current superintendent in Cleveland County, Bruce Boyles. With one other then eager young student and now a research associate at Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta, Paula Egelson, we were invited by our professors to "find a problem." That was an appropriate assignment given the title of the class, "Problem Finding Seminar," as if there were not enough already.
What our professors were hoping to do was to teach us to be creative, self-directed learners, to explore a problem we decided was important, as contrasted with a presented problem thought by someone else to be important. Akin to what painters or composers face confronted by an empty canvass or blank staff paper, respectively, the two kinds of problems could not present a greater contrast. One results in the life of the institutional tool, the other, the life of the inventor, the artist.
Idealized design provides the opportunity for educational leaders at every level, from classroom to boardroom, to bring out the best in themselves and others. Clearly, the outcome of our students' assignment to build a school will be a conversation, a result of research and collective imagination.
If we do this right, they will be telling their grandchildren about how they changed things for education in Fall 2012. I will keep readers posted on progress.
The late Russell Ackoff, Professor of Management at the University of Pennsylvania, had a lot to say about the limits of our imagination. In propagating a kind of thought experiment he termed "idealized design," Professor Ackoff implied that the real constraint on our ability to change things is our own mind.
Ackoff argued that our ability to remake existing institutions, for example. might lie in a game of "Let's Pretend." Education reformers might consider the following:
Imagine that a nuclear holocaust has destroyed every infrastructure humankind has ever known. You are in charge of reconstructing an educational system. What do you do?
Students in my Gardner-Webb University School of Education doctoral course, "Change and Reform Theory in Education," are facing just such a question. To be clear, we are in the throes of designing a university laboratory school. Talk about authentic engagement.
Practicing educators in my class and that of my colleague, Dr. Steve Laws, are coming at the problem from slightly different perspectives, my students from a Curriculum and Instruction approach and his students from an Educational Leadership approach.
So what is the problem of public schools? In other words, what do we want to change and why? This is the subject of our next class. To be sure, we will trace the sorry history of educational reform, one bandwagon after another, using in part the excellent Tyack and Cuban text, Tinkering Toward Utopia.
We will examine university laboratory schools such as the famous one established at the University of Chicago. What happened to it? How do we prevent the Gardner-Webb University Laboratory School from becoming a boutique for professors' children? How do we market the school within the context of the regular public school district in Cleveland County, North Carolina? What will make our school unlike any other school that has ever come before it? Big questions, these.
I am reminded of the first class in my own doctoral program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro 20 years ago. Ironically, one of my classmates was the current superintendent in Cleveland County, Bruce Boyles. With one other then eager young student and now a research associate at Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta, Paula Egelson, we were invited by our professors to "find a problem." That was an appropriate assignment given the title of the class, "Problem Finding Seminar," as if there were not enough already.
What our professors were hoping to do was to teach us to be creative, self-directed learners, to explore a problem we decided was important, as contrasted with a presented problem thought by someone else to be important. Akin to what painters or composers face confronted by an empty canvass or blank staff paper, respectively, the two kinds of problems could not present a greater contrast. One results in the life of the institutional tool, the other, the life of the inventor, the artist.
Idealized design provides the opportunity for educational leaders at every level, from classroom to boardroom, to bring out the best in themselves and others. Clearly, the outcome of our students' assignment to build a school will be a conversation, a result of research and collective imagination.
If we do this right, they will be telling their grandchildren about how they changed things for education in Fall 2012. I will keep readers posted on progress.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Alright in the End
"We have a saying," he said. "Things will be alright in the end. If things are not alright, it is not yet the end." The speaker is a bright, earnest young Indian man, seeking to turn around a down-on-its-heels hotel formerly owned by his deceased father and whose best days seem far behind.
Viewers of the newest-next British classic film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, now showing in art houses across the nation, will recognize him instantly. Sonny, like everyone else in the John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) film, is trying to begin anew.
A cultural counterpoint to the the post-boomer band of British retirees, including actors Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, and Dame Judi Dench, Sonny's character is trying to escape the thrall of a domineering mother to formalize a relationship, not only as keeper of an inn to house "outsourced senior citizens," but to marry an Indian girl born on the wrong side of the tracks. I highly recommend the film for anyone involved in leading change. And really, who would that not include?
Regular readers of this blog will appreciate my own interest in managing the transition that a new job with Gardner-Webb University and an impending move over three hours to the southwest of where we currently call home. Am I any different, I wonder, than the few fortunate people in the film determined not just to accommodate but to thrive amid new challenges?
