Sliding Scale Accountability
Too little too late…schools systems have acceded defeat in their efforts to adequately educate all children by 2014. But that does not mean we should give up in every grade. A sliding scale system of accountabilities could keep our eyes on the prize. So let’s try again for 2019 and ask schools to get it right for students who are rising 6th graders or younger.
We may not be able to achieve the goal of NCLB for 2014. However, the class of 2019 is entering 6th grade this fall. There is still time for them to achieve proficiency in math and literacy and be college ready by 2019. Indeed, the ideal of proficiency should be kept alive for every child in school today with six or more years of elementary and secondary education left to go.
Growth models for student achievement have become popular as RttT is extended to districts and states rush to meet their obligations implied in their earlier applications. However, most of these models just kick to can out and postpone universal achievement for the children to the next generation or later. This is not good enough.
We need to put a stake in the ground again and say, “This stops here.” Educators are not likely to get their students ready for college if they are thoroughly unprepared when entering high school. The climb is too steep. However, schools that are struggling need to show they can win the battle with children who are entering middle school. And they need to keep trying to do their best with high schoolers.
A sliding scale system for accountabilities would reassign the goals originally set for 2014 as the goal for 2019. Then the goals for AYP could be reset according to a sliding scale for the graduating classes of 2013 through 2018. Any thoughts?
Failure…is not the data’s fault (Part 2 of 2)
Data is here to stay, and even hard-core test deniers are tiptoeing into the next phase. “Let’s trade a new list of details for those high stakes tests. Yeah…that’s the ticket”. No way! Clearly, we do not have adequate data, and that’s never the time to start throwing any of it away. Yet, as we move from denial into bargaining…can resolution be far behind?
Embracing student data can be a little like the grieving process. Achievement tests offer one approach to threshold data points – those which capture the minimum acceptable competency levels in a content area – but they can be rejected as inadequate on many counts. However, that does not eliminate their relevance, regardless of how much better that might feel. It just means we need more data.
Even educators who feel victimized by fallout from test scores are grudgingly coming to grips with the fact that data-driven instruction is here to stay. They continue to attack the tests with a vengeance in hopes of discarding their own failing report cards. But, their new tactic is elimination of achievement tests in exchange for other details and benchmarks. Indeed, the opponents of high stakes tests are tripping over one another as they rush to offer alternative data sources that offer a more complete picture of the child…all of which seem to draw the same conclusion. The kids are alright, and so are we.
What’s missing here is the notion, once again, that we can have it both ways. Remember, in many ways we are still in the brainstorming phase for database needs; nothing gets thrown away.
In many public schools, benchmark tests barely cause a ripple in school operations. Students in high-performing cohorts take the tests and move on; students in special populations may struggle, but only a handful of students raise serious concern. Ironically, these institutions also tend to be the ones that have more highly developed approaches to the whole child. They can afford to move beyond basic competencies and pursue higher order needs with their students. Still, subgroup failures persist.
When threshold scores on tests are not achieved, there is a necessary emphasis on sources of failure. Minimum expectations must be met, because the children will not excel at the next level unless they have a secure set of foundation skills. That is why achievement gaps tend to widen over time. However, understanding the children better will help us to serve them better. We just have to accept the test scores as part of the picture of the whole child at any given time over a longitudinal trajectory. And we have to support the growth of that child…including progress toward grade level proficiency in the basics.
Inequity in educational opportunity tends to track with income inequity. It will never be fair. Urban and suburban educators share concern for students of poverty as well as students with special needs and new English language learners. These educators come together and commiserate over the weaknesses of their special populations, ultimately challenging the relevance of tests for them. However, they could benefit more from sharing their strengths.
Many high-performing schools have an edge in programs for the whole child, but they give up too quickly on their marginalized student subgroups. Struggling systems tend to understand students who are at-risk and help them overcome obstacles daily, but they have so many students in need that they have a hard time getting to the whole child. How about a joining forces for the good…to share the secrets to their successes and set a standard for excellence in educating the whole child in every population. And dream and scheme for the day when even poor kids just take the test – no sweat – and move on.
Reinventing the Parent-Teacher Paradigm
Parent Trigger laws must be seen as the last straw. The current parent-teacher paradigm is broken in many districts. Whether parents are demanding an elevated role in education reform due to old frustrations or a new interest in their feedback, they are a force to be reckoned with. Rather than fight them in the political arena, education leaders need to welcome their participation. Parents must become active players in school governance, innovation, and improvement. And they need to share in the success of their children.
The existing parent-teacher paradigm is broken. There is more antagonism than partnership on balance, and the children are suffering. Players are choosing sides and behaving erratically as they try to follow power shifts rather than maintain a clear vision of what is right. It is time to stop the music and engage the full education community – students, educators, and parents – in structural solutions.
The most desirable outcomes in elementary and secondary education are summarized below…
- Students are successful as measured by attendance, performance, completion, advancement, and satisfaction.
- Students grow and mature consistently along expected physical, social, and emotional benchmarks.
- Each school is culturally rich and inclusive with a strong vision for future leadership among its participants.
- Educators match pedagogy to the needs of fully engaged, goal-oriented students.
- Families are partners in the educational process, fully informed about opportunities, and having voice in outcomes as well as chances to get involved for their own benefit.
- The school community benefits from a success cycle that demonstrates excellence and builds on that legacy as participants are attracted in perpetuity…students, educators, and community leaders from the larger urban context.
To support this future vision, existing systems must be updated…
- Ensuring the status of parents and community members in school governance as voting members on boards at the district and school levels.
- Creating a customer focus among educators, and imbedding student/parent feedback loops in the school systems.
- Elevating the community liaison/leader to equality with instructional leadership in school administration.
- Inclusion of the parent community in programs for success…community outreach for education and access for non-educational support services.
