LeaderTalk

The Educational Burden

Reading James Yap's "What If" post got me thinking again (this is almost always dangerous!) about the overwhelming burden that educators bear. Now don't get me wrong - I actually agree with James about the need for tech literacy, but I always get nervous when I see another need piled on the teacher's plate. Yet once again I ponder, if not "us" then "who?"

Public education eventually becomes the seemingly logical choice for every perceived societal need.

Read Jamie Vollmer's list of "Burdens" here. Scroll down to the bottom and click if you want to experience the animation.

Watch this list grow and then think about the fact that the American school year looks remarkably similar to 50 years ago while the pile of curriculum has grown considerable deeper.

What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

As a former Superintendent of Schools, I once attended an executive session of the school board when they were interviewing prospective school board members to fill a vacancy on the board due to a resignation.

When the president of the school board asked one of the candidates if she had any questions, the interviewee never hesitated. She looked carefully around the board table and made eye contact with each current board member.  Then she asked, "What do you know now, that you wished you knew before you ran for the board?"

What a great question.

Now that many of you Leader Talk readers are school administrators, let's reflect on that question for a moment.

"What do you know now about school administration that you wished you knew before you became an administrator?"

An Observation From the Ivory Tower

After almost 20 years in school administration, I accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Wyoming.

My last post (I missed a month during the big move) included a few observations looking backwards at the changes in K-12 throughout my career.

This month I will share the biggest difference I see (so far) between higher education and K-12.

Higher education values reflection and scholarly work and designs the work environment so that this is possible.  Public education in K-12 does not have the capacity to design an environment that places a premium on reflective practice. It is not the administration's "fault."  I have heard numerous principals and teachers say, "If we could get at least an entire day without students every two weeks to reflect on our practice; do lesson plan research; and attend trainings we would be farther along at the end of the day."

I must say I enjoy the optimism among my colleagues here at the University of Wyoming.  It seemed like there was a pessimism, almost a "dark cloud" that was hanging over the K-12 public education environment.  Other superintendents used to comment on this.

Instead of merely spouting my opinion on this topic, I would invite you to share a few observations on this. Do other educators see or feel this "dark cloud?"  If it's true that this cloud isn't "hanging" over higher education as a work environment - than what can we do in K-12 to help this?

Reflections

After almost 20 years in school administration, the last 11 as a superintendent, I have decided to fulfill a long time goal of moving to higher education.  I have accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Wyoming starting this fall. I am really excited about the opportunity to blend theory and practice in preparing a new generation of school administrators.

As I leave the "trenches" for the so-called "ivory towers," here are a few random observations from two decades on the front lines of school administration:

1.  These are the best and worst of times in public education. The age of accountability has been good for schools in many respects, but lately I have witnessed the negative side effects.  Students nor teachers seem to think of school as fun or interesting anymore. This may be an unwanted side effect of overuse of standardized testing. The best teachers have not fallen for this trap. They have put forth the extra effort to cover the tested skills in ever more creative ways. But at some point the public will revolt and the pendulum will swing the other way.

2.  Technology is severely underutilized and unless schools harness and embrace the potential of technology soon, we are in danger of becoming obsolete. Our people don't get it yet.  There will always be a need for teachers, but there may not always be a need for a place called school.

3.  School administrators and teachers are largely under appreciated and unrecognized. William Glasser once described teaching as the most difficult job there is.

4.  Major school improvement across America will not happen on a massive scale without changes in school board governance.  The current system is a political system, not a system designed to initiate and maintain high quality. I say this without malice or negativity.  Politics is defined by some as the "competition for scare resources."  Public education is a political process where the competition in the communities and the states is fierce.  Everyone competes for time, respect, money, facilities etc. When everyone gets a little of what they want, no one gets most of what they want.  Because education is a political process, no one can decide exactly what the single focused mission is supposed to be.  So we continue to plug along.  I think we do pretty well given the competition for resources. 

5.  Despite all that holds us back, there are many success stories of students, staff members and entire schools that have overcome tremendous odds to provide quality educational opportunities.

6.  School principals have earned my highest respect for their perseverance and resilience.

I am sure that I am going to miss the adrenaline rush of always being in need as a Superintendent of Schools. This is the only Superintendency I have had and the only one I ever applied for, but I hope to have a little more time for some writing, research and scholarly work.  I look forward to this new challenge.

Is the current school governance structure being asked to do something it wasn't designed to do?

It seems like one topic missing in all the "school improvement" debate, is the issue of school governance. All the national talk has been about testing, curriculum alignment and endless debate over instructional "best practices,"etc. Yet, America appears to be unique in its widespread practice of electing people from the community to oversee the policies and governance practices of our schools.

It seems to me that this political structure of constantly changing school boards serves best to create stable and unchanging schools. I know that sounds paradoxical, but think about our system of national governance.  The constantly shifting power bases between Republicans and Democrats creates a system of checks and balances that actually serves to stabilize the country. Whenever the public views things going too far in one direction, they elect new people who shift the direction somewhere else. This ensures that change is evolutionary and not revolutionary.

While we aren't likely to becomes a fascist nation, we aren't likely to become communists either.

My point?  I think the American system of school governance naturally creates a stable and very slow to change educational environment.  This is NOT a negative comment regarding school boards or school board members.  It is simply an observation that maybe the system is behaving exactly the way it is designed to behave.  Stable and slow.

Do you think that major changes on a nationwide scale are possible with the current governance structure of American schools?

Blogging Disincentives - Overblown?

My sincere apologies to Dr. McLeod for being late on my first posting.  What a great way to start! I have an excuse, feeble though it may be! I was in New Orleans at the AASA National Conference on Education, blogging the AASA conference for them. I also presented on...what else...blogging

Recently Griff Wigley asked me to comment on reasons why superintendents are reluctant to blog.  He used the word "disincentives."

The superintendency is risky enough.  Supers have learned as a survival mechanism to avoid any "extra risk" that comes their way. But...what if the risks of NOT blogging begin to exceed the risks OF blogging?  The future is murky, but my prediction is that if you don't start blogging TO them they are going to start blogging ABOUT you. 

Here is the "Mark Stock Theory" about why the risks of blogging are overblown.

Your community is more than likely to be composed of a number of quiet, productive people endowed with common sense.  They are busy running kids to soccer, doing laundry and shoveling snow or mowing the lawn.  They aren't predisposed to taking pot shots at the school system on the superintendent's blog.  But they lurk in the background.  When the wackos show up to trash your schools by commenting on your blog site, these quiet folk will be content to just "lurk" for awhile.  At some point when the "Jerry Springer" atmosphere starts to impact their community's reputation, they will "de-lurk"  (National Delurking Week was January 8-12) and take over the comments with an outpouring of common sense and sympathy.

It is much like an infection entering the body.  At first things are quiet.  Then the antibodies and killer T cells arrive at the scene and try to restore balance.  Or, think of it as exercising.  At first the muscle groups respond to exercise with micro tears to the muscle fibers and lactic acid build up that make you sore.  BUT, when the body responds to the challenge, it heals stronger than ever before.

This has been my experience in this great social experiment of mine called "blogging."  Everywhere I go I sense a heightened sense of community awareness and even sympathy from others.  Most routinely expressed by comments such as, "Can you believe that there are people who think that!"

Just because you never heard THAT particular negative voice, doesn't mean it wasn't out there.  And conversely, just because you never heard THOSE positive voices before, doesn't mean they weren't out there.  But...now you know!

Consider blogging TO them and build your own communication network and support system BEFORE the next challenge comes!