Ironically, the first doctoral class I am assigned to teach is called, Reform and Change Theory Model. The Dean of the School of Education has given me a syllabus and a stack of books to read in preparation for teaching the class. Beyond those resources, there is another text that I have found very helpful in teaching aspiring school leaders. I will not require students to buy the text, but rest assured, ideas from William Bridges Transitions will drive class discussion.
Bridges equates change with a jump into the unknown. He says that, although we may not always be in charge of the change itself, we can manage our internal response to change. We do that by visualizing change in three zones.
The first stage is Endings in which we confront inevitable loss, anxiety and confusion. The second stage is the Neutral zone. Here we find ourselves adrift, devoid of solid ground. The third stage is the Beginnings zone where we may embrace a new way of being and plan for future action. I think leaders can be a lot more effective if they prepare their followers for the inevitability of transitioning through the three zones with up-front assurance that they will come out the other side in one piece.
When I reflect on the characters in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, some succeeded at life and love in a new land while others failed. What the successful shared, it seemed, was an indefatigable embrace of the notion that change is a natural part of life. Like Bill Nighy's decent-man character or Dame Judi Dench's long-sheltered widow character, the next stage of life was met not only with optimism but a sense of adventure.
Go on. Do the hard thing. Make the change you need to make. "We have a saying," Sonny said. "Things will be alright in the end. If things are not alright, it is not yet the end."
Viewers of the newest-next British classic film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, now showing in art houses across the nation, will recognize him instantly. Sonny, like everyone else in the John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) film, is trying to begin anew.
A cultural counterpoint to the the post-boomer band of British retirees, including actors Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, and Dame Judi Dench, Sonny's character is trying to escape the thrall of a domineering mother to formalize a relationship, not only as keeper of an inn to house "outsourced senior citizens," but to marry an Indian girl born on the wrong side of the tracks. I highly recommend the film for anyone involved in leading change. And really, who would that not include?
Regular readers of this blog will appreciate my own interest in managing the transition that a new job with Gardner-Webb University and an impending move over three hours to the southwest of where we currently call home. Am I any different, I wonder, than the few fortunate people in the film determined not just to accommodate but to thrive amid new challenges?
Ironically, the first doctoral class I am assigned to teach is called, Reform and Change Theory Model. The Dean of the School of Education has given me a syllabus and a stack of books to read in preparation for teaching the class. Beyond those resources, there is another text that I have found very helpful in teaching aspiring school leaders. I will not require students to buy the text, but rest assured, ideas from William Bridges Transitions will drive class discussion.
Bridges equates change with a jump into the unknown. He says that, although we may not always be in charge of the change itself, we can manage our internal response to change. We do that by visualizing change in three zones.
The first stage is Endings in which we confront inevitable loss, anxiety and confusion. The second stage is the Neutral zone. Here we find ourselves adrift, devoid of solid ground. The third stage is the Beginnings zone where we may embrace a new way of being and plan for future action. I think leaders can be a lot more effective if they prepare their followers for the inevitability of transitioning through the three zones with up-front assurance that they will come out the other side in one piece.
When I reflect on the characters in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, some succeeded at life and love in a new land while others failed. What the successful shared, it seemed, was an indefatigable embrace of the notion that change is a natural part of life. Like Bill Nighy's decent-man character or Dame Judi Dench's long-sheltered widow character, the next stage of life was met not only with optimism but a sense of adventure.
Go on. Do the hard thing. Make the change you need to make. "We have a saying," Sonny said. "Things will be alright in the end. If things are not alright, it is not yet the end."
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Change is Opportunity
"They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom."
Here's the thing about Confucius--his words are easier to quote than they are to live. Same for Gandhi, "Be the change you want to see in the world," and sage Anonymous, "Sometimes you have to go to grow." Oh, to have a nickle for every time I have cheerily spoken those words.
What I have found oddly difficult, however, is appreciating when the wisdom of the ages actually applies to me. For example, there are a couple of times in my career when I wish I had enacted earlier the words of business guru, Jack Welch, "Change before you have to." Can I get an "Amen," from former Wake County Public School colleagues?
It is true. Leaders are leaders because they see things differently. Leaders see that which has yet to be and enlist followers to improve upon the present through a shared vision. Leaders have a concurrent responsibility to support people in identifying the path they are asked to beat as they walk it. It all begins, however, with the leader.