The change process must be about facilitating parent involvement, which may mean removal of obstacles created by toxic habits of the past. This legacy must be assessed for such patterns as stonewalling in lieu of information; inconvenience in lieu of access; or outright punishment of parents for student discipline issues in lieu of partnership for proactive intervention for success. Sometimes the first step toward a promising future sounds a little like, “I’m sorry…and I need your help.
Previous related posts…
Mayors and Parents Begging for New Education Leadership
#5 in Seven Keys to Education Reform
Engaging the School Community in the Project Management Approach to School Improvement
Restore Federal Reserve Control Over Money Supply
Banks too big to fail? In need of a bailout? Maybe it’s time to help them out…Let the banks sell the Federal Reserve their ATM networks. Then they can get back to being local banks that serve their customers.
I am a child of a Federal Reserve Bank family. My dad worked there, starting on the night shift in the mail room. There he met my mother, who worked in another department with her sisters, one of whom also met her husband there, a bank examiner. Mom was in the now-defunct Check Collections department, the clearinghouse for checks back in the days of the nation’s money supply being defined by cash and demand deposits, i.e., checking accounts. Dad eventually became manager of the Money Department, where they counted each bank’s money on a regular basis to ensure that they met their reserve requirements.
Back in those days, the Federal Reserve Bank had its hands on the money supply, quite literally. While many of its operating procedures would be considered quaint today,* the notion that the Fed could actually manage the money supply should have been a keeper.
Unfortunately, the new money supply and purchasing power might be better tracked through the ATM networks and the credit card clearinghouses…which reside in the private sector. While ATMs nullified the system of float, the useful delay in money transfers due to the Fed’s handling of checks, they could offer an early warning system for issues in the system.
Call me old fashioned, but the next time a major bank threatens to destabilize the world economy with its imprudent financial shenanigans, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke should offer them a deal they can’t refuse: their ATM networks or their life. And if that’s not enough to cover their losses, ask them to throw in the credit card clearinghouses as well.
* As a child, I marveled at all the ladies, each with a million dollars on her desk waiting to be counted, and the furnace where they burned old money. As an adult, I wondered if the fleet of Brink’s trucks carried the same payload of money around the block and back to the Fed each day to be recounted under the banner of a different institution…but, of course, that was after my baby sister went to work in the “Trust” Department.
Transition Services for Students with Disabilities – Better, Not Necessarily More
Education Week has previewed the anticipated GAO report on transition services for students with disabilities. Lack of access and inadequate coordination of programs were both cited as obstacles for young adults leaving high school in need of services. While the bureaucratic maze must be streamlined and realigned for service delivery, there is another opportunity…reduced demand for adult services through successful earlier interventions.
For many students with moderate disabilities, transition services at the end of high school offer too little too late. For others with more severe disabilities, access to a lifeline is a basic necessity for survival. In between, there are individuals for whom targeted interventions can make all the difference in the world for their success in life.
The current model is overwhelmed by excessive demand and conflicting objectives. Inadvertent or intentional denial of service is a poor solution for failure to understand and manage that demand. Federal and state agencies could achieve their goals more efficiently and offer better outcomes all around by organizing efforts around expected levels of need and refocusing delivery models for students with moderate disabilities at an earlier age.
Students with more severe disabilities benefit from a lifetime of support services. They need them, and their independence requires that services be organized for access and ease of delivery. Interagency coordination at the federal and state levels must meet the imperative of efficient and effective service. Outcomes should include quality of life for the beneficiary and organizational productivity measures for the government entities.
Students with moderate disabilities receive services based on an eligibility model from the onset, and they enter a transition phase for adult services as they approach high school graduation. The plan is flawed at both levels. One missing ingredient is a measure of progress toward grade level proficiency from the start of services. The regulatory model essentially lacks an incentive for overcoming the obstacles created by the disability through compensatory strategies. The other shortcoming is the absence of the student from the education planning team until the last couple of years before graduation.
When a student is diagnosed with a moderate disability, the goal of services is to enable the child to function like any other student. Initially, the team seeks to level the playing field through accommodations and modifications in the educational process. However, through gradual release of control over management of the disability to the student, other members of the team should play a diminishing role. By the time the student reaches graduation, the need for external services should be limited to a few clearly defined supports, if any, and the student should be empowered to advocate for himself or herself effectively.
When considering IDEA and the implementation of transition services, I recommend effective demand management, market segmentation based on level/complexity of need, and streamlining of operations to meet divergent demand. In addition, I suggest modification of the law and regulation thereof to place the child on the education planning team at an earlier age and to measure progress toward grade level proficiently in addition to eligibility in the evaluation of the service delivery model.
Earlier related posts:
- The Kids Stay in the Picture
- The Long View on Special Education
- Something to Talk About…Part I and Part II
- #6 of Seven Keys to Education Reform
Engaging the School Community in the Project Management Approach to School Improvement
When major change is needed that minimizes disruption to ongoing operations, project managers from the engineering world can help. Theirs is the world of overcoming obstacles while managing time, costs, and interdependencies to achieve desired outcomes. So, how do you achieve engineering efficiency while educating children? Warm fuzzies, please…
Seismic shifts in education are destabilizing the industry, dislodging the embedded power structures, and creating conditions ripe for change. What changes are to be achieved and how they happen seem to be subject to debate. Nevertheless, the path to the future needs to be crafted with vision, ruthless commitment to deliverables, and equal devotion to personal dignity in the process.
Project management is a formalized approach to problem-solving that begins with the usual steps of analyzing the situation, identifying the problems, considering the possible solutions, and choosing the best responses. However, it takes the added step of intending every stage in the implementation of the solution. Project managers analyze the ongoing operations and the changes to be made, understanding linear dependencies, parallel functions, and overlaps between the two. The process of change is mapped out based on achievement of deliverables along a timeline using available resources under necessary constraints. Time, money, and manpower are limited, but so is the organization’s tolerance for disruption. Benchmarks for success are designed into the process to ensure successful completion.
Specialized project management developed out of the need for precision in engineering; however, it also serves the function of preserving the “business as usual” path as much as possible to normalize the function of the entity that is undergoing change. Nowhere is that more important than in a human services organization such as a school. So, how do we manage the intersection of project managers, teachers, and children?
With support from the District, school leaders need to address each of the following with staff, parents, and community partners…
- Vision: the future that is now – compelling reasons for the process
- Beneficiaries: the outcomes for stakeholders
- Change agents: the people who will manage the project
- Project outline: the timeline and key benchmarks
- Stakeholder contributions: what is needed from the staff and school community
- Seamless transitions: how the staff and children will be shielded from unnecessary disruptions
- Fall-out shelters: process for seeking remedy with inconvenience
- Adoption: staff, community buy-in
- Exit strategies: options for those choosing not to be part of the future vision
Throughout the process, the security needs of the participants must be addressed explicitly. Change is difficult and met with trepidation almost universally. Issues such as control over ones classroom and job security are crucial for teacher cooperation. Quality assurance for the children and their education remains a current imperative. Access to leadership and preservation of voice in the change process are essential for all stakeholders. And, btw, this is probably not a good time to fire half the staff.
Taking the Project Management Approach to School System Improvement
Whether talking about district, whole-school, or classroom improvement, reformers tend to talk in terms of competing options as though we can only handle one process at a time. Given the seemingly endless list of needs, this mission seems impossible. However, borrowing the project management approach from the technology field can be a game changer. What if we applied a series of parallel processes to the task, reducing the impact of obstacles that shut us down when we get stuck on a linear trajectory?
In Seven Keys to Education Reform I recommend that we…
- Build the data infrastructure for the next generation of education leadership, from formulas for government funding to data on student outcomes and teacher effectiveness.
- Make teacher pensions portable.
- Place teachers and administrators in shared incentive programs linked to student achievement in their schools.
- End pedagogy wars.
- Reinvent school leadership modeled on the general manager role and asset-based management. Balance administrative teams with instructional leaders and community liaisons.
- Open up the dialogue in Special Education to include the children by 4th grade, and provide incentives for progress toward grade level proficiency.
- Value people of all ages.
This multi-pronged approach seeks to address the system-wide obstacles within education operations without assigning blame on individuals. However, major changes will need to be made concurrently, and lead educators must create an illusion of terra firma within that system while it is in flux.
Meanwhile, schools must be on a path to improved outcomes based on a new service delivery model. Just a few of the innovations within schools will include…
- Reinvention of the parent-teacher paradigm
- New curricular standards and assessments, with vertical realignment of grade-level priorities
- Development of diverse pedagogical approaches and team teaching
- Implementation of new employee incentives and multiple-measure teacher evaluations
- Innovations in special education and ELL programs
- Longitudinal data collection on the whole child
- Formalization of student growth and development strategies
Either we need a world-class symphony conductor, or we better develop a cadre of project managers to support school leaders and staff.
Whether motivated by Race to the Top, NCLB Waivers, the Parent Trigger, or bootstrap entrepreneurship, school reform requires a complex mix of one-time changes and evolutionary processes. Operationalizing the changes will mean serious task analysis, time lines, and strategic planning. Change agents with the unique skill set of project management must be allowed to become part of the landscape as they guide us through successive cycles of change, evaluation of results, plan adjustments, and renewal.
Rapid implementation of structural changes within schools is not unprecedented in existing public education systems. The small-school movement happened overnight in many high schools. In addition, we have considerable experience with teacher collaboration as well as multi-disciplinary teamwork, especially in the area of student support services. However, change agents must be prepared to overcome the obstacle of institutional memory for past programs and their stewardship. Deep-rooted cynicism has become the legacy of school improvement fads that flopped as well as promising experiments that succumbed to the vagaries of grant funding.
As mentioned in my last post, high-powered veteran leaders will be needed to engender trust and confidence in the change process. Seamless transitions must be orchestrated by process pros. And meeting the security needs of the teachers and staff throughout the transition will be essential to success. More on that last point in my next post…
In Support of the Strong Individual Leader
The vision for school leaders of the future has them doing a lot more. Huh? Aren’t they already overwhelmed and looking for relief? How could they possibly be asked to be more hands-on at school, increase fiscal accountability, supervise more people directly, elevate the role of parents and the community, mine more data, implement new motivational strategies for staff, and know every child with an IEP personally…all while raising student achievement across the learning community? It is time for executive manager to enter the picture.
Conventional wisdom says the headmaster’s job is too heavy for one person. Part of that burden has been lifted through distributive leadership as instructional role models among the teaching staff were tasked with professional development and mentoring. Assistant headmasters and deans handled staff supervision and discipline. Meanwhile, heads of schools attended district meetings by day and managed administrative tasks into the evening. But were they off-loading the wrong part of the job?
The head of a school needs to be strong, visible, and accessible. As change agent, he or she has little time for the central district office. Nor is there time for bureaucratic procedures or focus on squeaky wheels. Top priorities include…
- Development of measurements for teacher effectiveness and student outcomes.
- Training and implementation of new motivational programs that include regular goal-setting, professional development, and evaluations for all members of the team.
- Implementation of diverse pedagogical approaches and team teaching.
- Reinvention of the parent-teacher paradigm.
- Absolute accountability for student results.
An effective headmaster must hold the reigns of true leadership tightly and release less critical tasks appropriately.