So if we are minimally leaders of our own lives, does it not stand to reason that we must deliberately seek personal change that leads to improved outcomes for ourselves and those we love? Are we not called upon to set ourselves up for success by attaining experiences and competencies to maximize the likelihood of achieving our dreams? I believe the answer to both questions is "yes."
I would be sharing these thoughts with you in any case, but now it is even more important. You see, my wife, Deborah, and I soon will be leaving the community we have called "home" for seven years. Here we have met many wonderful and talented people, including perhaps you. The idea is that our friends and colleague will go with us. If they are willing, we hope part of us stays with them.
Effective in mid-August, I will become Associate Professor of Education at Gardner-Webb University, with primary teaching responsibilities at the home campus in Boiling Springs, a bit less than an hour's drive west of Charlotte. In some ways, I have prepared my whole life for this position. My best practical education, however, has been achieved since coming to the NC Research Triangle Park area. I am grateful to all of you for your tutelage, intended and unintended.
There will be time for good-byes later. There will be additional thank-yous to people who have helped me along the way. There will be information for my beloved students in the GWU masters degree cohort whom I'm leaving shy of graduation. There will be explanations for how Future-Ready Leaders Now©, LLC meets its current contracts and actually expands its leadership products and services. As it turns out, the company was created to outlive its founder.
For now, I'll let High Point University President and serial entrepreneur, Nido Qubein, have the final word: "Change is opportunity." My hope for all my readers is that they both see and act on Nido's wisdom.
Here's the thing about Confucius--his words are easier to quote than they are to live. Same for Gandhi, "Be the change you want to see in the world," and sage Anonymous, "Sometimes you have to go to grow." Oh, to have a nickle for every time I have cheerily spoken those words.
What I have found oddly difficult, however, is appreciating when the wisdom of the ages actually applies to me. For example, there are a couple of times in my career when I wish I had enacted earlier the words of business guru, Jack Welch, "Change before you have to." Can I get an "Amen," from former Wake County Public School colleagues?
It is true. Leaders are leaders because they see things differently. Leaders see that which has yet to be and enlist followers to improve upon the present through a shared vision. Leaders have a concurrent responsibility to support people in identifying the path they are asked to beat as they walk it. It all begins, however, with the leader.
So if we are minimally leaders of our own lives, does it not stand to reason that we must deliberately seek personal change that leads to improved outcomes for ourselves and those we love? Are we not called upon to set ourselves up for success by attaining experiences and competencies to maximize the likelihood of achieving our dreams? I believe the answer to both questions is "yes."
I would be sharing these thoughts with you in any case, but now it is even more important. You see, my wife, Deborah, and I soon will be leaving the community we have called "home" for seven years. Here we have met many wonderful and talented people, including perhaps you. The idea is that our friends and colleague will go with us. If they are willing, we hope part of us stays with them.
Effective in mid-August, I will become Associate Professor of Education at Gardner-Webb University, with primary teaching responsibilities at the home campus in Boiling Springs, a bit less than an hour's drive west of Charlotte. In some ways, I have prepared my whole life for this position. My best practical education, however, has been achieved since coming to the NC Research Triangle Park area. I am grateful to all of you for your tutelage, intended and unintended.
There will be time for good-byes later. There will be additional thank-yous to people who have helped me along the way. There will be information for my beloved students in the GWU masters degree cohort whom I'm leaving shy of graduation. There will be explanations for how Future-Ready Leaders Now©, LLC meets its current contracts and actually expands its leadership products and services. As it turns out, the company was created to outlive its founder.
For now, I'll let High Point University President and serial entrepreneur, Nido Qubein, have the final word: "Change is opportunity." My hope for all my readers is that they both see and act on Nido's wisdom.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
A Good Day for Education
It's a good day for education. No, not because of anything our North Carolina General Assembly has done, what with the starvation diet on which it has put public schools, rather it is a good day for education because of the official launch of the High Point University Educational Leadership Studio with which I have been working for nearly a year. As one participating superintendent asserted today, "The Studio has a lot of promise." I agree.
I have written about the Studio before but only in the context of the Design Team's work. Today the twinkle in the Team's eye was consummated by the Educational Leadership Doctoral Advisory Committee. Convened at the HPU Plato Wilson Ballroom, the purpose of the meeting was both to inform and create ownership for the Education Studio, a working place and a laboratory where public-school problems of practice are crowd-sourced, face-to-face and virtually, such that K-21 education professionals learn from and with each other.