Delegation of responsibility is an essential component of leadership, but first there must be a rethinking of how to manage top talent, technology, and support staff. Assistant headmasters need to elevate their practices to become more effective in staff development and evaluation, not better bureaucrats. Teachers need to become managers of pedagogy, technology, and para-professionals. Tasks such as paperwork and data management need to be analyzed and reduced, automated, or assigned to support staff.
One of the myths of leadership in schools is the emphasis on administrative minutia. Traditionally, department heads have identified strong teachers and recognized them by giving them content leader responsibilities. In reality, the role was a stipend opportunity in exchange for serving as the department’s administrative assistant…hardly a just reward for classroom excellence. However, such work was considered essential to future success as an administrator in the service of the bureaucracy. A good teacher had to show potential for treading paper while managing a classroom well.
Another myth is the union as an insurmountable obstacle to staff management. The real culprits have been scarce managerial advice and intervention, management by exception, infrequent evaluation and review, and absence of reliable data on staff performance. The headmaster needs to own that history and become the catalyst for change. Supervisors and teachers will rely heavily on their boss as they learn to function in a more effective system of talent management. Union support for this new system will depend on acceptance of collective tools of evaluation and equitable compensation strategies. They will be vigilant in their tracking of the outcomes with each school leader.
Meanwhile, the definition of a good teacher has been in evolution, and it will take unfailing support to maintain momentum for growth. Teachers must be kept energized as they embrace robust pedagogical models and collaborate with one another to reduce redundant efforts. Already, teachers have begun to integrate technology to replace grade books, support communication, and enhance lessons. They must delegate or eliminate more of the paper flow and accept more technology solutions. And they need to renew their relationships with parents. Under the guidance of a fair and collaborative headmaster, the academic goals of students and their parents must be met by the instructional staff; and psychosocial growth and development of the children must be fostered by the team as well.
The new school leader cannot arrive soon enough. Major constituencies have lost faith in America’s public schools. Along the way, we have declared the servants to the system to be lost causes, people to be replaced with high-powered rookies or virtual instruction. In extreme cases, whole schools have been discarded. However, the truly fearless leader can create a world in which new resources and incentives motivate change in the incumbents. They are not talentless or obsolete. They have merely suffered from being badly used.
Anyone who has consistently stood in front of a classroom full of children must be a natural leader. So, decentralize the money, spend a little more of it on automation and support staff, and allow the professionals to realize their own worth. But it all begins with an absolute leader at the top.
Failure…is not the data’s fault (Part 1 of 2)
When students do well in a school system, the system tends to work well; when students fail, the system breaks down. While there is a chicken-and-egg thing going on here, there also is a game of dodge ball that undermines problem-solving efforts. Dumping an unhealthy dose of blame on the schools with disappointing test results only intensifies that dysfunctional behavior. But making the data go away is not the solution; rather, we need a safe harbor for teachers even as they rush to learn to play by new rules.
Test obsession would seem to be the root of all evil. Results-orientation and accountability have not been nurtured in education historically; in fact, rigid standards have been declared antithetical to a milieu with safe harbors for children. However, it is the grown-ups in the education system who go more than a little batty when there is bad news, and the test data would seem to be the messenger. Get rid of it, and we can all go back to behaving like the professionals we know we are. Huh?
This logic has obvious flaws but seems to play well in a school culture that traditionally has rewarded success and offered excuses for failure. When the children were successful, the adults had their ego needs met and could go about the process of nurturing one another in an exemplary fashion. When the children failed, the scene looked more like the end of Casablanca: the usual suspects were rounded up, there was an inquiry, and the victims remained dead. Terminations happened, but the insiders to the culture developed an invisible hand that could deliver a failed teacher on an “as needed” basis. This latter case was part of failure cycle that tolerated passive aggressive leadership and cemented unofficial hierarchies among teachers.
NCLB challenged that culture, eliminating the protective cloak of the cognoscenti in troubled schools, who could no longer shield more than half the staff, and introducing the notion that successful schools could no longer get away with marginalizing their less successful populations. That alone was enough to wreak havoc on the social systems within schools; however, the legends of bad teachers became one of the hottest topics in politics and popular culture. Throngs of political leaders, parents, and education reformers organized around various themes of vigilante justice on behalf of the children. They were going to find those bad teachers and get rid of them.
School leadership programs changed in response to the new world order, reducing the emphasis on administration and focusing on instructional leadership. Using a distributed leadership model, new principals were trained to focus on data-driven instruction and use of a team of lead teachers to share in the administration of content areas and dissemination of best practices. Unfortunately, this approach was not terribly successful in driving structural change or accelerating student achievement. Perhaps, the new approach was too close to the existing informal leadership model, essentially formalizing some of the unofficial roles and even empowering the old-school bullies in some cases. Teachers walked around with targets on their backs, and relationships with students, parents, and colleagues became strained.
Outside of the system, charter schools were created to compete with traditional public schools and serve as incubators for new ideas. Outsourcing of teachers happened through alternative recruitment and boot-camp prep programs. Technology was brought into play to supplement and/or replace direct instruction. Each approach has contributed to the body of knowledge in education. However, none offered a rapid, scalable and resilient solution to reform within the existing public school system.
What a mess…all caused by those darned test results. Enter the defenders…new vigilantes going after the testing advocates, the test makers, and even the tests themselves.
To be continued…
More Support for Redesigning Financial Reports for Schools
Guest blogger Marguerite Roza challenges charter schools to take on the task of containing their costs in her column found on EducationNext.org today. However, the standard for economic analyses may need to be set before it can be implemented. In the comments, I offered my plea for better financial reporting one more time…
In their defense, charters and district schools suffer from a mixture of data limitations and relative marginalization of school business managers. A nudge is in order that must begin with the Feds.
Charters and district schools would benefit from a new standard for financial statements. The federal filing rules do not include adequate detail in financials to manage productivity, and detail is diminished when going from the district level to the school. In order to achieve prudent and creative fiscal management, schools need financial reports that conform to a business model rather than focusing on regulatory oversight of special government programs.
Districts vary in their use of discretion over internal reports. However, the entire education system could be nudged in the direction of cogent analyses of their business models if the DOE were to redesign fiscal data requirements around both macro and micro considerations.
In addition, greater depth of training in business analysis is needed for school leaders, which would be more easily achieved once the aforementioned financials were improved in their transparency and accessibility.
Mayors and Parents Begging for New Education Leadership
The Parent Trigger is a cry for help. Big city mayors want chronic problems in education to get off their desks, and all parents want access to high quality education for their children. Both will seek remedy in charter management organizations as a last resort…but what the politicians and the public really need is a new kind of leadership in public K-12 schools. It cannot come completely from within…but it must be embraced and welcomed within to fend off the real barbarians at the gate.
In the news…
June 17 (Reuters) – “Hundreds of mayors from across the United States this weekend called for new laws letting parents seize control of low-performing public schools and fire the teachers, oust the administrators or turn the schools over to private management.”
Tired of negative responses from parents to the question, “Are you being served?” politicians are seeking radical remedy in parent trigger laws. Educators are furiously fending off criticism and predicting draconian results in this trigger-happy environment. School management companies are condensing from vapor as entrepreneurs and charlatans salivate over new business opportunities. Hopefully the children are on vacation and blissfully unaware of this hyperbolic folly. Otherwise, the adults may be schooling them in the game of divide and conquer.
A unified solution that links teachers and parents under enlightened school leadership will be the only enduring way out of the problem. Essentially, parents want their children to be well-educated, and they are looking for help in the political arena because they cannot achieve results within their community schools. It behooves the teachers and administrators to settle their differences with their local consumers and restore partnership. This will require a new kind of management and customer focus within each school.
Instructional leadership has been the panacea for education reformers who want educators to stay in charge of themselves. While this is a noble goal…clearly, teachers are natural leaders, and who understands the issues better than classroom veterans…teaching children does not train one in the management of adults or larger systems. Nor does it prepare leaders for the loss of control over their domains. A school leader is accountable for results that he or she cannot deliver without delegation of the process. That is the stuff of more generic management.
To date, a major debate in education reform has drawn lines between process and results, as if one could choose one over the other. In addition, good process has been allowed to supersede results in the face of disappointing outcomes for the children. After all…real learning cannot be measured. That’s where the disgruntled parents come into play. They are in the mayor’s office and not happy, and their votes can be counted. It is time for school leaders to get out of the echo chamber and change the conversation.
Twenty-first century education management must be sophisticated enough to handle more than, dare I say, simple instructional leadership. Schools will be managed by people who can balance a more complex production function in education services as well as an informed and empowered consumer of these servicers. Again, that is a general manager.
Change is afoot within major universities where schools of education and schools of management are negotiating plans for collaborative leadership training that would have been considered heresy a decade ago. Under the best of circumstances, the new education leader will have experience in the classroom and advanced training in management. However, if they are to be successful in future bids to manage themselves, traditional educators must welcome the opportunity for serious expansion of their management models as well as newcomers from the business community who will consider the classroom a step on their career ladders to school leadership.
Response to Middle School Conundrum
To the Editors of the New York Times:
The Middle School Conundrum debate, published on 6/18/2012 on NYTimes.com, left room for another conversation. While each author addressed emerging adolescence, any policy on elementary education must consider younger children as well. I propose a neighborhood campus solution based on adjacent PreK-3 early elementary and grade 4-8 upper elementary schools.
Separate PreK-3 and 4-8 learning communities are better aligned to mission, as defined by 3rd and 8th grade academic benchmarks. The children would be more appropriately clustered for physical and psychosocial development. And building proximity would support inter-age connections and underwrite shared facilities for libraries, cafeterias, and physical education. This plan is superior to either grade 6 transitions, which are disruptive to academic performance, or K-8 schools that are already being overloaded with the addition of pre-kindergarten students from early intervention programs.
Very truly yours,
Kathleen T. Wright
Executive Director
SchoolsRetooled
The Case for Lowering Student Loan Interest Rates
The frenzied debate on renewal of interest subsidies on student loans has missed a key piece of the puzzle: interest rates on student loans are too high. Banks are making more profit than they could make elsewhere in the market on job-creating corporate and small business lending… And new lenders are jumping into the market without government guarantees or collections support.
Interest rates on student loans are excessive. In order to help students finance their higher educations, the US government should pursue a combined strategy of lowering overall interest rates for college student loans and subsidizing interest costs for some students based on need.
The high interest rates have triggered over-participation in the college lending arena. Availability of funding has created slack for colleges, which have allowed costs to rise excessively. As a result, students have assumed an unprecedented debt burden during the worst economic conditions in almost a century. Something has to give, but the government cannot afford to carry the total weight of the problem.
The DOE has approached the colleges on the issue of cost containment, and students in financial distress are being assisted with modifications to their loan repayment plans. In addition, the US has picked up half the interest rate costs to students for some of these loans. However, there is a deadlock in Congress on the issue of renewal of interest rate subsidies to students on loans in the future. While the debate has focused on how to pay for these subsidies – via spending cuts or deficit spending – the cost of the subsidies themselves could be reduced without greater cost to students. The solution? Cut the overall interest rates on student loans.
There is evidence that returns on student loans are higher than the free market would allow. The first clue is that banks have loaned over $1 trillion to students…more than they have loaned to the entire population of adults via credit cards, the former linchpins of usury. This has occurred in an era of supply-side economics, when government policies gave freedoms to businesses and financiers to support industrial development and job creation. The opportunity cost of job creation, instead of student lending, must have been too high; the money went to student loans…not job creation.