Present were superintendents of four NC Piedmont public school districts, central-service professionals, principals, university representatives, and Design Team members, including Dr. MJ Hall, founder of the Studio, and yours truly, consultant and thought partner to the initiative.
Although Design Team members were affirmed by the Committee's embrace of the Studio, it was clear to me that the heavy lifting lies ahead. In fact, it was de ja vu all over again. As readers of this blog know, I was co-founder and ultimately executive director of Triangle Leadership Academy, a public-private partnership of districts focused on leadership development and succession planning. We closed shop one year ago in July.
Certainly, the financial hurricane that blew in as a result of the recession was mainly responsible for our demise. In hindsight, however, there were deeper, more disturbing and intractable issues, some of which played out today in activities we facilitated for the Advisory Committee.
For example, we assembled Committee members in cross-district, cross-functional teams to consider and write one idea per sticky note things they thought their organization did well. After a brief working period involving independent writing, team conversation, and posting of notes to chart paper, we asked for a representative to report out.
It was hard not to notice that the superintendents posted and reported their good works in district-by-district fashion in ostensible disregard of their colleagues standing right beside them. One group stacked its sticky notes on chart paper chimney style, with as much space as possible between stacks. Not only that, each superintendent insisted on representing him or herself in the report out.
But why would we expect anything different? Our world is perfectly organized to create the behavior we are currently experiencing. The political reality is that every superintendent runs his or her own shop. In fact, one of them publicly lamented the limited opportunities superintendents even in neighboring districts have to share information, much less solve problems of practice.
Folks, it's not about ego; it's about culture, a culture of insularity that, in my opinion, weakens the greater system of public education. Our problems are neither created in isolation nor will they be solved in isolation. We are in this together or we are in this to fail. We need boundary-spanning leadership now more than ever.
The HPU Educational Leadership Studio is designed to strengthen the education system by connecting, convening, communicating, and co-designing in context. In the summer of 2013, the Studio will convene 100 professionals from Murphy to Manteo, classroom to boardroom, schoolhouse to statehouse. As we speak, the Studio has a web presence at http://educationstudio.highpoint.edu Check it out.
Given the assembled talent and committed professionals, I think it's a pretty cool dream that has a better-than-even chance of coming true. Today was a good day for education.
I have written about the Studio before but only in the context of the Design Team's work. Today the twinkle in the Team's eye was consummated by the Educational Leadership Doctoral Advisory Committee. Convened at the HPU Plato Wilson Ballroom, the purpose of the meeting was both to inform and create ownership for the Education Studio, a working place and a laboratory where public-school problems of practice are crowd-sourced, face-to-face and virtually, such that K-21 education professionals learn from and with each other.
Present were superintendents of four NC Piedmont public school districts, central-service professionals, principals, university representatives, and Design Team members, including Dr. MJ Hall, founder of the Studio, and yours truly, consultant and thought partner to the initiative.
Although Design Team members were affirmed by the Committee's embrace of the Studio, it was clear to me that the heavy lifting lies ahead. In fact, it was de ja vu all over again. As readers of this blog know, I was co-founder and ultimately executive director of Triangle Leadership Academy, a public-private partnership of districts focused on leadership development and succession planning. We closed shop one year ago in July.
Certainly, the financial hurricane that blew in as a result of the recession was mainly responsible for our demise. In hindsight, however, there were deeper, more disturbing and intractable issues, some of which played out today in activities we facilitated for the Advisory Committee.
For example, we assembled Committee members in cross-district, cross-functional teams to consider and write one idea per sticky note things they thought their organization did well. After a brief working period involving independent writing, team conversation, and posting of notes to chart paper, we asked for a representative to report out.
It was hard not to notice that the superintendents posted and reported their good works in district-by-district fashion in ostensible disregard of their colleagues standing right beside them. One group stacked its sticky notes on chart paper chimney style, with as much space as possible between stacks. Not only that, each superintendent insisted on representing him or herself in the report out.
But why would we expect anything different? Our world is perfectly organized to create the behavior we are currently experiencing. The political reality is that every superintendent runs his or her own shop. In fact, one of them publicly lamented the limited opportunities superintendents even in neighboring districts have to share information, much less solve problems of practice.
Folks, it's not about ego; it's about culture, a culture of insularity that, in my opinion, weakens the greater system of public education. Our problems are neither created in isolation nor will they be solved in isolation. We are in this together or we are in this to fail. We need boundary-spanning leadership now more than ever.