In addition, many student loans taken before 2009 carried a government guarantee and government agencies still assist in the collections effort. Despite elimination of the guarantees, banks remained content with the business, especially as interest rates have continued to drop in all other markets. In fact, there has been new competitive entry into the student loan arena of late from financial institutions that are willing to lend to student WITHOUT government guarantees or agencies assisting with collections. This is a sure sign of excessive profit-taking.
The US government should lower the interest rate it allows banks on college student loans.
The Kids Stay in the Picture
Parents coming to terms with a child’s Special Education needs are dealing with uncertainty. Their hopes and dreams hang in the balance, and it hurts. It would seem cruel to put the child through that as well. But with many disabilities, the child has been aware of his or her differences long before the grown-ups. By age 10, not only do children have a pretty firm grasp that there is an issue, but they are actively solidifying compensatory mechanisms that may complicate their responses to intervention if not uncovered through dialogue.
A sixth grade boy with Asperger’s syndrome smiles with genuine relief as he reads a book on the autism spectrum, saying “OMG! That’s what’s going on.” A young student with severe dyslexia stares at the adults incredulously and explains, “That’s not so bad. I thought I was just stupid.” A father and daughter laugh when the psychologist explains that the lines don’t actually converge in geometry because the girl’s visual processing disorder – the triangle doesn’t exist. “I told you, Dad,” she says, vindicated. “He hears a thousand airplanes landing on the roof. Your voice doesn’t always register,” suggests the audiologist, reassuring the boy who’s always getting in trouble. Facing such conversations need not be trepidatious.
Children get locked in their own worlds because of disabilities, and many experience altered states that leave them frightened, bewildered, embarrassed, or frustrated. Seemingly small explanations can be incredibly reassuring and key to their engagement in interventions. However, the children are left out of many of the conversations, often because of false hopes of protecting them from the reality the adults are trying to confront. A child who is special does not need to be burdened with the details. As if…
Legally, the children with special needs are not included in their own education planning until high school. In my world view, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) should be modified to open the dialogue in special education to include the children as of fourth grade. The wording of amendments would have to allow for parental discretion, but the benefits of including children on their education planning teams need to be considered and supported.
Children seek to fit in with their peers and are quite willing to participate in the code of silence surrounding their learning differences. However, they tend to be incredibly cooperative with therapies once they understand the rationale and the desired outcomes. They can be empowered to set some of their own goals and measure their own progress. Chances are that no one has a stronger vested interest in overcoming obstacles than the child. In fact, that self-interest may already be driving a series of coping strategies with varying degrees of success.
Without better understanding, a child with ADHD, for example, is at risk of becoming the class clown or rebel to deal with his or her impulsive behavior. Exhausted by the extra effort needed for achievement, a child with longer processing times may exhibit a learned sense of helplessness. A child who shuts down or tries to be invisible may get under-served or overlooked by his or her own design. Fear of exposure may turn into defiance in lieu of participation. Children are resilient, but their solutions, while imaginative, are limited in scope and target social acceptance rather than academic progress. Delaying their involvement in their learning plans until high school accentuates that tendency toward dysfunction.
Children with special needs benefit from participating in conversations that explain their disabilities, expand their awareness of possible remedies, and allow them more options, especial if the interventions are counter-intuitive. Further, learning strategies are subject to trial and error. The sooner the child realizes this and gets involved as an explorer and evaluator, the more likely he or she is to be an effective problem solver….Because the ultimate goal is to enable the child to take charge of his or her own destiny despite special needs. With accelerated progress, there is no reason why many students with moderate disabilities should ever reach high school still in need of services or transition plans.
No-Fault Reform – a Prerequisite for Sustainable Progress
The bully-and-blame game is the cancer within our education system. It is invasive and thrives under conditions of failure. The only way to win that game is to be in charge, so the fight for the upper hand with the pointer finger will always supersede the mission of educating children. Such power struggles can only be resolved when the need for blame is taken out of the formula.
Scapegoating is antithetical to true leadership. It is the process whereby one stays on top by pushing others down. This is a non-starter for progress. Sadly, a common phenomenon within education is to end each discussion of a problem once the team determines whose fault it is…and, of course, that culprit is always someone else.
Functional behavior models teach us that any behavior that persists, regardless of its prima fascia dysfunctionality, actually serves a function within its milieu. Within schools, obsession with fault-finding has become an established feature of the system wherever there is persistent failure. We feel better when “It’s not our fault,” even though we have taken the short-cut to “It can’t be fixed.” The path out of this toxic culture is to generate conditions of success.
Creating a success may seem like an artificial concept or a pipe dream. However there are a few ways to focus on system reform in education without requiring a change in the players or personification of the problem. Among these…
- Provide sound data, real information that replaces rumors and truisms with facts.
- Reorganize resources around critical benchmarks to support their success. (A quick plug for my current favorite…a separate PreK-3 lower elementary school focusing on literacy and basic numeracy)
- Create funding formulas and financial statements that allow for transparency in spending and performance. Document the matching of resources with need among the children and empower the schools with discretionary spending.
- Put all the players in the same merit compensation pool so they share in the perks related to achieving their goals and can never be paid for undermining one another.
- Abandon the value-laden “best practices” label in pedagogy in a system that is undergoing technological change and suffers from a dearth of real information. Change requires taking risks with new methods. We can figure out what really worked once we have achieved more than tenuous results.
- Break the firing-and-rehiring cycle with a system of baseline funding for districts that reduces or eliminates temporary lays-offs…LIFO matters less when you don’t binge and purge with each academic session.
Our current reform logic presumes people are at fault, overvalues new (young) people, and equates fitness for the job with unsustainable martyrdom for the cause. Each group of new recruits is bolstered with the knowledge that they are the heroes who will save the system, the natural enemies of their dumb, fat, and happy veteran colleagues. We have to get over ourselves and see the real deal. It’s the system…and it will continue to break people until it gets fixed.
Bully – The Labor-Management Story…by Koch
Boston, San Jose, and Wisconsin…axe taken to worker rights in ballot issues and legislative actions funded by big PACs. This trifecta has filled the void left by passive-aggressive education leadership. So, where’s the impetus for real management in schools?
This has been a tough week for workers. In Wisconsin, the governor, whose mission was the elimination of collective bargaining, has been vindicated in a failed recall election. In San Jose, a city has voted to take away pension benefits from government workers. And in Massachusetts, the mere threat of a ballot issue has driven the powerful Massachusetts Teachers Association to cede tenure and seniority rights in contract negotiations. The 1%, acting on their own interests, have filled a void left by passive-aggressive leadership in education to cripple labor negotiations across the nation. And we are supposed to believe this is about the children?
PAC money is a dysfunctional feature in a nation whose very being is predicated on democracy, balance of power, and market freedom. Within education, that lopsided force has become the Terminator for teachers – assuming the role of prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner for workers who have been presumed guilty and denied due process. And, it is not a coincidence that the PACs have targeted the one group of workers that cannot be outsourced out of existence.
Ironically, laws that seek to silence workers by nullifying the labor-management dialogue will undermine the vitality of leadership as well. A fair debate yields far better insight than can ever be achieved within a single point of view. While I have never been a good union worker, as a leader and an American, I must support the workers and argue that…
- There are two sides to every labor-management dispute.
- There is hidden agenda behind the smokescreen of every politically charged issue.
- The rights of the people must transcend both for any legal or contractual issue to be valid in the US.
Point 1: Seniority, tenure, and pensions are all terms of engagement that should be subject to labor-management negotiation. A power struggle between the two is functional and needs a balanced solution, not an external blind-side punch. Consider that…
- Unions have always gained strength where management has been weak or abusive.
- History needs to be undone with good-faith negotiation of the workers’ roles, evaluation criteria, career pathways, and incentive-based compensation.
- Strong, fair leadership engages in regular employee assessment, mutual goal setting, and periodic review.
Instructional leadership and traditional role-modeling have not and cannot effectively take the place of a full repertoire of people-management skills. A power play to force compliance with a failed management strategy is a form of bullying which will perpetuate the problem. That is how we got where we are today. Let’s set aside the blunt instruments and work on developing a more robust model of leadership and motivation. It is far more clever to see and attend to individuals within an organization than to out-maneuver a mob with a sucker punch.
Point 2: The rights of America’s children…good cause, but not really the objective if you consider that…
- The money behind the union-busting activities comes from advocates for private schools that tend to be segregated, elitist, and faith-based.
- The advocates are saying, ‘where’s mine?’…asking why we keep focusing on other people’s children who happen to be poor, under-served educationally, and of ethnic minority…ignoring the fact that the role of government is to protect those who lack the resources to participate effectively in the free market. Apparently they like the achievement gap just fine.
- The elimination of seniority, tenure, and pension benefits collectively is just a trade-off of rights for the young that are being taken away from the old. Real solutions protect both.
The real story is the 1% trying to eliminate entitlements that protect access to the middle-class while protecting unseen entitlements for the extremely wealthy.
Point 3: The American way is to protect the freedom of the young, the old, and the in-betweens of any culture.
Any action by a legislative body, a government agency, or a private entity must stand the test of legality and constitutionality. Accordingly…
- We must provide free access to high-quality public education for all.
- We must not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, color, creed, …
- We must abide by laws protecting rights for employment, retirement security, and contracts. Federal laws supersede state and local rulings on these issues in many cases.
So far, we only have 1% solutions…The rest of us have limited resources today, but those resources will only shrink and our way of life deteriorate if we are satisfied with solutions crafted out of zero-sum concepts.
Balance Sheets for Schools
Too many financial and facilities decisions are made under duress as school districts respond to critical needs that cannot be avoided. Often, competing needs that should have been considered arise soon after the ground is broken for a new building or a new round of debt financing has been completed. The process of allowing a district’s priorities to bubble up to the surface should be replaced with school-based balance sheets that allow a prospective and transparent look at the asset base for every education facility.
School districts make decisions to add new buildings or enhance old ones, often in isolation in response to critical needs. Each project is vetted publicly, but the opportunity cost of the choice often is only revealed after the fact. Districts need tools to strategically manage their portfolios of facilities, intending their investments in each and every school. And their choices need to be made with transparency for oversight by regulators and constituents.
Filing a complete financial balance sheet for every school is a fundamental requirement to support such an analysis on an ongoing basis. Similarly, debt is assumed by cities, towns, or school districts for capital outlays, pension funding, and operating cash needs. By matching the debt to schools, they can get a better picture of whether they are investing in the future, or mortgaging it.
Each school needs a solid asset base, current solvency, and long-term viability. Its age, benefits of modernization, and safety as a standalone structure should be known at any time. This does not mean that we should ignore the benefits of a balanced portfolio of shared resources…only that we must know the value of the home base for any group of students. And we must know the system’s exposure to risk at each facility as well.
Student Loans and the Myth of Supply-Side Economics
The student loan conundrum leaves a generation of college goers little to no economic end game. As Congress hits an impasse on interest rates and the employment market remains stalled for college students and recent graduates, a hidden culprit may just get away with all the money plus interest. In the meantime, the today’s twenty-something kids may have children paying student loans before they finish paying off their own 20-30 year refinanced college loans. How many times must you say, “Mortgage our children’s futures” before the message sinks in?