The HPU Educational Leadership Studio is designed to strengthen the education system by connecting, convening, communicating, and co-designing in context. In the summer of 2013, the Studio will convene 100 professionals from Murphy to Manteo, classroom to boardroom, schoolhouse to statehouse. As we speak, the Studio has a web presence at http://educationstudio.highpoint.edu Check it out.
Given the assembled talent and committed professionals, I think it's a pretty cool dream that has a better-than-even chance of coming true. Today was a good day for education.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
A Letter to the Board of Education
Looking back on it, I could have been fired. The letter that, as a young hotshot high school band director disgruntled by a proposed change proffered by the new district superintendent, I wrote and hand-delivered to board of education members during a board meeting may not have been protected by the constitutional right to free speech.
At minimum, my impertinence could have given the district pause to grant me tenure. Like many teachers then and now, however, tenure was not for me a reason to do or not do as I was already doing, which is to say, the very best I could.
As students of education law know, under certain circumstances, restrictions on constitutional freedoms may be justified by governmental interests. Such circumstances include when a teacher's behavior compromises teaching effectiveness, relations with principals and other administrators, or the operation of school generally.
So what did I write in that letter? First, it is important to know that I did not attend the board of education meeting in question. Unbelievably, the superintendent himself, unaware of its contents, distributed copies of my letter to each board member, several of whom had children in my band.
In retrospect, I do not know whether his confidence in me was born more of trust or ignorance. Inasmuch as this was his first superintendency, I suspect more the latter than the former. Yet, his not asking me about the letter's contents or my motive seems to this day incredible. No more incredible, I suppose, than was my brashness.
Sealed in separate envelops, my letter stated, point by point, my opposition to perceived damages to the band program due to the loss of teaching time in moving from a junior high school to a middle school model. Without remembering exactly the words I wrote, my intent was to derail the superintendent's plans, as if I were just anyone in the community.
But I was not just anyone in the community. As an employee of the district, I owed to my administrators my support even in the face of personal reservations about the proposed changes. Instead, I jumped over my superiors' heads and took my case straight to board members. This is one story I tell myself. The other story is that I had done all I could do to get the superintendent's attention, but my entreaty was falling on deaf ears.
When the superintendent found out what my letter said, it certainly got his attention. Within 24 hours, I found myself standing before him receiving a lesson in humility. He wanted, as he said, not to fire me but "to set the boat aright." Those were his words.
I was humbled, but only a little bit. Within a year, the new superintendent was himself fired. Did I contribute to his removal? I will never know. How close was I to removal myself? You tell me.
At minimum, my impertinence could have given the district pause to grant me tenure. Like many teachers then and now, however, tenure was not for me a reason to do or not do as I was already doing, which is to say, the very best I could.
As students of education law know, under certain circumstances, restrictions on constitutional freedoms may be justified by governmental interests. Such circumstances include when a teacher's behavior compromises teaching effectiveness, relations with principals and other administrators, or the operation of school generally.
So what did I write in that letter? First, it is important to know that I did not attend the board of education meeting in question. Unbelievably, the superintendent himself, unaware of its contents, distributed copies of my letter to each board member, several of whom had children in my band.
In retrospect, I do not know whether his confidence in me was born more of trust or ignorance. Inasmuch as this was his first superintendency, I suspect more the latter than the former. Yet, his not asking me about the letter's contents or my motive seems to this day incredible. No more incredible, I suppose, than was my brashness.
Sealed in separate envelops, my letter stated, point by point, my opposition to perceived damages to the band program due to the loss of teaching time in moving from a junior high school to a middle school model. Without remembering exactly the words I wrote, my intent was to derail the superintendent's plans, as if I were just anyone in the community.
But I was not just anyone in the community. As an employee of the district, I owed to my administrators my support even in the face of personal reservations about the proposed changes. Instead, I jumped over my superiors' heads and took my case straight to board members. This is one story I tell myself. The other story is that I had done all I could do to get the superintendent's attention, but my entreaty was falling on deaf ears.
When the superintendent found out what my letter said, it certainly got his attention. Within 24 hours, I found myself standing before him receiving a lesson in humility. He wanted, as he said, not to fire me but "to set the boat aright." Those were his words.
I was humbled, but only a little bit. Within a year, the new superintendent was himself fired. Did I contribute to his removal? I will never know. How close was I to removal myself? You tell me.
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