Thirty years into the era of supply-side economics, a period during which Wall Street ironically rewarded the divestiture of the supply side of domestic industries, there was too much money and nowhere to invest. Assets were created that blew up as bubbles, erupted when undisclosed risk was realized, or inflated investments in health care and real estate. In addition, there were the banks, no longer financing business investment for future employment and domestic production. Flush with excess cash, they loaned the money to kids to finance their college dreams. Profits followed, even as stock and money markets failed to underwrite the job creation that could have helped those dreams come true.
To make matters worse, at least some of the colleges created a nudge to keep the kids in the debt cycle without their parents’ knowledge. My husband and I learned first-hand how it worked. Each year, as guardians, we received a financial aid report from the college. We had chosen not to have the kids carry more than a modest debt burden…just enough to learn how to handle personal finance responsibly. So, we generally declined the loan portion of the financial aid package each year.
Each term, however, the child’s eligibility for bank loans was kept alive by the college. We would pay what we considered our portion of the college bill each term, assuming no loan. Then the college would reactivate the loan, creating a credit balance on the student account, and send a check to refund our overpayment…to the kid! And privacy laws meant we didn’t need to know about it. How’s that for a sweet deal among a college, a bank, and a newly minted young adult with a prefrontal lobe still in development?!?
Actually, I must credit the student…who did report the transaction and forward the checks back to us. We did not fully understand what was happening at the time (the multiple-click, self-renewing opt-out), but we held ourselves accountable when the unexpected debt showed up after graduation. But I also wonder just how many children kept the cash and had to pay later…cash the banks should have used to encourage sound investments with real adults…if we had had a supply-side investment strategy as job creators. Preying on the children was just too easy.
I have written previously about the convergence of forces to create the demand for college loans, which included some adults falling short on college readiness with the children, others raising prices unnecessarily, and others underwriting at predatory rates. The supply of loans was also part of a wildly flawed scheme. We gave banks and investment advisers our life savings and they gave us excuses and a world financial collapse. No one got richer except those who were extremely wealthy already.
Now Wall Street and their Congressional spokespeople ask us for more supply-side money. We, on the other hand, are asking them to give us back a piece of our money – from the profits they made while SHRINKING THE NATION’S SUPPLY FUNCTION – in the form of merely fair taxation. If, after 30 years, they have not created a supply side in net…why should we be fooled again? At least give back enough tax money to restore what should have become our own investment earnings so we can bail ourselves out…rather than the bankers (again) when the student debt bubble bursts.
PS, wonder how our reliance on these same kids to sustain our Social Security trust fund is going to work out. That next sandwich generation is now going to be a triple-decker paying for their kids, their parents, AND their colleges…while un- or under-employed?
Teaching in Never Never Land
Why do educators think that a program based on good intentions and an endless stream of New Heroes is sustainable? Like Peter Pan, each generation of New Heroes will never give up, they’ll never get old…and they will gather in large masses and clap until their dream comes back to life.
Every night I close my Twitter window after getting a glimpse of the latest pep rally of educators who are trying to stop the closing of a school, to put off a measure of accountability, or to prevent the end of funding for a good program. Nowhere do you hear anyone suggest, “I know what we should have done to save that school,”…”We should just do it – take the test and move on to teaching,”…or “That program was good enough to become a priority within our general fund.”
As new teachers become yesterday’s new kids on the block and then veterans, we stop noticing them. They fade to gray and must sustain themselves. And anyone who proposes training in a balanced life style during the school year can no longer be part of the solution. Teachers whose students do well on standardized tests are assumed to be cheating, or worse…teaching to the test. The fact that well-educated children rarely sweat the tests is irrelevant.
Skilled general management is similarly suspect. Administrators offer teachers privileged peers as role models in lieu of individual feedback and motivation. Meanwhile, millions of dollars’ worth of executive talent is devoted to grant proposals for nickel and dime awards; because Special Money is better…regular dollars are always over-committed to something that only the school finance dude really understands.
Yet we are surprised when the adults act like children and pirates become the anti-heroes who would bring grown-up values to a vital milieu. We love the story. We also love Peter, Wendy, Tinker Bell, and even Hook. So why did we all grow up to be Smees?
The Seven-Period High School Day
A creative solution to the short school day and the conflicting biorhythms and agendas among school constituencies could be the seven-period high school day. Some could come early, some could come late, and a few motivated participants could do both.
A consensus is forming about the school day being too short. However, resources are short as well. In addition, there are many conflicting interests to address in school timing. Teenagers stay up late and need to sleep later in the morning. Teachers accustomed to early start times may not wish to move their lives back an hour. Sports, after-school jobs, and family commutes may not allow for an altered school day. As a result, a seven-period, flexible school day may be the best way to solve at least part of the problem.
Some thoughts on the details….
- A seven-period school day would begin at the usual time but end an hour later.
- Faculty and staff could express preferences for starting their days with first or second period.
- Students would be allowed to attend all seven periods, but they would only need to attend six or even five if they had accumulated enough credits.
- Students could come later, for example, if they wished to sleep later or needed to help siblings get to school before they started their own days.
- Some special scholastic or extracurricular activities could be planned for first or seventh period, and faculty staying later could support community volunteers offering extended day services.
- One period for peer study support, virtual courses, or unstructured time could be proctored by ancillary staff for students attending seven periods a day.
- Many opportunities for electives, dual enrollment, or extracurricular activities would be available for students.
- Teachers wishing to explore a new course or engage in common planning time would have more flexibility in their schedules.
Of course, there would be the added duty for administrators in the building. However, some of that time could be found by talking less about instructional leadership off site and spending more time engaging in it within the building…might even help cut some of that costly district overhead.
SchoolsRetooled TM 